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0:00
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's
0:02
Pharmacy. There is no
0:04
evidence basis for all adults
0:06
eating three servings of dairy
0:09
a day, milk or milk equivalents.
0:13
Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. As functional medicine
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I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, a practicing physician and
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proponent of systems medicine, a framework to help
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you understand the why or the root cause
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of your symptoms. Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy.
2:41
Every week I bring on interesting guests to
2:43
discuss the latest topics in the field of
2:45
functional medicine and do a deep dive on
2:47
how these topics pertain to your health. In
2:49
today's episode, I have some interesting discussions with
2:51
other experts in the field. So let's just
2:53
jump right in. Today,
2:55
David, we're going to talk about milk. And
2:59
you always have been an iconoclast, breaking
3:02
apart notions, for example, that calories are
3:04
all equal, which is pretty much still
3:06
in play right now that
3:08
everybody thinks calories are equal except a few
3:11
rogue scientists like you, although it's becoming more
3:13
accepted. But milk, God, milk
3:15
is nature's perfect food. It's what we
3:17
should all be drinking three glasses a
3:19
day of according to our government policy
3:21
and kids at least two glasses a
3:23
day if they're under nine. And
3:26
it's supposed to be great for your bones.
3:28
It's supposed to help you grow big and
3:30
strong. It's supposed to help prevent disease. And
3:34
somehow it
3:37
doesn't seem like that's actually what the science
3:39
shows. When we take a good look at
3:41
it, it's a different story. And you and
3:43
your colleague, Walter Willett at Harvard, one
3:46
of the most renowned nutrition scientists along with you,
3:49
recently published a paper in the New England Journal
3:51
of Medicine called Milk and Health, which I encourage
3:53
everybody to read if they're a nerd like me
3:55
or if you want the easy version, go to
3:57
Medium and there's a fabulous article there. and
4:00
medium about the question
4:03
about milk. Is milk truly healthy?
4:06
Time to question everything you know about milk. So I encourage
4:08
you to check that out. Now,
4:10
David, what inspired you
4:12
to write this article? Well,
4:17
people drink a lot of milk. And
4:20
even though we're consuming a great deal of
4:23
it, if
4:26
we were to comply with USDA
4:28
recommendations, three servings a day for
4:30
virtually everybody, we would have
4:32
to double our consumption,
4:35
which we're talking about billions
4:37
of gallons of milk produced
4:39
more every year, which
4:42
would have a massive impact on
4:44
the food supply. And
4:46
the question is what impact would that
4:49
have on health? And remarkably, there are
4:52
astoundingly few clinical trials
4:54
that have examined the impact
4:56
of those
4:58
recommendations on
5:01
diseases today, obesity, type
5:03
2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease.
5:06
So maybe a place to start is like,
5:08
where did we get these recommendations? Yeah, I
5:10
mean, you reviewed over a hundred papers. So
5:12
you got these recommendations that our government gives
5:14
us, but yeah, how do we get them?
5:18
Some of these recommendations to consume
5:20
a minimum amount of things. Way
5:22
back to
5:24
a different era, like 100 years ago, at
5:28
least the philosophy
5:30
did. When the big
5:32
concern for many, much of the
5:34
American public was not too much
5:36
like we have today, obesity, but too
5:38
little. Diseases
5:41
of deficiency, vitamin C
5:43
deficiency, vitamin A, vitamin
5:45
D deficiency, protein
5:47
deficiency, and in some cases, calorie deficiency.
5:50
People weren't getting enough food. So
5:52
the questions became, what was the minimum amount
5:55
that we needed to assure the health of
5:57
the population? Now
5:59
we're in a very. different era and that
6:01
mindset of minimum recommended amount
6:03
hasn't necessarily caught up because
6:05
so many diseases today, it's
6:07
not that we're completely free
6:09
of deficiency syndromes and things
6:12
like rickets, vitamin D deficiency is
6:14
beginning to come back, especially in children amidst
6:18
the obesity epidemic. But so
6:20
we still of course need to pay attention
6:22
to what the minimum amount of vitamins,
6:25
minerals, other nutrients
6:27
might be. But when we start thinking
6:29
about foods like dairy,
6:32
the question is shouldn't be what is the
6:35
minimum amount based
6:37
on these old notions of
6:39
nutrients, but what amounts
6:41
are optimal for the
6:44
population today, given the
6:46
prevalence of high prevalence of obesity,
6:48
diabetes, and heart disease? Yeah.
6:51
So back then, you know, I remember reading
6:53
about the development of the four food groups,
6:55
like milk was one of them, dairy is
6:57
one of the four food groups, but that
7:00
was a constructive industry, not science, where big
7:03
industrial producers of these products, you know, meat,
7:05
milk, produce and grains basically got together and
7:07
said, well, how do we sell more of
7:09
our stuff? Let's make the four food groups.
7:12
And it really had nothing to do with
7:14
science. And at the same
7:16
time, we also have to understand that milk
7:18
is something that most of the world's population
7:20
doesn't tolerate, 75% or 70%
7:22
are lactose intolerant. Most
7:25
populations around the world don't consume milk
7:27
on a regular basis, like China
7:29
and Asia, most Asian countries, Africa.
7:32
There are some exceptions, obviously, in the
7:34
side, but I think that for the
7:36
most part, it's not a staple food
7:38
after weaning. And yet, somehow
7:40
in the West, we've come to think about
7:42
it as, you know, just American as apple
7:45
pie and, you know, and the
7:47
American flag. And so, and
7:49
in fact, you can't even get a school lunch authorized
7:52
unless milk is included in the school lunch. But
7:54
you really question that. I think, you know, you
7:56
wrote an article a number of years ago, which
7:58
was sort of a pre-learn. to this one that was
8:00
in, I think, JAMA, also with Walter Willett,
8:03
where you sort of questioned the guidelines and brought
8:05
up some of this data. And I
8:07
wrote an article that sort of kind
8:09
of derived from that called Got Proof,
8:11
which essentially was a spoof
8:13
on the whole Got Milk campaign, which, by
8:15
the way, people don't understand that the Got
8:18
Milk campaign wasn't an
8:20
industry effort solely, that it was part
8:22
of a government program called the Check-Off Program,
8:24
which is where the United States Department
8:26
of Agriculture supports industry to
8:28
sell more of its products. It's supposed to
8:31
help with research, right? The money is tied
8:33
to the government by the industry, apparently to
8:35
support research, but it actually went to marketing
8:37
of these ads called Got Proof, and they
8:39
were literally taken down by the Federal Trade
8:42
Commission because there was no evidence for the
8:44
claims we're making. Can you talk about that?
8:46
And then how do we get to these
8:48
three glasses? Right.
8:51
Well, so we began
8:53
by looking at the mindset,
8:55
the philosophy that gave
8:57
rise to these minimum recommendations. And
8:59
you point out that it's not
9:01
just science, but it's also food
9:05
politics, that the USDA, which
9:08
has conventionally overseen
9:10
these recommendations, has
9:12
a dual message, dual mission. One
9:15
is promotion of public health, but
9:17
the other is to advance the financial
9:20
interests of the big food
9:23
commodity producers, and dairy is
9:25
absolutely very, very powerful.
9:28
So you
9:30
made another very important point that
9:33
really cuts to the chase, that
9:35
much, that at least half of
9:37
the world's population doesn't consume milk
9:41
products on a regular basis, and
9:43
yet the children seem to
9:45
be able to grow up
9:47
without suffering continuous bone fractures
9:49
or have short stature
9:52
or other problems. So we know
9:54
that milk is
9:56
not required to
9:59
be a healthy bones.
14:01
But what it's basically doing is filling
14:03
up temporary spaces
14:05
in bones. They don't stay
14:07
there. And so if you did longer term
14:10
studies, you would see that adding more and
14:12
more calcium doesn't keep building up
14:14
bone. You have this short term
14:16
boost in bone calcium, but then
14:18
you fill up all these little,
14:20
you know, temporary niches and
14:23
nothing, there's no more benefits. The
14:25
thing is those transient
14:28
spaces don't stay there. You don't have
14:30
a calcium bank for life
14:32
by consuming a lot of milk
14:34
as a kid. And we can talk
14:37
more about that. So I
14:39
mean, I was, I had to get to confess
14:41
here. I mean, I hope it doesn't let it
14:43
bias my opinion about milk is more hopefully medical
14:45
and scientific. But when I was a kid, I
14:47
hated milk and I just didn't like the
14:49
taste of it. My mother's like, how are you going to grow
14:51
up? You're going to be big and strong. If you don't drink
14:54
milk. Well, I never drank milk and I'm six foot three. And
14:56
maybe I want to be an NBA player instead of a doctor.
14:58
If I did drink milk, who knows? I
15:00
really never did. And my bone density is great. And I think that
15:02
it is a bit of a mythology
15:04
about that. And then we do so. So
15:06
we do need calcium. There's no question. The
15:09
bones are made primarily of calcium and phosphate,
15:12
but how much calcium and
15:14
the minimum requirement to be
15:18
perfectly healthy bones, probably at most
15:20
a half of what
15:23
has been traditionally viewed as
15:25
necessary in the United States in the
15:27
UK, their minimum calcium requirements are about
15:29
a half of what they are here.
15:31
And in some populations like in South
15:34
America, the adults do perfectly
15:36
well, getting even
15:39
a third or a quarter of the amount
15:41
of calcium, like 300 milligrams a day. So
15:44
you mentioned that level of
15:46
calcium can be obtained from. So if you're
15:48
going to get a gram or more a
15:50
day of calcium, milk is sort of the
15:53
obvious source. But if you, if you
15:55
accept that we don't need that much, the
15:57
500, 600 milligrams a day. or
16:00
probably more than sufficient,
16:02
well, that's easily obtained from just
16:05
a basic diet. A serving of
16:07
kale is gonna get you a
16:10
third to a half way there. A serving
16:12
of sardines, nuts, seeds.
16:15
Yeah. Chia seed, stahini, those
16:17
are my favorite. I mean, one
16:19
of the things you said that I just wanna come back to,
16:21
which is really important, is this whole idea of calcium balance. And
16:24
when you look at countries like Sweden that you wrote
16:27
about in your paper, they have the
16:29
highest intakes of calcium and the highest
16:31
risk of fractures. And countries like Indonesia
16:33
and China have the lowest
16:35
intakes of calcium and the lowest
16:37
risk of fractures. So one
16:39
of the things I remember when I was medical
16:41
director at Kenney Ranch, I often talked about was
16:44
osteoporosis. And it was really clear that there are
16:46
a lot of things in our culture that drove
16:48
calcium loss. So it's not just about
16:50
how much you take in, it's how much you pee
16:52
out, right? So
16:54
caffeine, alcohol, sugar, phosphoric acid
16:57
from sodas, too much
16:59
meat, perhaps. I don't know if that's true, but
17:01
that's what it seemed to be, the high protein
17:03
acid load. All
17:05
these things, stress, all these things cause bone loss.
17:07
And if you mitigate those, in other words, you
17:09
cut those out of your diet or you reduce
17:11
them and you deal with stress and
17:14
you deal with the fact of how you're losing calcium,
17:16
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17:18
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17:20
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19:50
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19:52
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19:55
They're drinking milk. They're drinking three
19:57
servings a day. For a little
19:59
bit. and then they don't and they're
20:01
getting it from grass. So why not? Why
20:04
get that in calcium? So green leafy vegetables
20:06
are actually a very good source of calcium.
20:11
A serving of kale has almost as much
20:13
calcium as a serving of
20:15
milk and you get many fewer total calories
20:17
that way but let's go back to these
20:19
ecological comparisons. Those are the comparisons where you
20:22
look at different countries and see
20:24
different risks. It's
20:26
important to understand that those are, there
20:29
are limitations to those kinds of analyses. What
20:32
they do convincingly tell us is
20:34
that you can, it's possible to
20:36
be a human being, consume no
20:39
milk, relatively
20:41
low levels of calcium and
20:43
have low fracture risk. The
20:45
problem with these studies is that they're very
20:48
compounded. So when you look compared the swede
20:50
to the Filipino, there's
20:53
a big difference in height and height
20:55
is a major risk factor for
20:57
bone fracture. So ironically,
20:59
it may
21:02
be that milk consumption in
21:04
childhood and adolescence actually
21:07
increases risk for fracture in adulthood. So
21:09
how could that be? We've
21:12
talked about that you don't really
21:14
put away a calcium bank in
21:17
childhood. You don't get that benefit. But the
21:19
one thing that is pretty clear that milk
21:22
does in childhood is accelerate growth. Hugely,
21:25
it's not gonna turn a horse racing
21:28
jockey into
21:32
a baseball
21:34
player, but you get about an
21:37
extra centimeter for every
21:39
additional serving glass of
21:41
milk a day. So maybe, and this
21:43
is a population average, but so maybe
21:45
for comparing low and high consumers, you
21:47
grow an extra inch. But on a
21:49
population basis, that
21:52
increased height is
21:54
one of the major risk factors of having
21:56
a fracture. Simply put, the bigger
21:58
they come, I'm just kind
22:00
of screwed. I'm like six foot three. I
22:04
would just advise you don't fall. Well, I'm going
22:06
to I'm working on my core strength and muscle
22:09
mass and that also helps mitigate. But
22:13
this is a big you know, this is one of
22:16
the first myths to go that drinking a lot
22:18
of milk as a kid is going to
22:20
reduce your risk of getting a fracture in
22:23
his adulthood. And if
22:25
anything, it's the opposite. So
22:28
these are the big this is the basis
22:30
for our recommendations, which is you need calcium
22:32
preventoster process. And that's why our guidelines
22:35
tell us to have three glasses of milk a day. Yeah,
22:38
well, you do need calcium, you just don't
22:40
need that much and the amount that you
22:42
need can be obtained from other sources. And
22:46
so what about the idea of weight
22:49
because it's not to say that
22:51
milk is inherently bad or toxic. We
22:55
talked about one situation where it
22:57
could be helpful. People with borderline
22:59
nutritional status, when they drink milk,
23:02
they're drinking, you know, you're drinking
23:04
a like a glass of milk.
23:06
And maybe you just have two cookies after school
23:08
as a kid, instead of having the whole package
23:11
without milk or with fat free milk, which doesn't
23:13
taste very good. And isn't very sat satiating. Yeah,
23:15
I want to get into the fat free thing
23:17
in a minute. They know that's
23:19
your favorite topic. But I just want to sort
23:21
of sort of summarize here about the calcium store
23:24
because you're saying essentially is that all the data and there
23:26
were over 100 papers you reviewed all the data really didn't
23:28
point to a benefit of
23:30
increased calcium intake through supplements or through
23:33
dairy, and that there was potential
23:36
risks as well. And then it wasn't just a
23:38
benign intervention that there may be
23:41
increased risks with increased calcium intake
23:43
in different situations, whether it's cancer
23:45
or whether it's from from
23:48
perhaps the the high levels of calcium causing
23:50
greater growth and fracture risk, we don't know,
23:53
but it's not a slam dunk. So you
23:55
think you think based on the current data
23:57
that you reviewed, that in the new
23:59
ones, medical medicine study, you think that the
24:01
government should change its dietary guidelines? Let
24:06
me just say, so we talked about the trade-offs.
24:11
Milk, so one downside
24:13
of extra growth we talked about was
24:16
fracture risk, but another downside
24:18
of being tall is cancer
24:20
risk. Being the taller you
24:22
are, the higher your risk of cancer.
24:24
Maybe partly it's more cell. You're
24:27
okay, you're taking good care of yourself.
24:29
But first of all, you've got a
24:31
bigger body. But the other
24:33
thing about milk is to think,
24:35
to consider why, how milk has evolved.
24:37
I mean milk, the purpose of
24:39
milk is to help grazing
24:42
animals on like plains
24:44
of Africa, you know,
24:46
the infants that are at high risk of being eaten
24:50
by the local carnivores grow
24:53
rapidly so they can be
24:55
strong enough and fast enough to
24:57
be free of predation. So that's a very strong
25:00
selective, you know, fitness factor,
25:03
evolutionary drive to get these
25:05
baby ruminants, you
25:07
know, the gazelles and the
25:11
other grazing animals to grow very quickly. So
25:13
that's a good thing, except
25:15
if you're consuming these
25:17
foods that stimulate growth, you know,
25:20
in children, but in adults, these
25:22
growth factors that may be stimulating
25:25
biological systems that relate to cancer.
25:29
And while the data are definitely
25:33
not clear yet, there seems
25:35
to be evidence of cancer of
25:38
high levels of dairy consumption
25:40
causing prostate cancer in men,
25:43
especially aggressive forms of prostate
25:45
cancer and endometrial cancer. Although,
25:47
interestingly, milk
25:50
intake may protect against colorectal cancer
25:52
and that may be an
25:54
effect of the calcium. You know,
25:56
the issue around growth is very
25:58
interesting because there There are
26:00
60 different naturally occurring hormones
26:03
in milk, not including the
26:05
ones that they pump into the cows or
26:07
that they milk them all pregnant or that
26:10
they give them for growth factors. So these
26:12
are just naturally occurring. And the purpose of
26:14
these is to grow a little baby calf
26:16
into a big cow very rapidly, like you
26:18
said. So I think that
26:20
might be good for infants, but it's probably not good for
26:23
long-term health. And
26:25
it's worse now because of modern industrial
26:27
farming, because 100 years ago, you'd send
26:32
the cows out, they'd get pregnant, and
26:36
you wouldn't be milking them during
26:39
pregnancy. The baby
26:41
cow would be born, would feed a little bit,
26:44
and then you'd milk for a while until the
26:46
next cycle. But now in hyper-efficient
26:51
industrial agriculture, cows
26:53
are being milked throughout
26:56
their pregnancy. And so
26:58
those hormones that would be normally
27:00
present in pregnancy,
27:03
estrogens and progesterones and other hormones,
27:05
get dumped into milk. So the milk supply
27:08
is, even though milk normally
27:11
has many growth-promoting factors, it has
27:13
even more so today. So that's
27:16
something to bear in mind. And even
27:18
if you're having organic milk, it could
27:20
still be this case where you're milking it. Organic
27:23
milk, unless you're getting it from a local
27:26
farm that's using more traditional
27:29
low-intensity dairy agricultural
27:31
practices, organic milk's not going to be
27:33
any different in that regard. So
27:36
David, in terms of the recommendations, I'm going to sort
27:38
of pressure a little bit on that, because I think
27:40
we have a government that's telling us we should be
27:42
having three glasses of milk a day, and we can't
27:44
have school lunches without milk. Do you think that's the
27:46
right policy? Do you think it needs to be modified?
27:48
What should we do? It's
27:52
wrong. We came
27:54
forth in our paper, at least
27:57
in our opinion, quite clearly,
27:59
the... who
30:01
we don't think that there's gonna be much harm
30:04
from consuming one or two servings a day, but
30:06
for people who are not
30:08
consuming any dairy products and eating a
30:10
high quality diet, they shouldn't feel badly
30:13
about that choice. There's no reason to
30:15
suddenly dump in a lot of dairy.
30:18
Historically, humans just never drank
30:20
milk. I mean, were you gonna milk a
30:22
saber-toot tiger, a buffalo, probably not, right? So
30:25
we just never consumed it until that event
30:27
of modern agriculture. And
30:29
we're the only species, period, that
30:33
consume milk after weaning. So
30:36
what we eat now is milk is quite different.
30:38
And what we drink is quite different than the
30:40
dairy even a hundred years ago or 500 years
30:42
ago, because that was all from weird
30:45
heirloom looking cows, which
30:48
had a very different form of
30:50
casein, which wasn't inflammatory, called A2
30:52
casein. It wasn't
30:54
fed antibiotics. It wasn't grown in
30:58
CAFOs, or confined animal feeding operations
31:00
under horrible conditions, and fed all
31:02
kinds of horrible things, including
31:04
ground up animal parts, skittles, and
31:06
corn, and all things that are
31:08
not a natural diet. And
31:11
they give them antibiotics, which gets
31:13
in the milk, and they give
31:15
them growth factors, literally growth hormones
31:18
to stimulate the production of milk, estrogens
31:20
and so forth, like DES, which is
31:22
actually banned in humans because
31:24
it caused all kinds of cervical
31:27
cancer and fetal abnormalities, and women who took it, it
31:29
was supposed to be sort of helping prevent miscarriage, but
31:31
it didn't do that. They still
31:33
give that to cows. So when you're also
31:37
having convention, like even organic milk, they're often milking them
31:39
when they're pregnant. So you get all this flood of
31:41
hormones, you get inflammatory
31:43
casein, you get animals that are living in
31:45
horrible conditions, fed all kinds of weird stuff.
31:48
And so basically it's
31:50
not the dairy it used to
31:52
be. So while maybe you could tolerate dairy
31:55
if you're having it from some heirloom cow, raised on
31:58
grass and not fed all this weird stuff period
38:02
that consumed milk after weaning. So
38:06
what we eat now is milk is quite different.
38:08
And what we drink is quite different than the
38:10
dairy even 100 years ago or 500 years ago
38:13
because that was all from weird heirloom
38:16
looking cows which had
38:18
a very different form of casein
38:20
which was an inflammatory called A2
38:22
casein. It wasn't
38:24
fed antibiotics, it wasn't grown
38:27
in CAFOs or confined animal
38:29
feeding operations under horrible conditions and
38:31
fed all kinds of horrible things
38:34
including ground up animal parts, skittles
38:36
and corn and all things that
38:38
are not a natural diet. And
38:41
they give them antibiotics which gets in
38:43
the milk and they give them growth
38:46
factors, literally growth hormones to
38:48
stimulate the production of milk, estrogens and
38:50
so forth. Like DES which is actually
38:52
banned in humans because
38:54
it caused all kinds of cervical
38:57
cancer and fetal abnormalities and women who took it, it
38:59
was supposed to be sort of helping prevent miscarriage but
39:01
it didn't do that. They still
39:03
give that to cows. So when you're also
39:06
having convention like even organic milk, they're often milking them
39:09
when they're pregnant. So you get all this flood of
39:11
hormones, you get inflammatory
39:13
casein, you get animals that are living in horrible
39:15
conditions, fed all kinds of weird stuff. So
39:19
basically it's not the dairy it
39:21
used to be. So maybe you
39:23
could tolerate dairy if you're having it from some
39:25
heirloom cow raised on grass
39:28
and not fed all this weird stuff and antibiotics
39:30
and hormones might be okay. And
39:32
I think we kind of have to take a big
39:34
broad look at the whole history of dairy production and
39:36
see how much has changed in the last 50 years
39:38
and how dangerous that is for us, for the animals
39:40
and the planet. So you've talked
39:43
about how our dairy has changed but how
39:45
does the dairy that is not grown in
39:47
these great conditions and
39:49
not produced in these great conditions, what
39:51
impact and what mechanisms does it hijack
39:54
in our body to create the
39:56
whole list of things that you mentioned in the opening? So
39:58
first I want to say look, this is not my And
46:00
let's talk about it. Grass
46:02
fed is really important and the reason
46:04
is because one, it
46:07
doesn't have the antibiotics, the hormones
46:10
and it has
46:12
higher levels of phytochemicals in it,
46:15
better fatty acid composition, more
46:18
antioxidant. So, you know, it's not only what you
46:20
eat that matters, it's what you're
46:23
eating has eaten. So
46:25
cows graze on the natural diet of grass,
46:27
they produce milk and meat with better fat
46:30
composition and nutrients than those fed corn and
46:32
grain and soy. So if you're going to
46:34
consume butter and dairy products, remember that grass
46:36
fed is important or
46:38
regenerative even better. Organic dairy is
46:40
somewhere in the middle, right? Because organic could be not
46:43
grass fed, they could just feed it organic corn
46:45
or organic soy and also
46:47
they might have some pasture
46:49
in their diet, but basically most of their diet
46:51
comes from organic grains and feed that are, you
46:53
know, better because they're free of pesticides or besides
46:56
antibiotics and has more
46:58
omega, better six to three ratio,
47:00
but it's still not great
47:03
because they can actually milk organic cows
47:05
while they're, while
47:07
they're pregnant, which adds way more hormones and all
47:09
the natural hormones that are in milk. There's,
47:12
you know, things you can actually
47:15
use like probiotic rich dairy, kefir, yogurt,
47:17
they're better, they're better actually tolerance
47:22
and digestion. So you
47:24
can use ghee or clarified butter, which basically
47:26
takes all the milk solids, all the casein,
47:28
all the way and it
47:30
can be used by people who are even allergic to dairy. So
47:33
organic grass fed ghee is great. It's basically
47:35
like the Indian form of butter and
47:37
has lots of nutrients, higher smoke point and it's great
47:40
for high heat cooking. Now
47:43
I don't really recommend eating that much cow dairy.
47:45
Now there's an important thing to recognize. There's
47:48
different kinds of casein
47:51
in dairy products. There's
47:54
A1 casein, A2 casein. Now A1 casein
47:56
is what most modern cows have. This
47:58
is an inflammatory form of casein. the
48:00
protein in milk and that tends
48:02
to be linked to more of the issues around milk. A2
48:05
casein is for more of the heirloom
48:07
cows. I think Jersey cows, Guernsey cows
48:09
have more A2 casein and there are
48:11
dairy products like ice creams and others
48:13
you can get from A2 cows
48:16
but they're really hard to find and
48:18
that's better for you. But goat and sheep dairy
48:21
products are far better tolerated,
48:23
have less inflammatory potential and
48:26
have primarily A2 casein. So
48:29
I'd encourage people to switch over and I,
48:31
for example, I can't tolerate regular dairy because
48:33
I get congested, stomach issues. If I have
48:35
goat or sheep, I'm fine. Goat cheese, sheep
48:38
cheese, goat yogurt, no problem. So
48:41
cow's milk can be very inflammatory,
48:43
it can cause eczema, allergies, gut
48:45
issues, acne because
48:47
of this A1 casein. But
48:50
if you switch to goat and dairy, it's
48:52
better and it's better tolerated. And also the
48:55
goat's milk has high levels of medium chain triglycerides
48:57
which help metabolism, brain function has high levels of
48:59
vitamin A which is great for your skin. And
49:02
people who have more A2 casein tend
49:04
to not have as much of the
49:06
GI symptoms, have less inflammatory biomarkers, they
49:08
have better cognitive function. So
49:10
goat or sheep milk can be a great alternative. So
49:13
what should you look for when you're buying dairy? Well,
49:16
make sure you look for certain certifications that
49:18
make sure the animals are produced in an
49:20
ethical manner, right? Animal welfare approved,
49:22
certified humane, American humane certified, food
49:24
alliance certified, global animal partnership. These
49:26
are ways to sort of find
49:30
sources of dairy that are better for you. So
49:34
what is possible to eat for dairy?
49:36
Well, I recommend that people avoid
49:38
for the most part cow dairy
49:40
unless it's A2 cows that are
49:43
regenerally raised. And even then,
49:45
some people still have trouble with cow dairy. But
49:47
a little bit here and there is fine. If
49:50
you want to have grass fed, full fat, unsweetened
49:52
yogurt, that's okay. Ideally,
49:54
sheep or goat is better. Kiefer
49:57
is another way to have a dairy product, you
49:59
can get a goat. or sheep kefir, whole
50:02
milk, grass-fed cheese, again, better
50:04
go to sheep with no additives, grass-fed ghee
50:06
or butter is fine. If
50:09
you can get them, go to sheep,
50:11
I would highly recommend that. What should you avoid? Well,
50:14
dairy from convention-raised cows, skim
50:17
milk, 2% milk, low-fat
50:19
milk, low-fat yogurt, nonfat
50:22
yogurt, yogurt that has fruit sweetener
50:24
additives or anything extra. In fact, Yoplait,
50:26
which is one of the sweetened yogurts,
50:28
that has more sugar per ounce than
50:30
a can of Coca-Cola. It's
50:33
really bad for you. Don't have that thing you
50:36
think is healthy, which is your sweetened yogurt in
50:38
the morning. Avoid
50:40
the cheeses and so forth made with skim or reduced-fat
50:42
milk. The fat is actually the good part. Also,
50:45
no-process cheese. I mean, it's not even called
50:47
cheese. There's something called
50:49
Kraft American Slices. They can't call it cheese
50:52
because it's less than 50% cheese. It's
50:54
a cheese-like substance. And
50:58
obviously, don't eat cheese that comes in a
51:00
spray can or a squeezed bottle or
51:02
some weird industrial cheese product. So anyway,
51:04
that's the story on dairy. Definitely
51:07
don't eat it. If you want to consume it, try
51:09
sheep or goat. Realize
51:12
it's not nature's perfect food. It doesn't help your bones.
51:14
It may cause cancer. And there's a lot of
51:16
reasons to just avoid it. So again, sheep or goat
51:18
is fine. Try it. See how
51:20
you feel. Your body is the best indicator
51:22
of what works and what doesn't. Your body
51:24
is the smartest doctor in the room. Thanks
51:26
for listening today. If you loved this podcast,
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52:11
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52:15
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52:17
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52:19
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52:44
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