Anti-Inflammatory Diet

I was reading an article yesterday about vasculitis and ran across the anti-inflammatory diet. This was pretty interesting to me.

The very first thing on the list was to eliminate cow's milk and cow's milk products and substitute other sources for calcium. We know there are lots better sources of calcium than cow's milk. See my September 23, 2008 posting. I won't go off on the milk tangent here, but suffice it to say that milk can promote inflammation within the body.

The second thing on the list is to eat more organic fruits and vegetables. Certainly this makes sense since fruits and vegetables increase antioxidants and decrease inflammation. The reason for organic is in my October 15, 2008 posting.

I'll give you two more components of the anti-inflammatory diet tomorrow.

Diet Tip #7

Get your dairy with reasonable amounts of cheese and regular yogurt. The "light" or "fat free" yogurts have larger amounts of sugar in them. Best if you can cut out cow's milk for a period of time.

If you absolutely have to have milk, see my tips on milk. There are multiple posts on milk in the blog and you may want to go back and review them.

Hormone Free or Antibiotic Free

When looking at labels, do you look for hormone free or antibiotic free? If you're looking for hormone free, you can stop when it comes to chicken or pork. A law was enacted in 1959 that chicken and pork had to be hormone free. Beef is and entirely different matter. You still need to read the labels for hormone free beef. Antibiotics are still used in all animals to stimulate growth. So you want to be looking at labels for "antibiotic free."

We tend to think of hormones and antibiotics just in terms of the meat. However, you should also be aware that milk can be coming from cows which have been injected with growth hormone to increase their milk production.

From a medical standpoint, we have no clear idea of the potential issues around eating foods that have have artificial hormones and antibiotics in them. One thing to ponder is that we have far more disease today than when these things were not available to enhance growth.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid and Milk

A bit more on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) found in milk and beef and it's properties. I talked yesterday about building muscle and decrease abdominal fat. CLA also boosts the immune system to help us fight off disease. CLA is a polyunsaturated Omega 6 fatty acid.

In addition, CLA tends to lower food allergies. This can be very beneficial especially since we are seeing more and more food allergies these days.

Goat's Milk

Laurie asked about Goat's milk and CLA. Yes, Goat's milk does contain CLA as long as the goats like cows are fed grass. The chemistry is that part of the grass is transformed in the ruminants stomach (for those who may not remember, ruminants have several stomachs.) So the key ingredients for CLA and ruminant's digestion fo grass.

This is one reason it is important to eat free range beef, lamb or mutton. We as humans are able to eat the meat of these animals and obtain the CLA we require.

If you think about this, wild game is obviously the best. Makes me feel a whole lot better remembering that I was raised on wild game. But then, when I was young, the cattle were all free range.

Milk and CLA

CLA is conjugated linoleic acid. Raw milk contains this if the cows have been feeding on grass. So why is it important?

One of the things that CLA does for us is to help us build muscle. Most of the beef and milk that you buy these days comes from beef that are raised in pens and fed specific feed. If you look at the pens, there is not a blade of grass to be found. So the beef that we buy does not contain CLA or very little, and we are becoming CLA deficient.

In addition to helping us build strong muscle, CLA helps remove abdominal fat. You will sometimes see it advertised as a weight loss supplement. While it does help decrease abdominal fat, you won't see huge drops in weight by taking it. What you will see is loss of inches. CLA also helps increase the metabolic rate which will assist in weight loss also. These two assests in turn help the body utilize insulin more efficiently and you will see a decrease in insulin resistance.

Milk and Vitamin D

Vitamin D is essential for you to actually absorb calcium and assimilate it into bone. That is why you see milk fortified with Vitamin D. I won't get into all of the physiologic components here, but there are several components to vitamin D which are required to process calcium into our bones.

The natural source of vitamin D are fish, egg yolks and liver. These are usually not in everyone's diet on a regular basis. Supplementation is helpful to ensure that you get vitamin D to help with the processing of calcium in the body.

You may recall from your health class that Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. This occurs naturally through the skin. It only takes about 20 minutes of sun exposure to produce enough Vitamin D. Remember, if you live in a cold climate and you are bundled up in the winter time, you may not get the 20 minutes of exposure. Also if you have darker skin ( more melanin pigment in the skin), you will need more than 20 minutes.

Raw Milk and Lactase

Thank you for the question about raw milk and lactase. Raw milk - that is milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized - does contain bacteria and enzymes, lactase being one of them. More importantly, the bacteria in raw milk produces lactase which breaks down the lactose. This is why lactose intolerant individuals can drink raw milk. It is also why raw milk is better for our body in that it contains enzymes which help the body digest it and get the nutrients the body needs.

Why Milk?

Here is another thought on milk for you to ponder. Why do we drink milk as adults? Yes it is a good thing, but the main reason that most of us give for drinking milk is that it is a great source of calcium. Actually this is not true. There are better sources of calcium such as black strap molasses which contains other important minerals as well. Two Tablespoons of molasses gives you more absorbable calcium than 1 cup of milk. Also, remember form yesterday, what pasteurization does to calcium.

The best source of calcium is Tofu.

If you think about the animal world, once an animal is weaned, they don't drink milk. Of course they will if we give it to them, but the rest of the animal world gets along just fine without it after weaning. One thing to consider is that drinking milk is far better than drinking a carbonated soft drink!

Raw Milk - Raw Deal?

I just read an article about raw milk and the FDA saying that there are "dangerous pathogens" in raw milk. I grew up on raw milk from the farm. Although I wasn't raised on the farm, we used to drive out to the country and get milk from the farm twice a week. Sometimes it was so fresh it was still warm when we got it.

So why do we "have to have pasteurized milk?" If you look at what pasteurization does, it actually makes milk more difficult to digest. Specifically we usually hear about drinking milk so we can "get our calcium" so we don't develop osteoporosis. The pasteurization process renders calcium more difficult for the body to absorb. That's helpful don't you think?

Another thought here is, those who are lactose intolerant can actually drink raw milk. Pasteurization breaks down lactase. Lactase is an enzyme that helps digest the milk sugar lactose. So if lactase is broken down it is not there to help with the digestion and lactose intolerant individuals will have difficulty with the milk. Raw milk still contains lactase and assists in the digestion of the lactose, thereby allowing lactose intolerant individuals to drink it.