As often as I tell my patients that dairy is unhealthy, they have a hard time abstaining.
So, let’s discuss which form of dairy is the least detrimental.
• Make sure you buy only organic. Commercial milk has extra growth hormones – and dairy is a hormonal food to start with.
• Ice cream: Probably the most unhealthy form of dairy. Not least because it is laced with sugar. Even yogurt ice cream is discouraged, for that reason. Highly addictive. And not needed in your diet because it has no nutritional value. Get your calcium from vegetables and herbs, whole grains, legumes and nuts, and your vitamin D from moderate sun exposure.
• Same with chocolate milk or any sweetened dairy product, like custards, including all yogurts other than plain ones.
• Cream cheese is made by adding more milk solids to milk. So, it is enriched with milk proteins. A bad idea.
• Cheeses: Never eat anything that is not cultured cheese but “processed.” If it comes in a perfectly square form, don’t eat it. Because nothing in nature comes square. Cheese is best to avoid – it is responsible for much of our present obesity epidemic.
• Raw milk is less adulterated than commercial milk, but you run the risk of unpleasant infections. If you know the farm and the farmer, you might want to take the risk. Still, raw milk naturally contains hormones that might make invisible or already diagnosed cancers grow.
• Whole milk is better than skim milk because it is less processed. It also contains less protein (because, by definition, skim milk contains less fat; consequently it contains more protein). And I am not worried about the milk fat as much as about the milk proteins because they are allergenic and they are inflammatory.
• Which means that butter and heavy cream are better than whole milk because they contain even less protein. The best, obviously, is ghee – or purified butter, also called butterfat. There the proteins have been skimmed off. Ghee does the least damage as far as inflammation from dairy goes – but you still have to worry about calories. We are less concerned nowadays with saturated fats. In moderation, they seem to be good.
• The best butter would be European cultured butter. No extra growth hormones, preferably from grass-fed cows.
• Yogurt, kefir, crème fraîche are cultured foods with wholesome bacteria (provided no fruit, sweetener, etc. are added). Make no mistake – they are still dairy products with inflammatory capacities, and contain hormones that might trigger cancer. Even worse, they are delicious and highly addictive. Once in a while, celebrating something grand, I allow crème fraîche on the table…
If you consume dairy products, observe how you feel: Do you experience bloating, reflux, joint pains, headaches, breast discomfort, cravings? Or what else? Become aware what dairy does to your body – and try to avoid it. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
To Sleep or Not to Sleep
July 27, 2010
We all have heard that the tryptophan in milk, cheese or turkey makes us fall asleep faster – so off we go and enjoy a little snack at bedtime. I guess even doctors have given that advice.
It is bad advice. Tryptophan does not do the trick – and melatonin from wine or grapes does not do much either. Alcohol is the worst soporific because it makes you fall asleep by dampening down your brain - only your brain recovers and gets over-excited. So, you won't sleep long.
One should have the last meal not later than six or seven pm - and NOT have a snack before turning in to bed. We call it breakfast because we are supposed to break the nightly fast in the morning. If we eat late, the body is busy digesting instead of sleeping and repairing. Repair is crucial because daily we are exposed to harmful chemicals and radiation that break DNA strands which could lead to cancer.
The two things that help falling asleep easier are:
1. Going to bed with the early signs of tiredness. For most people that would be between eight and ten. If you then watch TV or sit at the computer, you get a second wind and sleep the worse for it. As a doctor who did many nights of duty, I know that one can experience even get a third and fourth and so on wind if needed – adrenalin always gets us going - but it is definitely not healthy.
2. Warm feet make you fall asleep as a study showed; cold feet keep you up. Taking a warm foot bath, or going to bed with socks might help. Perhaps you even one day you try the crazy-sounding “wet socks” - an old-world sleep remedy. I have tried them – they help: You need two pairs of socks; preferably one cotton, one wool, but both cotton works, too. Wet the cotton pair with cold water (as cold as comes from the faucet), wring lightly; they should be wet but not dripping. Put on the woolen pair of socks on top of it. You can wrap your feet in a towel if you want – but a bit of moisture does not hurt your bedding. Sleep.
You will sleep like a baby. If you wake in the night, you may remove towel and socks. But you might not wake until the morning. Read More
Always Eating Time
June 25, 2010
Good chance that I bore you to tears - but: There is an obesity epidemic. Already little children are overweight; many young people are rejected by the military because they are not passing muster. Our future lies in the hands of these children who go into life already burdened with extra weight.
School lunches are atrocious: pizza, spaghetti with meatballs, subs, hamburger, sandwich, lasagna – the usual menu.
Did you notice that these are not really different foods? They are the same foods disguised: always wheat, cheese, tomato, beef. None of the four items is especially healthful (yes – I know, tomatoes contain decent lycopene. But to eat tomatoes as the only vegetable, is not good. To eat them daily, is asking arthritis in your body. Tomato belongs (with potato, eggplant, bell and hot peppers) in the nightshade family, and should be eaten sparingly.
So, children eating wrong foods. But a bigger problem is that food is constantly offered (and bought). We as a culture teach the children that one needs always to eat. Times away from the table seem to ask for a snack, and times at the table are accompanied by TV. It seems there is a constant need to be fed, to be entertained, to be rewarded, to be cajoled, to be kept quiet – always with food.
The message is: It is always eating time.
If one eats constantly, the body is always busy with digesting, and has not time for repair and rebuilding – that is especially true at night. We call our first meal breakfast, don’t we? Meaning: You break the nightly fast. If one raided the fridge in the wee hours, one never fasts.
Nature has laws. One is about ebb and flow. Constant eating is like always having high tide. One might think that moderation is an unfashionable idea, outdated since long. But our bodies are old – ancient even. They live and function by the old laws of Nature.
If the body all the time is busy with digestion, it cannot run well, sleep well, think well … live well. Read More
1 Comments