Dairy Delusions

 You do not have to drink milk to be healthy.

Blasphemy, I know.

In fact, dairy foods like milk may be part of why you don't feel spectacular every day.

No matter how many mustache-bearing models you see say otherwise, milk does not necessarily do a body good.

The American Dairy Association wants us to think we will die early (or at least fall and break something important) without a daily glass of milk or two or four. In fact, there are entire countries of people who never eat dairy foods in their entire lives. And they still thrive, get plenty of calcium in their diets, and have Olympic teams. Did you know that over two-thirds (yes, more than 66%) of the world's population has some degree of lactose intolerance? This means your body lacks an enzyme called lactase and cannot digest milk well, causing bloating, flatulence, diarrhea, or other IBS-like symptoms. This is a gastro-intestinal issue and can be easily and 100% cured if you just stop eating dairy foods. If you're suffering, just choose to stop.

But the problem goes way beyond lactose intolerance. For many people, dairy foods are highly inflammatory (just like my reader question at right). As one of the top three food sensitivities in the US, dairy can cause post nasal drip, achy joints or muscles, skin inflammation like eczema, weight loss struggles, and low energy. Unlike lactose intolerance, this is not a GI problem; you may have no GI symptoms at all. Dairy sensitivity is an immune system issue. Your body decides dairy foods are a foreign invader (just like it does for e-Coli or the common-cold-causing rhinovirus) and develops antibodies against it. Antibodies allow your immune system to remember what milk looks like. Then every time you drink it, your immune system activates. And you don't feel well.  You might try fully eliminating all dairy foods for two weeks and take careful note of how you feel.  It really needs to be cold-turkey elimination to gauge your body's response. 

Dairy sensitivity is growing! The more we make food look less natural to our immune systems, the more likely our bodies are to reject it. With most milk, we pasteurize it, homogenize it, pump it up with hormones and pharmaceuticals, and feed highly stressed-out dairy cows unnatural grains like corn.   Check out this short video from Dr. Mark Hyman to learn more about dairy myths.   Having low Vitamin D makes you more likely to develop food sensitivities, by the way. Go back to my February article about Vitamin D and depression if you missed it.

Many people don't even like dairy but force themselves to eat it for the calcium. Here's another myth! Studies repeatedly show that higher calcium intake does not help bones long-term. Shocking, I know. Flexible bones are made up of a matrix of protein. We typically become vulnerable to fractures as we age because we stop digesting protein well and/or (for women at least) our estrogen levels plummet. Strong bones are fortified with a rich mix of minerals including magnesium, boron, strontium, magnesium, manganese, and calcium. Vitamin D and Vitamin K are also critical to make sure the calcium you eat actually makes it into your bones (vs. more dangerous places like your kidneys are arteries). Unfortunately, mustached models don't talk about this complexity.
 

Yes, we need calcium! Our body uses calcium to run our muscles. Our bones are just our storehouse reserves. And if you do well with dairy foods, they are an excellent source of calcium. Especially fermented dairy like organic plain yogurt and cheese. I am also a big fan of organic, raw milk, but it can be hard to find in some states.  Here in Metrowest, you can find it in Framingham and Foxboro.  But if you don't feel at your best with dairy, calcium is prevalent in many other foods as well. Especially leafy green vegetables like spinach and collard greens and kale. Nuts like almonds and seeds like sesame are also good sources. Sesame seed butter called tahini is in most hummus and makes a great base for a stir-fry sauce. A delicious, natural sweet treat is a sesame seed bar called halvah.

  Whole Foods Walking  
   Nutrition Tour & Sampling

    Don't miss the next one on

    Thursday, March 31st at 7pm 
    Framingham.

                                                           Call to register: (508) 628-9525