Why you should trade cow milk for donkey milk

People around the world are looking for alternatives to cow milk. Store shelves are packed with flavors of the now-common options; soy milk, almond milk, rice milk. But what about an animal alternative? If you haven’t considered trying donkey milk before, here’s some reason why you should.

The true story of donkey milk

Before you crinkle your nose up at the idea of drinking donkey milk, consider the fact the practice is an ancient one in many parts of the world. The ancient Egyptians, for example, were known to use donkey milk in their beauty products, and it is a beverage still imbibed for that purpose in places like France, Italy and China.

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“The legacy of donkey milk has been strong here in Europe since Egyptian times—everyone here knows the story of Cleopatra and Nefertiti, the beauties of antiquity, that used to bathe in donkey milk to keep their skin smooth and perfect. This is not just legend—there are concrete testimonials about that. When I started Eurolactis in 2007, we supplied freeze-dried, powdered donkey milk to big cosmetics companies, who still use it as an ingredient in their products,” Pierluigi Orunesu, founder of Eurolactis, a donkey milk supplier based in Switzerland, told VICE.

“We deliver to hospitals in Italy, France and Switzerland, and also in Asia, because in Asia there’s a longstanding tradition of using donkey milk as an anti-aging beverage.”

Up until the 19th century, donkey milk was the most common alternative to human breast milk used in the United Kingdom. It wasn’t until issues with mass production arose that it started to fade from the marketplace.

“Cows have been bred to be milk producing machines,” Davide Borghi, owner of a modern donkey farm, told BBC, “but donkeys have never been bred that way so it’s much more difficult for them to produce lots of milk. We’re not trying to substitute cows’ milk, it’s just an alternative for children who are allergic.”

Why donkey milk?

If you truly have a milk allergy, you should take donkey milk into serious consideration. According to Orunesu and other experts, donkey milk is very similar to human milk ad it all has to do with how many stomachs we have.

“A donkey is a monogastric: It has one stomach, like me,” he said. “So that explains why the milk is hypoallergenic. Ruminants—cows, goats, sheep—have more than one stomach. So the protein gets transformed, and at the end of the digestion process it’s not the same as at the beginning. So the protein in donkey milk is the most similar to the protein in human breast milk.”

The BBC indicates donkey milk is now being considered a better alternative to cow’s milk than soy; it has a low saturated fat content and high levels of omega three and six in addition to high levels of calcium and the enzyme Lysozeme, which is anti-bacterial and can protect against intestinal infections.

Donkey milk is one of the only animal alternatives for people who are truly allergic to milk protein; both goat and sheep milk cannot be used in approximately 90 percent of milk allergy cases because the proteins are too similar.

How can you get donkey milk?

The market for donkey milk i the United States is small, but there are places to purchase it. Novelty food stores as well as online manufacturers are generally the best bets, and rumor has it that a ready-to-go version of donkey milk will be making its way to convenience stores shelves in the near future.

SEE ALSO: Cow’s milk: Not such a good idea

As for the flavor? “It has a beautiful taste—donkey milk is very light, with a little sweet, almost caramelized taste,” said Orunesu. “You can’t really taste that in the powdered version, but when it’s fresh it makes quite an impact.”