Milk appears to be hazardous to our health by many schools of thought.
Dairy is no doubt delicious, but it’s looking like it is genuinely terrible for our bodies in many ways contrary to popular belief. Touted as a necessary food product for the proper development of children should be carefully considered. For years, common knowledge dictates we need to drink milk for healthy bones, and according to many specialists, it just isn’t the case.
Researching the views of many disciplines has been eye-opening. Here is an overview of why Lander doesn’t eat or drink dairy as he fights cancer.
Let me reiterate something that I say all of the time, I’m not a trained specialist in any way or form and not claiming to have all the answers, nor am I giving medical advice. I’m relaying information learned from experts across a wide range of studies. We have improved our lives by applying them, and I feel compelled to share.
I contribute so much of Lander’s positive outcomes in his cancer journey to the men and women who’ve taken the time to write books and share their knowledge. We learn so much by seeing a broader picture and the importance of nutrition in regards to health and quality of life.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
― Hippocrates
In looking at diary through the understanding of many disciplines such as Functional Medicine, Longevity research, BioHacking, Ayurvedic, and even popular diets like Paleo, Whole30, there is a lot of support for eliminating or at a minimum significantly reducing dairy.
When I refer to conventional or modern dairy, I mean commercial operations in which the animals are living an industrialized life. Not getting into the ethical argument, but they aren’t living as cattle should, and the trade-off is negative.
I’m intrigued by the study of Longevity. “Blue Zones” is a name for areas with a high population percentage of individuals living to 100, coined by Dan Buettner, his book Blue Zones is a great read. Here are the studied locations, Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and among the Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. It’s a goal of mine to compile and relay information in a way that creates a blue zone of our own, even if not geographically.
Understanding why specific populations live longer gives insight into lifestyle choices to help us better import quality and length of life ourselves. It is interesting to note, in these populations, there is a lack of the chronic diseases that plague the modern world. Giving us another area of focus and better understand. Longevity allows us to adapt to a preventative mindset. After personally watching so many loved ones and patients suffer when I was working EMS, I’m all for eliminating all preventable diseases and helping ease the lives of those that may not be.
Noticeably lacking in “Blue Zones” is the consumption of dairy as we know it. The dairy they do consume is in a raw or unprocessed manner from sheep, goats, and A2 cattle breeds like Guernsey, Jersey, Charolais, and Limousin. Those breeds of cattle have a different protein make up than the modern dairy cattle like Holstein. The science behind this is exciting, but the thing to take away is that our bodies process the milk of goats different than the common breeds of cattle in modern dairy, making it easier for most to digest.
In The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo, Ph.D., his first principle is “Eat a mostly vegan diet with some fish.” On the subject of dairy, he recommends refraining in almost all cases — another great book with a ton of useful information.
Outside of the longevity support for avoiding dairy, much more is found in other fields. Functional Medicine gets labeled as quackery and pseudo-medicine. For full disclosure, modern medicine views this field has no merit based on “unproven or disproven methods and treatments.” While there are extremists and out-there ideas in this realm, at its core, the research and results have a profound positive impact on the quality of life. We are in an unprecedented period in which life expectancy is decreasing. Therefore, something isn’t working. I’m taking a radically open-minded approach to information and looking directly at effects.
Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Steven Gundry are two Western Medical Doctors or “Real” Doctors who now practice functional Medicine in varying degrees. I run many of my dietary decisions through there lense while we don’t abide by everything in their principles; its a great way to take new looks into choices.
Dr. Hyman’s take on dairy in the following link.
Dr. Steven Gundry’s take on dairy in the following link.
Milk contains a large about of sugar in the form of lactose. A substantial percent of the population cannot digest lactose leading to the hearing the term lactose intolerance become much more prevalent. The high sugar content makes milk not fall into a ketogenic diet. An 8-ounce serving of milk contains 12 grams of carbs. With the LanderMan Plan deriving, many holistic principles from a clean keto dairy fall outside our philosophy.
Milk, cheese, yogurt are also against the Paleo philosophy due to being relatively new to the human diet. Here is a neat link to more on the history of milk if interested.
Another perceptive I run through is BioHacking. Dave Asprey is a bestselling author, podcast host, and the founder of Bulletproof Coffee and is credited with creating the term.
As defined by Tony Robbin’s website – “Biohacking is essentially the practice of changing our chemistry and our physiology through science and self-experimentation to energize and enhance the body. … It can be as simple as implementing lifestyle and dietary changes that improve the functioning of your body.”
In Asprey’s book, The Bulletproof Diet, he recommends avoiding conventional dairy for many reasons, including mold toxins, but is a huge proponent of using grass-fed butter and ghee. Bulletproof Coffee gained a tremendous following for the combination of butter and coffee in a blender. The butter adds essential fats while not having the sugars and problematic proteins found in milk and cheese in modern dairy. Ghee, which is clarified butter, is my go-to for cooking and contains even less lactose (milk sugar) and proteins.
A side note for dairy, much of it has added sugar. Sugar comes in many forms, such as sucrose, glucose, lactose, and maltose. Milk, on its own, contains sugar in the form of lactose (12 grams per cup of 1%). In a commonly known chocolate milk, there are 29 grams of sugar in an 8 oz serving. Yogurts are also a notorious culprit. The added sugar compounds the problems significantly not only for people with diabetes but for everyone.
For the LanderMan Plan our we have eliminated modern dairy, no milk, cheese, or yogurt, especially without added sugar. With all of the allergies and potential for dairy causing inflammation, that alone is not worth the risk in me giving Lander dairy. No argument for the consumption of milk or cheese that comes close to outweighing the downsides.
We do use grass-fed butter and grass-fed ghee daily, and on occasion, at very most a few times a month, goat – milk, feta, and chevre.
If looking for a starting point, don’t think you can go wrong by following a clean keto, paleo, Whole30, or “Pegan” plan as a starting point.
Everyone is at a different point in life, and depending on DNA, microbiome, and lifestyle, proper nutrition looks different. The more I’ve researched, the more I see that there are a lot of common threads for health but a lot of variables depending on the individual.
Thanks for reading.
Logan