t-3: don't drink the camel milk

Months ago, someone advised me that if I wanted baby to come on time, that I should:

• drink plenty of water
• walk for one hour every day in the last two to three weeks
• avoid all dairy - but especially NOT to touch camel milk. Camel milk will make your baby come late.
  

She said this with a straight face. Seriously. Of course, this person was raised and was twice pregnant in the Middle East.

The first two make perfect sense. At least, they can't hurt - walking is well advised and it's always good to stay hydrated. I have to admit, I haven't been avoiding dairy - but I mostly come from Northern European stock and we are adapted through evolution to drinking the milk of the cow, so I figure there's no harm in it.

But we're not used to the milk of the camel.

I have managed to go almost 37 years (my own birthday is in 10 days!) without a drop of camel milk (to my knowledge). For the vast majority of this time my avoidance of camel milk has been purely coincidental - but in the last couple of weeks my abstinence has been deliberate. And now I am curious.

I wouldn't know where to buy camel milk, but I would bet that I could probably procure some in a shop off the Edgeware Road in London. I admit, that if some were offered to me now, I would have to refuse it - just in case - but I would take a sample to freeze and try later.

And I was curious enough to look up a UN Food and Agriculture Organization report on Camel Milk. Turns out:

• excellent lactation rates on poor fodder, better than other lactating livestock
  
• good nutritional quality,
• but variable taste depending on the amount of moisture available.

I also discovered that in some cultures only unmarried women, young boys and ritually pure men are allowed to milk camels. There's something I didn't know before - and really another good reason to marry.

3 days til baby Cletus and camel milk is safe once more