> A2 milk is a variety of cows' milk that mostly lacks a form of β-casein proteins called A1, and instead has mostly the A2 form. [...] The a2 Milk Company claims that milk containing A1 proteins is harmful [...] but a 2009 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) review found [no] an adverse effect on health.
It is said to be sold mostly in five eyes countries and China, which would explain why I've never heard of it, and is snake oil to boot so I'm happy it hasn't caught on here.
> The a2 Milk Company claims that people who experience discomfort drinking ordinary cows' milk may experience relief when they switch to milk with predominantly A2 protein. This claim is not supported by research.
Scum of the earth. I'm actually pretty sure that health claims that are not supported by any evidence whatsoever are legal in the EU (edit: found it[1]). Curious that it's still popular in the UK, but it probably got popular in the past and they just stopped printing that claim on the packaging when that became illegal.
> The EFSA study emphasized the dangers of drawing conclusions from correlations identified in epidemiological studies and the dangers of not reviewing all the evidence at hand.
I'm sorry u/vmarsy, but you've been mislead about what A2 milk is :/ The placebo effect might work and have real effects, but buying (more expensive, or just any really) products from scammers still seems ill-advised.
All citations from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_claim#European_Laws
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk
[1] https://www.ericksonliving.com/tribune/articles/2017/08/what...
As someone currently in France I thought this was funny: the first thing I show visitors is the "distributeur de lait frais" down the street, which will dispense 1L of raw milk for 1 euro. It tastes amazing.
I grew up in France and drank milk without problem my whole life, but when moving to the US, I started noticing dry-patches on my arms, and digestive discomforts after breakfast.
It took me a while to pinpoint the root-cause, but after some experimentation, I figured out it was either the whole-wheat bread, or the milk. Today I'm pretty confident this is the milk.
For a while I thought this had to do with some difference in UHT/pasteurization process (all milk in France is shelf-stable until opened, whereas here it has to be refrigerated at all times). But then I realized then that this A2 milk is popular in Australia, and I had never heard of this A1/A2 distinction, but apparently France's cow is 100% A2 only, so I tried their milk, and I don't have any digestion nor dry-patch on my arms anymore. Maybe it's placebo effect, but it works for me, so now I'm back at drinking milk.
A1/A2 apparently isn't as big of a deal for processed dairy (Cheese, yogurts), but I buy the one imported from France/Switzerland, so those are probably A2 anyways.