…in my opinion, no.
I used to be a HUGE milk drinker. Whole milk-every day-pretty much with every meal. As I entered my 20s I started to notice that the day after I would drink milk I would be terribly bloated with leg cramps and a headache. I didn’t really attribute it to much, I simply cut down on how much I drank daily. I also ate a lot of American cheese, not Kraft singles, the deli kind. Since becoming Paleo, and cutting dairy out (except butter), I have felt significantly better. Butter is mostly fat anyway, not much lactose, but I buy grass fed and I also use ghee (clarified butter). <—if you haven’t bought it yet…do it…now!
I may have mentioned it before, and I’ll say it again: milk turns baby cows into big cows! We needed milk when we are younger to help us grow and develop, and it also introduced a good form of bacteria to our gut flora. But as grown adults, you don’t need to be growing. I’m sure there are cases where people need to drink milk, but for most of us, we don’t need it. Besides the fact that mammals shouldn’t be drinking other animals milk…we’re the only ones that do it! We can get calcium from other sources. Plus, almond milk is pretty good. If you do want to consume dairy, fermented dairy is the best kind. Fermentation helps get rid of most of the sugars too, so that’s way better for you! Drinking calories will actually increase insulin response, so why even bother. It isn’t that dairy isn’t nutritious, it’s just that there are other things far more nutritious to eat in place of dairy….fair enough?
Lactose and casein are pretty bad for us, as far as weight and insulin control go. If you do buy your milk from the supermarket, that’s not a great choice. The cows that produced that milk most likely had a diet of corn and soy…so when you consume that milk, you are also consuming that corn and soy! And…if you drink skim milk, that means they “skim” the milk…leaving all the “important stuff” behind. Oi vay. Grain fed cows…they have high omega-6 fatty acids, and after awhile, elevated intake will cause inflammation, which by now we know, we avoid at all costs living Paleo because noone wants to be inflamed (that just sounds painful). Lots of these cows are on growth hormones and antibiotics, when you drink their milk, you’re drinking the by product of what was given to them. Stay far away! We are sadly misinformed on so many things.
So for all the people who are anti-Paleo, and think the idea of eating like a caveman is ridiculous…foods are not rejected solely on the fact that caveman didn’t have them, we just like to have the evidence that the food choices we make have higher health benefits. We are genetically adapted to living Paleo if you think about it. It isn’t a diet made up by doctors and “experts”, this is how people lived…it’s “nature’s diet”.
Next on the agenda…
Do you suffer from osteoporosis, kidney stones, hypertension, asthma, insomnia, motion sickness, inner ear ringing, and/or exercise induced asthma? If you answered yes to any of those, then I have a cool Paleo fact for you that will change your life (hopefully)! People who follow a Paleo diet tend to have more alkalinity in their bodies because of the foods they eat, so any diseases related to an acid/base imbalance (listed above) will improve. To all my vegan/vegetarian friends, Paleo is impossible for you. Sorry.
Another note, I follow the recipes in the “Practical Paleo” book, but I have a few issues with them. One, don’t assume that everyone knows how to cook poultry! Her cook times stated are very short for a lot of the recipes, and the shopping lists are insufficient. I printed out week 1, went shopping, and ended up having to make a few more trips to the store because certain key things were not on the list! So for week 2 I will take her list, and go through all the recipes and make sure I write everything down. I don’t know about you, but I don’t just have persimmons lying around. Oh, and as if “Whole Paycheck (Foods)” wasn’t expensive enough…macadamia nuts, prevalent in a lot of her recipes thus far, are quite costly (for not that many)! I’d rather fly to Hawaii, pick my own, and fly back. Luckily they can be substituted for cashews. I don’t want to break the bank, and I don’t think anyone should. If you run into the same problems with the recipes, do a little research and do it within your means. I want to encourage people to adopt this lifestyle, and in an affordable way (it’s possible). I don’t want people to be discouraged by some of these “pricey” meals, or ingredients that you scour the earth in order to find. Even that turns me off to it!
“You are only as strong as you allow yourself to be, never get discouraged, never give up. Consistency and dedication is the key to success.”
