Anyone try Camel milk yet?

[pacheeseguy]

I understand this is a hard to find yet popular product.
Raw camel's milk, and also camel milk cheese.
Amish farmers in the Bethlehem/Allentown area are selling it at this time.

From web sources:
Tasting slightly more salty than cows' milk,
but with three times the vitamin C and up to 10 times the iron content,
camel's milk is touted as a powerful tonic against many diseases and as an aphrodisiac.

BENEFITS OF CAMELS MILK:

Camel's milk is the closest milk to human mother's milk. Our bodies not only tolorate it well, our bodies thrive on it.
Camel's milk has triple the amount of vitamin C found in cows milk.
Camel's milk has TEN TIMES the amount of antibacterial and antiviral properties found in cow's milk.
Camel's milk contains an insulin like protein that survives the digestive tract and may benefit people with certain forms of diabetes.

I'm in the process of finding a supplier. Anyone have any experience with this milk?

[CRF]

I drank chal (fermented camel milk) in Turkmenistan. A fizzy, sort of sour drink - not exactly "Feh!" but once was enough.

[saacnmama]

When I lived in Berlin, I got sick--not just a flu, but really sick--and my Somali friends insisted that camels milk would make it better. They combed the stores--gourmet stores, African shops, the works, but couldn't find a drop of camels milk anywhere in the city. If I come across some (I live in Fla now), I certainly do want to give it a try!

[woodleyparkhound]

I had it in Dubai -- "it's camelicious!" But seriously, I was excited to try it, just for the sake of trying it, but I didn't really care for it. If I lived in Dubai, I doubt that I would buy much of it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08...

[junglekitte]

I've tried camel milk chocolate!!!

http://www.al-nassma.com/

It's amazing :)

[luckyfatima]

I tried camel milk chocolate in Dubai, too. I also had desserts made with it at a fancy restaurant there once. At least with the chocolate, I couldn't really taste the difference, but it was fun as a novelty.

[Michelly]

Went we went through Julian, CA last Fall, we passed by a number of camel dairies. Don't remember any , but try the City of Julian's website.

[luckyfatima]

I have tasted camel's milk before. Of course, what the milk tastes like is contingent on what the animal has been eating. But it has this musky taste, almost like the barnyard-like smell of fresh white peppercorns. I find goat's milk to be too gamey in the same way, although for me goat's milk is stronger tasting than camel's milk. But if you like goat milk, you may like camel milk. Lots of people love camels milk.

[cheesemaestro]

A few years ago, a camel's milk cheese from Mauritania called Caravane was being sold in New York City. AFAIK, it was not available anywhere else in the US. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to try it before it disappeared from stores.

[meatn3]

I have not had any. I've worked in natural foods stores for years and the last few saw a steadily rising interest in camels milk. Went from one inquiry a year to one every three weeks. I wonder if part of the interest is from returned service people who experienced it during their tour of duty?

I have difficulty seeing this become widely available, camel seem to be more difficult to raise in a dairy operation.

[pikawicca]

Well, I had camel milk butter in Cairo 40 years ago. It was pretty funky, and while I can't be sure that it caused the gastrointestinal distress that lasted for months, I've always been very suspicious.

[goodhealthgourmet]

well, those "benefits" you listed were pulled directly from the Camel Dairy website, and they don't offer scientific research to back them up. i also imagine some of those properties might be affected by the requisite pasteurization any commercial product would undergo.

anyway, AFAIK, it's still illegal to sell camel milk in the US. and even once the FDA approves it for sale here it's likely to be prohibitively expensive - the production costs are extremely high.

[pacheeseguy]

An Amish farm in Pa is raising a herd of camels and is selling raw milk at this time.
Legal as long as it's not transported over state lines, just like raw cow and goat milk.
No pasteurization to affect those benefits.

[goodhealthgourmet]

well, my point about the pasteurization was that it will undoubtedly be required for milk that's made available for mainstream/mass market sale...so unless camel dairies start popping up in every state and they find some way to improve yield & production costs, price and safety concerns will likely prevent the majority of Americans from trying the raw milk.

[cheesemaestro]

I can't see this ever becoming a mainstream/mass market product. However, people who believe in the benefits of drinking raw milk would no doubt be interested in trying it. Each state has its own laws concerning the sale of raw milk. Slightly less than half of the states ban the sale of raw milk outright, so it would be illegal to sell raw camel's milk in those states. A hodgepodge of regulations apply in the remaining states, with some restricting the sale of raw milk to farms; others requiring consumers to own a "share" of an animal; and still others permitting raw milk to be sold in retail stores, as is the case in Pennsylvania.

[tcamp]

Where is the farm? I would spend hard-earned vacation days to see some camels being milked.