There is plenty of food that arouse controversy. Food which some experts consider as the first step of a good and healthy meal, while others ponder them as real poison. One of those food groups are all dairy products.
That is why today we are going to talk about what happens in our body when we consume dairy food as well as who could and who shouldn´t consume them and above all we´ll refer to this objectively. What makes us decide whether we may or may not eat certain kind of food? The first thing we need to understand is how to decide if some food is or is not healthy for us.
How can we get to know about this? Decisive factors can be allergies or our body sensitivity towards the food we are eating or the relation between them our immune system. Toxic or harmful substances we might incorporate into our body through the food we eat.
What is the effect certain food may have on our bacteria gut? What are the nutritional components, vitamin and minerals that this food contains in itself? What other factors such as religious or ethical beliefs may limit its consumption?
Such is the example of veganism towards dairy products. As you can see there are plenty of factors. Don´t worry, we are going to see each of them so that you can understand if you can or cannot consume diary stuff, knowing that the answer is not black or white and there are some exceptions.
For each of the reasons I have just mentioned, and because all these reasons apply not only to dairy but to all kind of products, there is not an ideal diet. It is very important for you to understand this point so as to avoid a disbalance thinking that veganism or that a ketogenic diet is the key. As I have previously mentioned we all have allergies and sensitivity to diary which are related to our immune system.
Allergies and sensitivity in first place. When our bowels can´t digest food properly we build something called sensitivity or food intolerance. As regards dairy, the evidence is very clear.
When we are kids, we are fed with Brest milk to be nourished and in fact it is infinitely superior to formula milk. Lots of studies have shown how Brest milk boosts our cognitive function compared to formula milk. But as we grow up, we lose our capacity of digest lactose properly because genetically it is not necessary for our body to keep on digesting diary.
This happens among all mammals. We can easily digest Brest milk during our first two years of life but then we lose that capacity. This specific genetics is responsible for our lactose tolerance in the future.
Even though humans have been consuming dairy during the last ten thousand years, and this has made some high consuming countries more dairy tolerant than others, they still represent the minority. Lactose is the sugar of milk and when we lose the capacity to digest it properly, symptoms of intolerance begin to appear. This occurs because as we grow up, we start losing Lactase which is the enzyme responsible for lactose digestion.
Most of our capacity to digest it depends on our genetic ancestors. That is why in Asia the majority of the population has dairy intolerance, but Russia and Nordic countries were historically the places with the most dairy consumption. So, unless you are from those countries, you are not likely to digest dairy properly.
My recommendation is if you are going to consume them anyway, try with lactose free products. To understand how lactose impacts on our body, we need to know what symptoms appear when we do consume it and can’t digest it properly. Some of them are high levels of mucosity, abdominal bloating, flatulence or diarrhea.
To sum up, our capacity to digest dairy relies on our genetics and immune system. What happens with dairy and our bacteria gut? Everything we eat affects our flora.
In fact, nutrients are not the only thing we have to consider in a diet, but also what our flora needs because this will be essential to understand if we are or not allowed to digest diary and avoid all the negative impact of an overgrowth bacteria as chronic future disease. Lactose is sugar and as such it could stimulate the overgrowth of lots of microorganisms living in our digestive system. This also happens when we consume refined carbohydrates.
Also, sugars like lactose are fermented by our bacteria and this becomes a problem if we have an excess of fermentation bacteria. This is seen when abdominal pain and bloating appear but without flatulence, and above all when you can`t digest vegetables, cabbages or sugar because it means the problem is getting worse. Thus, we have learnt that when eating we should consider our flora as well as what our flora can digest properly.
However, in future videos we will be learning about how much our stools and flora can tell us about our health and eating habits. Not all dairy products are the same. I have previously recommended lactose-free products.
When dairy ferments and bacteria develop, such as when we make yogurt or cheeses, those bacteria that develop use sugars such as lactose as an energy source. The more fermentation that dairy product needs, the less lactose it will have. Therefore, a piece of cheese made from free pasture cows will have less negative impact on your health than a skim industrial milk because they have different amounts of lactose.
Lactose intolerance is very well known but it is, by no means, the only dairy intolerance we may have. There is also intolerance to casein, a protein present in dairy products, from breast milk to cow milk, which can generate an immune response in our body and is much more inflammatory principally if it not from our own species. Cow dairy has a type of casein called A1 responsible for this inflammation, but dairy products from other animals like goats only have another type of casein called A2 making them much less inflammatory.
Therefore, as you can see things are not black or white and in general whoever believes so is not thinking out of the box. On the other hand we've got Mold and mycotoxins Remember that fungal mycotoxins help develop respiratory problems such as asthma and breathing allergies so it is not a good idea to consume them. However, it is common to find toxins from mold development in many cheeses, and often that development is even intentional.
To learn more about mold consequences impact on respiratory system, there is the correspondent link above. But the idea is we shouldn´t deliberately consume substances which add toxins to us. On the other hand, there is the raise of mucus.
The mucus in our airway limits our ability to breathe properly and makes us less able to defend ourselves from infections. That's why those people who produce a greater amount of mucus than normal tend to have more respiratory conditions. Is skim milk better than full fat milk?
We have always considered skim milk to be healthier than full fat milk. However, the answer is no. Saturated fat does not have the bad cardiovascular implication that was considered 20 years ago and today we know that cardiovascular risk depends on other things, explained in my cholesterol video above.
Therefore, many benefits and nutrients will be lost by consuming skim milk. A clear example of this is to think that dairy products are a great source of vitamin D, as it has been historically believed. Actually, skim dairy has barely any vitamin D, because by removing fat from milk we lose vitamin D which is also fat.
When this happens, milk is artificially strengthened with vitamin D. If you consume dairy products so as to keep your vitamin D levels healthy, there are more efficient ways which I leave you in my video link above. But basically, there are other better sources like mushrooms, animal liver or sunbathing in some way.
A frequent question if we do not consume dairy is where to get calcium from. Nature is full of sources of calcium such as vegetables and seeds much more usable by our body than those from milk, and some studies have even shown that the higher the consumption of dairy products, the higher the rate of osteoporosis, probably due to alteration to the pH generated in the body. The vast majority of adults cannot digest lactose properly and if they consume cow dairy, they are generating inflammation and increasing the chance of having autoimmune diseases due to inflammation and casein.
So, I'm not going to recommend their consumption. Thus, if you're going to do so at least try to consume the ones that are less harmful. Generally speaking, skim milk is worse than whole milk and cow milk is worse than the one from other animals such as goats due to the types of casein.
As regards cheese, it is more convenient, because of the casein issue, not to consume those from cattle. This same logic applies to children and adults. What about yogurt and the presence of probiotics?
You have always thought they were extremely beneficial. Yogurt made under extremely special conditions can be healthy, but in the vast majority of cases it is not, due to the simple fact that sugar has been added or that it has been industrially produced. Or if it is homemade, you really have no control over the raw material Considering all this information it is up to you to decide whether or not to consume dairy, and if you do so try the less harmful.
My recommendation is not to consume any type of dairy products at all if you have any hormonal imbalance like altered prolactin or estrogen levels, premenstrual symptoms or low testosterone levels. If that is not your case at least try to follow the rules in this video to determine which dairy products have the less negative impact. If you have liked this video click the thumbs up, share it with someone who consumes dairy in excess or subscribe to the channel to receive more videos like this so as to improve your life quality in a non-orthodox way.
