"OH MY GAWD -- YOU STILL EAT DAIRY?!? WTF?!? HOW DARE YOU CALL YOURSELVES "PALEO"! CAVEMEN DIDN'T DRINK COW'S MILK, YOU BLASPHEMERS! [*HYSTERICAL SOBBING*]"
I'm exaggerating (a little). But we've gotten a couple of testy emails from hyper-orthodox Paleo readers who check out M's site and freak out over the trace amounts of dairy that remain in our diets. To them, I have this to say:
Please chill out.
It's been a long time since I last wrote at length about milk. And in that time, our dairy consumption has dramatically decreased. Cutting out grains and added sugar already meant getting rid of many of our favorite dairy-delivery vehicles, like breakfast cereals, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, frozen yogurt and ice cream. We stopped buying big tubs of fresh mozzerella di bufala, and I no longer devour huge plates of cheese. I don't drink milk (and haven't since I was a kid), and I take my coffee black. And M managed to abstain from dairy altogether during her month on the Whole30.
But we do still eat a small amount of dairy from time to time, including pastured butter, ghee, and a bit of cheese and full-fat Greek yogurt. Frankly, this is a personal choice. We're not saying that you ought to follow our example, or that cow juice is super-awesome for you. We're continuing to learn from others about the physiological effects of the stuff, and it's very possible that one day, we'll decide to eliminate all dairy from our diet. But given that we continue to receive questions about why bovine dairy still pops up in M's recipes, I thought I'd explain our current thinking behind the decision not to go cold-turkey.
In a nutshell:
- We don't care that cavepeople didn't drink cow's milk.
- There are proposed mechanisms that suggest that cow dairy is bad for you.
- But there's still a lack of consensus -- even within Paleo circles -- about whether full-fat dairy actually poses health risks to folks without leaky gut or other autoimmune issues.
- Plus, on the whole, there may actually be a net benefit to eating some high-quality, full-fat dairy.
- Still, to be on the safe side, we've cut out most dairy -- but we've made room for certain exceptions.
