Notice there are no eggs. Eggs are not dairy. They come from chickens, not cows.
Quite a few of you have been asking me for recipes. You might be considering going Primal or Paleo, but are afraid that your choices will be too limited. I’m going to be including some recipes that contain dairy to get you started. You may be considering ditching the grains and sugar, but giving up dairy is just too much to bear. That’s how I felt, and I still eat (organic) dairy. However, my weight loss has plateaued, so I have to try something different. My mission is to lose 10 pounds over the next couple of months and I think that cutting out dairy and adding in a little Intermittent Fasting is the way to go. I’ll let you know how that goes. O_o Notice my plan does not include killing myself at the gym. You’ll be happy to know that primal fitness doesn’t include long, back breaking hours on the treadmill.
I guess it’s good to publicly state a goal. I am giving myself 3 months (to the end of June) to lose 10 pounds. I know it can be done, but since it’s the final, stubborn last 10 pounds, it will be an experiment.
So back to Dairy. Can you eat cheese on a Primal diet? Yes. Dairy is controversial in the Paleo community but is an “acceptable indulgence” in the Primal world. Dairy (even full-fat) does illicit a small insulin response, so indulge responsibly. The following is taken from Mark Sisson’s Definitive Guide to Dairy:
“…Dairy, especially raw and/or fermented full-fat dairy, resides in a Primal gray area. The literature, the evolutionary reasoning, and the anecdotal reports all unanimously point to sugar, cereal grains and legumes,processed foods, and industrial vegetable oils as being net negatives on the human metabolic spectrum, but dairy is somewhat different. The other Neolithic foodstuffs we can rule out because the science condemning them is fairly concrete and they weren’t on the menu 20,000 years ago. Heck, they weren’t just off the menu; they were basically unrecognizable as food in the raw state. Dairy, on the other hand, is a relatively recent food chronologically, but it is most assuredly and obviously a viable nutritive source in its raw form. It’s full of highly bioavailable saturated fat, protein, and carbs – in equal portions. You could conceivably survive on milk alone…Milk is baby fuel. It’s literally meant to spur growth and enable a growing body. Our bodies definitely recognize dairy as food, even foreign bovine dairy. But is it good nutrition? I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone really does, in fact, which is why I place dairy firmly in Primal limbo.”
Moo.
So, my philosophy is, if you’re not lactose or dairy intolerant and you’re not on a weight loss mission, then go ahead and include dairy in your diet. Just don’t make it the focus of your meals. I struggle to get enough fat in my diet and often rely on dairy products to bridge the gap. Remember, you want dairy from organic, grass fed sources. And make sure you get full fat products! The lower the fat content, the higher the sugar and that is definitely something you want to avoid. I have heavy whipping cream in my coffee, my kids drink whole milk and we only eat cheese, yogurt and kefir made from whole milk. The fat is what we want, after all, so why would we substitute it for sugar? Making sure everything is organic, or comes from trusted sources, ensures that we’re not ingesting any antibiotic residue. Happy milk comes from happy cows, right?
Raw or fermented dairy is the best. In fact, if you are lactose intolerant, you should be able to eat raw dairy without any problems. There are plenty of lactose-free products on the market, but these have been heavily processed and contain tons of sugar.
The first 2 recipes I’m going to include on this blog contain dairy and they’re ones I eat weekly. I’ll post them in separate entries so you can bookmark them if you want to make them over and over again!
Blue Cheese Dressing – coming soon!
Even when I do give up dairy, I’m not giving up the heavy whipping cream in my coffee. I just don’t want to.
If you are interested in losing bodyfat then dropping the dairy is a good idea. I did a little mass gain experiment for a month where I added milk back into my diet. I gained 10 lbs in a month while eating only Paleo foods along with the milk. This of course was my goal so I was happy with that. The gain was not all muscle though. My strength shot up and I did gain some muscle but I also gained some looseness on the ab front. Dairy is a potent growth promoter, just ask babies. Out bodies respond to it with a release of IGF1 (Insulin like growth factor). Good if you want to gain some size, bad if you want to shed some fat. Don’t forget, losing 10 pounds is fine, but losing FAT should be the main goal. Get a pair of fat calipers (I bought mine at a fitness store for under 15 bucks) and don’t use the scale for the time being. While they are not as accurate as say underwater weighing, they are definitely good enough to see a difference if you use them in a consistent manner. Robb Wolf has a little segment in his recent podcast:
http://robbwolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/The-Paleolithic-Solution-Episode-22.mp3
with regards to intermittent fasting. He says he works with a guy who finds that skipping one meal once every two weeks or so works well for him. Personally I would rather just cut back on overall total calories (though calories aren’t everything, they are something) or add in another round of Tabata Rows on the Concept 2.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it