Within the Paleo community and the traditional food ways community there is an on-going "conversation" regarding dairy. Strict Paleo followers obviously do not include dairy. In general, I suggest to my clients that they avoid dairy with the exception of butter/clarified butter which is an incredibly valuable, rare source of the short chain saturates. I also am intimately familiar with the work of Dr. Weston A Price and his nutrition research as well as the experience of thousands of present day families and individuals who have introduced raw dairy into their diets with profound health benefits. Where does that leave us with regard to what to do with dairy? It leaves us in the usual position when it comes to our food. How do you respond to it? How do you feel, behave, perform, look? How is your health? How is your body composition? What happens to you when you leave dairy out of your diet completely for six weeks? Be ruthless in your assessment. Don't make excuses for yourself. For example, dairy is impactful enough on my 12 year old son's acne that even he has begun to turn down ice cream on occasion. He doesn't say to himself "Well I'm a pre pubescent adolescent boy, I'd have zits anyway."
One thing is absolutely certain about dairy. If you are going to eat it you must consume it in it's original, nutritious form. Raw, alive and complete. No pasteurization, no homogenization, no skimming, no heating or cooking. You can culture it (raw cheese, raw sour cream and raw kefir). If you can't get your dairy in this form, DO NOT EAT IT.
Dr. Tom Cowan, M.D. is the author of The Fourfold Path to Healing, a brilliant look at many common illnesses with the adherence to Ancient Food Ways (although not Paleo ways) as one of the four healing paths. He likes to tell the following story: One day his son asked him, "Do you know the definition of an adult?" "What is it?" asked Dr. Cowan. "A person who likes vegetables" replied his son. Dr. Cowan uses this story to illustrate a vital point about nourishing a growing body-namely that human beings likely possess an intuitive sense about nutrition to which most of us have lost our connection. In the case of vegetables as fodder for children the issue of the necessity for fat-soluble nutrients is raised. When we reach adult hood our metabolism becomes more proficient at turning plant nutrients into forms usable by humans. As children, or when we are older, or if we have a metabolic deficiency, we are not proficient at using plant nutrients for our requirements. Dr. Cowan encourages parents (or those of us who are older or who have illness) to derive excellent nutrition by running the vegetables through a cow first!! Raw cream, butter, organ meat, bone broths come out the other side. For all you muscle-adding athletes out there you should think of yourselves as growing children. A child's body is in the process of building proteins, collagens, connective tissue, hormones, bone and muscle just like yours. All the original strong men knew this too. They ate raw cream, raw whole milk and raw beef and eggs (WITH THE YOLK).
