Dubious dairy

Having a dairy intolerance sucks! You miss out on so many wonderful foods, creamy yoghurt, beautiful cheese, delicious ice cream, the luxury of some gold top on your breakfast cereal - so many foodie pleasures!

But I think there's a danger in focussing too much on intolerances when it comes to whether you can eat dairy or not.

Infact even if you've been checked for lactose intolerance and don't have it that doesn't mean you can eat dairy, it's possible to react to the protein in dairy which won't be checked by this test.

Dairy has long been touted as a key food group in our diets as if it's essential for our health. From my personal research I think the truth is infact the opposite and I don't believe any of us should be eating it for our health and it should be saved for the 20 per cent naughty food in the 80/20 balance.

Isn't milk a natural food?
Yes it is - for babies. We are clearly not designed as adults to eat food that has to be squeezed out of a boob! If we really thought about it we'd realise there is something very wrong with drinking milk as adults, plus our bodies aren't designed to deal with milk beyond toddlerhood.

Don't we need dairy for our bones? No! Infact last year Harvard school of public health left dairy off it's recommmended healthy eating food plate on the basis that there is little evidence of a benefit of dairy in osteoperosis and considerable evidence that dairy can be harmful to our health ... Pretty damning stuff. And logical too, if dairy prevented osteoperosis it would have a much lower incidence in europe than it does in asia where dairy is not a staple food - infact statistically the truth is the opposite, those on an asian diet have much stronger bones!

So why do people believe it's so good for them?
Milk is big business and the milk industry lobby throws billions at advertising to perpetuate the myth that we and our kids need to drink milk to get strong bones.

There are also some concerns over the effect of dairy on fertility. It's well known amongst nutritional therapists that saturated fats disrupt a healthy hormone balance and also that non-organic milk (and even organic but to a much lesser degree) is laced with hormones given to the cows which can have an effect on our own endocrine system - scary! If you're struggling to conceive you may want to cut the dairy for 2 mths minimum.

Well that's all killed my day dream about some creamy greek yoghurt!

Just remember dairy should be a treat food, not a staple, unless you're a baby cow!
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