The Dairy spectrum
Is Dairy Paleo? Is milk good for you? These are questions I’m often asked so here is my answer.
Strictly speaking dairy wasn’t a major part of the paleolithic diet. Paleolithic people would have eaten all the milk they could get their hands on but they weren’t herding so it wouldn’t have been a major calorie source. Since KeeganSH.com is about health not dogma and since many traditional cultures around the world have relied on dairy successfully for generations while enjoying vibrant health I’m going to explain the situation.
Milk is one of natures most complete foods. Mothers milk is high in fats and proteins and has just enough carbohydrates for a growing brain. If you’re still thinking that saturated fats are bad for you consider that mother’s milk is loaded with saturated fats and especially MCT’s (medium chain triglycerides).
Do you think this was mother natures way of avoiding those nights of worry during the first teenage parties or could there be a bigger picture?
So if milk was great for the Swiss villagers high in the mountains and The Massai why is it sometimes looked down upon in the paleo world?
- Pasturised milk is dead– the more dead food is the more work the body will have to work to digest it and to re-animate it for use within the body. Proteins, vitamins and the enzymes like lactase that help us digest milk are also damaged by heat turning a healthy food into an allergin. I saw the value of raw foods first hand when hunting with the Yankuntjatjarra / Pitjantjatjara indigenous ethnic groups. They prepared their Kangaroo muscle meats medium and organ meats blue!
- Diarrhea, cramps, bloating and gas
- Osteoporosis
- Arthritis
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Recurrent ear infections and colic in infants and children
- Type 1 diabetes
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Infertility
- Leukemia
- Autism”
Bathurst_Island_men
According to Dr Mercola-“Pasteurized cow’s milk is the number one allergic food in the United States. It has been associated with a number of symptoms and illnesses including:
- Modern farming methods – Cows are being forced to overproduce milk through chemical inducement in some countries, antibiotics are overused to treat mastitis in over-milked cows. The diet of these drugged cows is often changed too much from growing green grass (magnesium rich) to dry food and grains + sugar. Some dairy cows are kept inside on hard floors which affects their stress hormone levels and vitamin D production which are vitally important for health in mammals.
- A2 beta-casein– Somewhere about five thousand years ago a genetic mutation occurred in northern europe which made most northern european herds produce a mix of A1 and A2 type beta-cassein protein. Devil in the Milk by Keith Woodford does a great job of explaining why toxic BCM7 is liberated when we consume A1 milk but not with A2 milk (the bond at the 67th amino acid on the chain is stronger in A2 milk where proline is present, rather than histidine present instead of proline which bonds more weakly with the BCM7 in A1 milk!). Bottom line Asiatic and African cows are A2. France is mostly A2 but most of the cows in Australia, England, USA are A1. A2 milk is becoming more available which is cool. I would buy it over A1 but I would still probably avoid it unless it was raw or you wanted to gain some mass with a cheap food and live with the health consequences in the short-term.
From thebovine.wordpress.com
The list from best to least favourable for health as far as dairy goes:
- Colostrum, high vitamin butter and raw fresh whey protein – these are natures superfoods.
- Ghee – almost no protein (casein) or sugar (lactose) content, great nutritional properties.
- Cold processed whey protein powders
- Raw organic butter – raw means that it hasn’t been heated so all the enzymes and vitamins should still be in tact. In this state butter is a high quality food rich in fat soluble vitamins especially the hard to get factor X that weston A Price spoke about that we now think of as vitamin K2.
- Raw Cream, raw milk kefir and raw milk yogurt – These foods provide valuable fatty acids as well as vitamins and enzymes, preferably from A2 cows, sheep or goats.
- Raw cheese from goats and sheep (or A2 Casein cows cheese) and raw milk from goats and sheep (or A2 Casein cows milk). Pasteurised organic butter slots in here as well.
- Raw cows milk and Cheese (preferably A2)
- Commercial high temperature processed whey (avoid those with added artificial sweeteners and unbalanced mineral / vitamin content)
- Pasturised organic goats and sheeps milk and products
Not Recommended
- Pasturised organic cows milk products – milk, cheese, yogurt, kefir (not recommended)
- Commercial casein protein powders or whey / casein / milk blend
- Soy protein – It’s not dairy but some people use it like dairy. Avoid processed soy products as much as possible. Look up the “The soy story” if you’re not sure about this one.
Take home message – I’m better when I have almost no dairy (1-4) in my diet and you probably would be better without pasteurised dairy too.
Personally I eat some cheese and yogurt, the odd bit of cream in a desert and I eat raw butter often. I use cold processed whey sometimes around my training. Determine your goals in terms of health and performance the choose your milk products wisely!
Cream + raw french cottage cheese (I think) + berries + raw eggs = muscle mix
Will your bones turn to mush and your head fall off if you stop eating dairy because of the calcium content? No. People nerdier than me (yes they exist) calculated that paleo-man got more calcium than modern dairy-man as well as just about every other mineral. If you’ve got issues with your bones the first 2 spots to check are Vitamin D and intracellular magnesium. Many bone degenerative conditions can be fixed by normalising the bodies levels of these 2 key nutrients. Calcium overload makes bones brittle and muscles hard and is much more prevalent than dietary calcium deficiency.
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