Real Food (7 page)

But I was astounded that people could thrive on the rich dairy foods I thought were indigestible and allergenic. Why weren't
butter and cheese lovers plagued with acne, stuffy noses, and stomach cramps? Even more startling, I felt better as I nibbled
my way back into real milk, butter, and cheese. Slowly it dawned on me that milk might not be so bad. I began to read more
systematically, hoping to uncover the real story of milk— or, more precisely, the whole story. Milk is a complex food, and
so are the arguments around it. The critics and the enthusiasts both make good points; the truth about milk seems to fall
between the two extreme positions.

What I learned is that all milk is not created equal. Some milk is better than others— for the cow, the environment, and human
health. Modern industrial milk is not the same as the milk we used to drink ten thousand years ago— or even one hundred years
ago. Not only is traditional milk from cows raised on grass, without synthetic hormones, more delicious than industrial milk
from cows raised indoors on corn and soybeans; it's also better for you. Some forms of milk, such as yogurt, are easily digestible—
even for people who think they are lactose intolerant. Nutritionally, raw milk has many advantages over pasteurized milk.
Now, when people ask, "Is milk is good for you?" I'm likely to answer, "That depends. Which milk?"

The milk critics make three broad charges. They say that milking is inhumane for cows, dairies pollute the environment, and
milk is unhealthy. About the first two, they are absolutely right, with one qualification:
industrial
dairies are bad for cows and for the environment, but
traditional
dairy farming is good for both.

According to Jo Robinson, the author of
Pasture Perfect,
when farmers graze dairy cows outside on their natural diet of grass, the cows are happy and healthy. Farmers who switch from
confinement dairies and a grain-based diet and let their cows roam outside eating grass watch their vet bills shrink. One
reason is that eating grain gives cows the bovine version of acid indigestion, which can lead to stomach ulcers. Large confinement
dairies also pollute the environment with stench and manure lagoons. Properly managed grazing, by contrast, enhances soil
fertility, water quality, and biodiversity.

The question of health is more complicated. First, the critics contend that humans are not meant to drink the milk of any
other species. Second, they say that milk is indigestible for people who don't make enough of the enzyme lactase to digest
the sugar lactose. Let's look at each argument.

Is drinking milk unnatural? The critics say that cow milk was "designed" for newborn calves, not for humans. That's true.
But this observation does not prove that the human digestive system cannot, or should not, handle milk. After all, the tomato
was designed to make more tomato plants, not pasta sauce. In fact, milk and other dairy foods are not only digestible for
the vast majority of people— about 85 percent by some estimates— but also highly nutritious. Later, we'll look at important
differences between traditional and industrial milk, but for now let's consider its basic components.

Like breast milk, the milk of cows and other mammals is nutritionally complete. All milk is made of the three macronutrients—
protein, fat, and carbohydrate— and humans are equipped to digest all three. A good source of complete protein, milk contains
all the essential amino acids in the right amounts. Milk contains enough carbohydrates for energy and has a good balance of
fats, both saturated and unsaturated.

Because it was made to be the only source of nutrients for growing babies, milk contains everything required to digest and
use its nutrients. The fats in milk, for example, enable the body to digest its protein and assimilate its calcium. According
to Mary Enig in
Know Your Fats,
the saturated fats in milk (such as butyric acid) are particularly easy to digest because they do not have to be emulsified
first by the liver. Unlike polyunsaturated fats, which the body tends to store, the saturated fats in milk are rapidly burned
for energy.

Milk is rich in vitamins and minerals. It contains potassium and vitamins C and B, especially B
₁₂
, which is found only in animal foods. Milk is the major source of the fat-soluble vitamins A and D in the American diet.
As Weston Price observed more than seventy years ago, the calcium and phosphorus in milk are particularly important for handsome
facial structure and strong teeth. Dairy foods also reduce oral acidity (which causes decay), stimulate saliva, and inhibit
plaques and cavities.

GOOD THINGS IN MILK

• Complete protein to build and repair tissues and bones

• Vitamin A for healthy skin, eyes, bones, and teeth

• Vitamin D to aid calcium and phosphorus absorption and for bones and teeth

• Thiamine to help turn carbohydrates into energy and aid appetite and growth

• Riboflavin for healthy skin, eyes, and nerves

• Niacin for growth and development, healthy nerves, and digestion

• Vitamin B
₆
to build body tissues, produce antibodies, and prevent heart disease

• Vitamin B
₁₂
for healthy red blood cells, nerves, and digestion; and to prevent heart disease

• Pantothenic acid to turn carbohydrates and fat into energy

• Folk acid to promote the formation of red blood cells and prevent birth defects and heart disease

• Calcium to make strong bones and teeth; also aids heartbeat, muscle, and nerve function

• Magnesium for strong bones and teeth

• Phosphorus for strong bones and teeth

• Zinc for tissue repair, growth, and fertility

Critics charge that milk is indigestible for people who don't make enough of the enzyme lactase to digest the lactose in milk.
This important argument deserves a full discussion. Lactose plays a large role in the history of milk.

The milk sugar lactose is found in no other food— unless you eat yellow forsythia blossoms in the spring. Without the enzyme
lactase, drinking milk causes nausea and diarrhea. Raw milk contains lactase, but the enzyme is damaged by pasteurization.
Babies, who drink nothing but milk, produce a lot of lactase; this declines steadily until they reach the age of three or
four, and then levels off. The logic of this efficiency is clear. Stone Age mothers nursed babies for three or four years.
Unless the child drank milk after weaning, lactase production gradually tapered off. The result is that some adults lack sufficient
lactase to digest fresh milk easily. The condition is often known as lactose intolerance, but low lactase production is more
precise.

Climate explains the evolution of lactase production. Low lactase production is most common in people whose ancestors came
from hot climates, such as East and Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. Where fresh milk could not be kept cold, adults never
developed the capacity to produce lactase, simply because they didn't drink fresh milk. In colder climates such as northern
Europe, however, where fresh milk could be stored for a week or more, people gradually developed the ability to produce lactase
as adults. Genetic analysis shows that milk proteins in seventy European cattle breeds evolved along with human genes for
lactose tolerance near northern European dairy settlements in the last eight thousand years, a rare example of cultural and
genetic coevolution between humans and another species.
¹¹
The genes show that early northern European shepherds were dependent on milk, unlike southern Europeans.

In hot climates, adults with low lactase production didn't forgo dairy foods entirely, however. After all, Italy, Greece,
and Israel are but three sunny countries with dairy traditions. Instead they ate cultured or fermented milk products, particularly
yogurt, which is easy to digest because it contains little (if any) lactose. Beneficial bacteria have already consumed the
lactose and turned it into the lactic acid that imparts the distinctive tangy taste to yogurt. Thanks to these tiny bacteria,
almost everyone can digest cultured milk. In cheese making, lactose is also transformed into lactic acid, but more slowly.
The longer the cheese has been aged, the less lactose it contains.

This "solution" to the problem of drinking fresh milk was no doubt accidental. Recall that fresh milk left to stand overnight
rapidly becomes yogurt with the help of whatever bacteria happen to be about. Quite by chance, shepherds devised many local
variations on yogurt— the word is Turkish— including Armenian
matzoon,
Bulgarian
naja,
Egyptian
laban,
and Balkan
kefir,
traditionally made with fermented mare milk.

TRADITIONAL VERSUS INDUSTRIAL FOOD PROCESSING

Yogurt and cheese are processed foods. Processed foods have a bad reputation, often justified. But industrial and traditional
methods are different: industrial food processing
diminishes
flavor and nutrition, while traditional food processing
enhances
both. When whole wheat is refined into white flour, flavor, fiber, and B vitamins disappear. Cold-pressed olive oil keeps
its vitamin E and antioxidants. When grape juice turns into wine, antioxidants form. When cabbage becomes kimchi, the result
is more vitamin C, enzymes, and good bacteria. Fermented foods like sauerkraut, cheese, and yogurt are among the oldest and
most nutritious processed foods. Yogurt is widely associated with longevity.

Traditional cultured milks are not only digestible but also nutritious. According to Harold McGee, beneficial bacteria found
in "traditional, spontaneously fermented milks" take up residence in our guts and promote health all over the body. The bacteria
secrete antibacterial agents, enhance immunity, break down cholesterol, and reduce carcinogens. The bacteria added to industrial
yogurt don't necessarily do the same good work. They're specialized to grow in milk only and can't survive inside the body.
Moreover, industrial yogurt may contain only two or three selected microbes, while the traditional version may sport a dozen
or more friendly bacteria. "This biological narrowing may affect flavor, consistency, and health value," writes McGee.

Cultured foods are vitally important in traditional diets. In many cultures, yogurt is the only form of milk consumed. When
versatile milk is transformed into yogurt and cheese, people all over the world can eat dairy foods— and given how practical,
delicious, and nutritious milk is, most do.

Milk is also rich in cholesterol and saturated fat. Does that mean the shepherds and dairy farmers who drink whole milk daily
have high cholesterol and heart disease?

Milk, Butter, Cholesterol, and Heart Disease

LET'S RECALL THE GIST of the cholesterol theory of heart disease: eating cholesterol and saturated fat raises blood cholesterol
and clogs arteries. If so, the milk critics have a case, because milk is rich in cholesterol and saturated fat. Milk is 87
percent water; the rest is protein, fat, and lactose. An eight-ounce (250 ml) glass of whole milk (typically 3.5 percent fat)
contains about 9 grams of fat, most of it saturated— about
66
percent. About 30 percent is monounsaturated, and there's a bit of polyunsaturated fat, too. The typical glass also contains
about 35 milligrams of cholesterol, mostly in the fat. (By the way, I never count grams of fat, cholesterol, protein, or anything
else— nor do I recommend it— but I offer these figures for complete information.)

This nutritional profile has been enough to indict milk on charges of causing heart disease, but abundant evidence exonerates
real milk, butter, and cheese. Many traditional diets include whole milk and butter without adverse effects. In Swiss dairy
and Masai shepherd communities, Weston Price found people eating whole milk, cream, and butter to be in excellent health.
In the 1960s, long after Price studied the Masai diet, Professor George Mann went to Kenya to test the hypothesis that a diet
rich in saturated fat and cholesterol raises blood cholesterol.
¹²
The Masai are almost pure carnivores, eating mostly milk, blood, and meat. A Masai man drinks up to a gallon of whole milk
daily, and on top of that he might also eat a lot of meat containing still more saturated fat and cholesterol. Mann expected
the Masai to have high blood cholesterol but was surprised to find it was among the lowest ever measured, about 50 percent
lower than that of the average American.

Like the Swiss and Masai diets, the traditional American diet was once rich in whole milk, cream, butter, and meat. At the
turn of the last century we ate plenty of butter and other saturated fats. The
Baptist Ladies Cookbook
(1895) and
The Boston
Cooking School Cookbook
(1896) include recipes for creamed liver, lamb fried in lard, creamed fish, and oyster pie with a quart of cream and a dozen
egg yolks. About 40 percent of the calories in these menus come from fats, with slightly more saturated than unsaturated fats.
An English Jewish cookbook in 1846 is similar, but it calls for beef fat instead of lard. These menus would be unremarkable—
after all, everyone's grandmother cooked that way— except for one curious, highly relevant fact. In 1900, when these recipes
were used and saturated fat was a regular part of the diet, heart disease was rare. The first case of heart disease as we
know it was identified by Dr. James B. Herrick in 1912.

In the next hundred years, traditional fats were replaced by industrial fats. The 1931
Searchlight Recipe Book
reflects the transition in American cooking. This, too, contained recipes with butter and cream, but it also called for vegetable
oil and "butter substitute" or margarine. Cooks began to change their recipes, no doubt gradually at first. According to the
lipids expert Mary Enig, from 1910 to 1970, butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four.
During the same period, the percentage of vegetable oils in the diet— including margarine, shortening, and refined oils— soared
by 400 percent.