Module 9: How to Teach Clients to Eat Right
Unit 1: Core Content – Part 5: Dairy Free
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Dairy: Does it Have a Place in Your Diet?
There has been a lot of research published that suggests dairy products can cause serious health issues. From a clinical perspective, I see this in my practice all the time.
People may have lactose intolerance issues causing them significant digestive problems, along with other allergies and intolerances. Lactose intolerance results from your body’s inability to digest the sugar lactose in dairy. This is due to a lack of the enzyme lactase.
By design, people stop producing sufficient quantities of lactase after the ae of 4 or 5 – after the age of weaning from the breast.
As the amount of this lactase enzyme decreases, it becomes more difficult for people to digest dairy. This results in bloating, diarrhea, gas, and other issues. If the body is not able to break down this sugar, it triggers an immune response which can also create immune weakness, other sensitivities, along with the production of inflammation and mucus.
I also see a lot of clients having inflammation due to dairy allergies. Dairy is highly allergenic to many people because it contains a protein called A1 casein. Dairy foods are also quite acidic, which contributes to inflammation. It does this by reducing the amount of waste removed from the lymphatic system, which also causes irritation to the mucous membranes.
Mucus engulfs everything we ingest, even water. When you see it thick and cloudy, that means it has trapped toxins in it. This mucus creates an environment for bacteria, viruses, and fungi, especially between the mucus mass and the mucous membranes of the colon wall. These toxins can create inflammation as they try to bore through the tissues. The membranes then produce more mucus as a defense against this irritation to help protect the lining of the respiratory tract, as well as the digestive tract. The body also creates mucus as a natural defense against acids, as a way to bind them up and get them out of the body.
Most people find that dairy foods do, in fact, contribute to mucus production, along with a worsening of congestion when there are respiratory infections present.
When you talk about consuming the typical pasteurized dairy, the picture is even worse. Pasteurization makes milk more acidic. Having an acidic environment impacts any bone support you thought you were enjoying from all that calcium! The process also destroys important digestive enzymes and probiotics.
Most dairy is also homogenized, another process which can lead to health issues. It can cause a weakened immune system, along with GI inflammation leading to leaky gut. When dairy is homogenized, the process creates free radicals, which are unstable oxygen molecules known to cause these health problems.
Cows are also often exposed to antibiotics and hormones. Since the milk that leaves the cows is a natural substance from a normal exit, it will also be releasing these same toxins.
Eliminating dairy completely can reduce all these problems and can also decrease your risk of autoimmune disease, heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.
Resource:
Dairy Alternatives
If you are really attached to using milk in your food prep, there are plenty of dairy substitutes available, so you can have a non-dairy milk mustache.
There are many nut, seed, and plant-based substitutes that you can make at home, or purchase at the supermarket, such as almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk, hemp milk, flax milk, and others.
Be sure to read the labels if you purchase store-bought milks to make sure there is no hidden dairy or added sweeteners. And be careful about the over consumption of soy milk due to its phytoestrogen content, and be sure its organic if you do consume it.
Along with being less expensive, making your own non-dairy milk ensures you know what is in it, and can avoid any scary additives like:
- Fake, synthetic vitamins – which our bodies don’t recognize nor know how to process
- Carrageenan – a known toxin that causes inflammation in the body
- Unnecessary additives – oils, sweeteners
There have been a flood of non-dairy alternatives flooding the market over the past few years – some good, some not so good.
My favorites are the fermented and cultured ones made from nuts and seeds. Cocoyo is a yogurt made from fresh organic coconuts and probiotics. It’s delicious.
Kite Hill, Treeline, Heidi Ho, Miyoko’s and Spero Foods and a few others make delicious cheeses from fermented almonds, cashews, hazelnuts and other nuts and seeds, depending on the brand. Read the labels for undesirable additives and sugars, as some have these added.
It’s super easy to make your own non-dairy cheese. We have a recorded class on cheese-making HERE.
There are also many books you can find online or at book stores that teach how to make non-dairy cheese.
So, What About Raw and Organic Dairy?
Even raw and organic dairy contains the A1 casein. Casein is highly allergenic to many people. It contains a peptide called caseomorphin that appears to act as a histamine releaser and creates addiction due to attachment to morphine receptors. Caseomorphin has also been implicated as a cancer promoter.
My personal opinion based on over 30 years of research and clinical application is that dairy products are not a good idea for humans.
I strongly believe that species specific milk is an ideal food for infants of that species. Species specific milk is ideally suited for the physical and brain development of that species. Drinking milk of any species after weaning is a bad idea.
In nature we rarely see cross species milk consumption. Usually this happens only in the rare case of when a nursing mother animal takes on the care of an animal whose mother has been killed.
Animals in nature do not drink milk after weaning.
Research has shown that casein, the primary protein in cow’s milk, effects human growth. Feeding cow’s milk to human babies causes their bodies to grow rapidly and their brains to grow more slowly.
Humans do not digest dairy well after weaning. It is inflammatory and highly allergic.
In many decades of clinical practice, I’ve observed so many people who do poorly on dairy and improve without it that I’ve concluded that you should cut out the dairy if you are dedicated to getting and staying healthy – and experiencing unstoppable health.
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