Step aside, cows. There’s a new hooved hero in town.
New research published in Food Science and Nutrition points to the surprising benefits of camel’s milk in remedying a variety of ailments, particularly those related to gut health and blood sugar control.
Widely revered for their transportation assistance abilities, camels’ nutrient-rich milk was also historically believed to heal tuberculosis and other skin conditions. In the present-day clinical trial, however, researchers found that Type 2 diabetes patients who drank about two cups of camel milk per day for three months showed a lower fasting blood glucose reading.
And the benefits don’t stop there.
Other investigations highlighted how children with asthma displayed positive outcomes from drinking less than a cup of camel’s milk a day, reducing their use of rescue inhalers and corticosteroids compared with their peers in a placebo group. Because camel’s milk is believed to contain lower levels of allergenic protein, researchers believe it might act as a more hypoallergenic substitute for traditional dairy milk. That being said, there are benefits to most milks. A cup of soy milk, for example, has roughly the same amount of protein as a cup of cow’s milk — but might be easier to digest for those whose stomachs do not tolerate lactose. And, when it comes to coffee, oat milk has solidified its status as a non-dairy darling.
It could be a while before you see camel’s milk on the shelves at your local grocery store. Until then, should you still, somehow, have access to camels, researchers emphasize the importance of pasteurization before consumption to safeguard against diseases like salmonella.