Real Food Revival Plan

Anyone who has an interest in a real food diet will eventually have to grapple with the question that causes perhaps more polarization amongst health-conscious foodies than any other.  It’s the dairy dilemma: should we drink milk?  Is it a “good” food?

On one end of the spectrum, we have those who certainly don’t drink milk, and in fact eschew dairy products entirely.  Vegans avoid it because it’s an animal product.  Strict followers of the paleo diet avoid it because it’s a comparatively neolithic food which - they believe – our bodies aren’t well-adapted to digest.  At the other end of the spectrum, we have those – like the Weston A Price Foundation – who favour a diet of traditional foods, pointing out that good-quality unprocessed dairy has been eaten by healthy human beings for thousands of years and has been shown to have many health benefits.

So – who’s right?  Well, my answer to that is – you are.  Only you can know how your body reacts to dairy products, and whether they offer you nutritional benefits, or do you harm.

Let’s take a look at the dairy dilemma in some more detail, so you can figure out where you stand.

Milk Is A Real Food

Let’s get something important cleared up straight away: there’s no doubt at all that milk is a real food.  Just ask a baby.  Or a new-born calf.  Or a kitten.  Ok, you can’t – but you get the idea.  Not only is milk a real food, it’s the first food for many of us.  It’s the food that Mother Nature designed especially for us, to help us grow, develop, and stay healthy.  Mother’s first lactation – in the form of a yellowish substance called colostrum – provides baby with a range of antibodies and probiotics which provide significant protection against disease, and enough high-quality protein to ensure growth and healing at a time when bodily demands are highest.

Which brings me to a point that’s often trotted out by the anti-milk brigade: “humans are the only animals to drink milk after infancy”.  This is usually stated emphatically to point out why deciding to drink milk - especially the milk of other species – is utter folly.  However, it misses an important point – humans are also the only animals to build rocket ships, write the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and break-dance.  So – just because other animals don’t drink milk beyond infancy, does that mean we shouldn’t?  Other animals don’t run Accident and Emergency services in local hospitals, either.  Should we stop doing that, too?

I don’t think so.  Moving on…

Milk Has Very Particular Components and Properties

When considering the question of whether we should drink milk, it’s important to understand that milk contains a very particular package of components which are tailored directly to its purpose as a mammal’s first food.

Growth Factors:

Full-fat milk – straight from the teat –  is loaded with vitamin-rich essential fats (including saturates), a range of proteins (including insulin-like natural growth factors), carbohydrates, and beneficial bacteria.  Milk is designed to shuttle nutrients into every cell in the body, so it’s deliberately insulin-promoting.

Many people avoid it for this reason, fearing that it will make them fat, but let’s not pretend that it’s a mistake on the part of nature.  It isn’t.  Babies grow at a faster rate than at any other time in their lives, and milk is designed to promote growth.  For this reason, someone who’s trying to gain weight or build muscle (and who doesn’t have any adverse reactions to dairy products) would almost certainly benefit from the inclusion of dairy in the diet.

And it doesn’t automatically follow that those trying to lose weight should avoid it – in fact, some studies show that the inclusion of good-quality dairy products can help weight loss, possibly by helping satiety.  However, some people do find that milk causes them to gain weight, particularly if they find it difficult to moderate their consumption.

Casein and Lactose:

Casein is a protein and lactose is a sugar found in milk.  Both are essential components of milk, and for some people cause no discernible problems.  Others, however, find them difficult to digest.  If someone is dairy sensitive, it’s likely to be one or both of these two components they’re reacting to.

Lactose intolerance (an inability to digest lactose) can be quite common since some individuals stop producing sufficient quantities of the enzyme – lactase - necessary for its digestion.  Others, however, are “lactase-persistent” beyond infancy, and can digest milk without any problems into adulthood.  Lactose intolerance is indicated often by digestive symptoms such as bloating, wind and diarrhoea.

Some people find casein difficult to digest and casein intolerance has been implicated in other reactions such as asthma, eczema and ENT symptoms.  Others, however, find no problem in digesting casein.

Skimmed & Pasteurized Milks Are Processed Foods: Avoid!

Interestingly – as with so many other food-related matters – a great deal depends on the quality of the milk product consumed.  Fractionated milk products – such as protein shakes made from casein, or skimmed milk products which are too high in carbohydrate and too low in essential fats – are far more likely to cause problems.  Full-fat milk is imminently more digestible because it has been packaged by nature in such a way that its various components act synergistically to help digestion and assimilation.

And here’s a key point: there’s a vast difference between milk that comes right from the mammal’s teat into the infant, and milk that has been put through an industrial process – such as skimming, homogenization, or pasteurization – before it’s consumed.  Such milk is processed and – like many processed foods – is a poor deal for our bodies.

Nature isn’t a fool.  Raw (unpasteurized) milk contains lactase, the enzyme necessary for the digestion of lactose.  Pasteurization kills lactase.  So if you don’t produce your own lactase, you’ll find it difficult to digest pasteurized milk.  However, that doesn’t mean you can’t tolerate unpasteurized milk – many people discover that although they can’t tolerate pasteurized dairy, they do just fine with raw dairy.

Be cautious of commercial milks – even the varieties labelled full-fat and organic.  Many are produced by cows fed inappropriate feed (grains rather than grass) and pumped full of growth hormones to increase yield, as well as antibiotics to stop the spread of diseases made more likely due to close confinement.

For a whole host of reasons, the milk produced by grass-fed cows, free to roam in pasture, will be better.  Such milk is rich in in essential vitamins E, D and K2, omega-3 fatty acids, and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) a powerful antioxidant and cancer-preventive.  Tellingly, studies show that milk from grass-fed cows contains up to five times more CLA than the milk from cows fed mainly grains.

If We Drink Milk: Choosing The Best Dairy Products

Here’s your real food takeaway for today. Should we drink milk? Yes, if we want to, and if we’ve checked our own reactions to it and verified that it makes us feel better.  Here’s how to do it:

1.  If you’re not sure of your reaction to dairy, don’t drink milk (or eat any other dairy products) for at least 21 days, and see how you feel.  Do you notice any positive or negative changes in your digestion, your skin, your weight, your energy levels?

2. If you do decide to drink milk go for full-fat grass-fed dairy only, and preferably raw if you can get it.  For sources, check out RealMilk.com.  Fermented full-fat dairy can be a good choice too, since the fermentation process pre-digests some lactose, making it even easier to digest.

3. If you discover that you’re not suited to dairy, don’t despair.  You can still get everything you need without having to drink milk.  Just make sure you’re eating a wide variety of good, real foods, and you’ll do just fine.

Images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net and Wikipedia

 

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