Years ago I was scared to eat dairy.
I was struggling with constant knee pain and after doing an elimination diet I found that avoiding dairy made the pain go away.
If I ate even just a tiny bit of it I'd feel fatigued and when I woke up in the morning my finger joints would be puffy and my knees would ache.
I fell into the trap of thinking that because dairy affected me in this way, that all dairy was bad and caused inflammation for every person. I thought that it wasn’t fit for human consumption and bought the lie that milk was just baby cow food.
Until…I was introduced to the work of Weston A. Price.
Dr. Price was a dentist that studied native cultures and the foods they thrived on. Many cultures had a source of raw dairy that was filled with important nutrients that these people relied on for radiant health, fertility, and immunity to disease!
Here’s one example…
One people group that Dr. Price studied was an isolated Swiss culture that didn’t have modernized foods, like refined white bread and refined sugar. A typical lunch for school-aged children was a slice of whole rye bread, a piece of summer-made cheese that was about as large as the piece of bread, and fresh goat or cow's milk. Read more about Dr. Price and traditional vs modernized foods here.
In our modern culture filled with food sensitivities, this meal sounds inflammatory but historic cultures thrived on these properly prepared foods. The unmodified grains that were not contaminated with roundup were sprouted before consumption making them easily digestable. The milk was raw making it easy to digest and full of nutrients.
As I mentioned in this article there is no good real food replacement for getting essential minerals like calcium and vitamins like K2 from milk. If you’ve been struggling with dairy sensitivity it is crucial for your health that you figure out why you react to dairy instead of just avoiding it forever.
I sought to introduce dairy back into my diet when one day I was reading about how butter contained the precursor to GABA which is a neurotransmitter we need in order to feel happy. At that time I was really struggling with my health and you bet I wanted to do everything I could to feel happy. I started eating butter and from there I went on to eating all aspects of raw milk. I had already done a lot of work on my gut health but was just very hesitant to add any dairy back in.
Can this work for you? Can you heal your digestion enough to take advantage of whole raw milk?
For the vast majority of people, the answer is yes!
Here are some tips to get started supporting your digestion as you prepare to reintroduce dairy.
1. Eliminate processed foods
In order to properly digest food, you need a healthy gut lining. Your gut gets damaged when you eat refined sugar, seed oils, refined carbs, foods that are sprayed with roundup (like wheat), and genetically modified foods (like corn, soy, and canola). All of these are commonly found as ingredients of packaged foods on grocery store shelves. Stay away from these foods in order to avoid more damage to your gut and digestive system.
2. Properly prepare foods to support your gut and digestion
Legumes, grains, and nuts are the seed of a plant. They contain protective mechanisms that make it hard for your gut to break them down and fully digest them. This is because the seed is designed to survive so it can regrow a new plant. Soaking and sprouting these foods helps to predigest the bean, rice, or nut allowing it to break down its protective coating before we ingest it. This process protects our gut lining from further damage and also makes the nutrients in the food more available to us. For more info on how to properly prepare grains and legumes check out this video.
3. Add in probiotics
Probiotics are good bacteria that live in the gut and help to digest food, fight bad bacteria, and maintain the gut lining. Having adequate levels of good bacteria in your gut aids in the process of digestion. Fermented dairy products, like kefir and yogurt, are partially broken down before you eat them and contain probiotics that enhance enzyme activity for digestion.
4. Replenish stomach acid levels
Stomach acid is very important for overall digestion and especially for the breakdown of proteins. Milk proteins can cause sensitivities or allergies if not digested properly. Pathogens and stress both reduce the amount of stomach acid the body makes. To ensure proper levels of stomach acid before your meal here are 3 things you can do.
Mix 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar, with 2oz of room temperature water and drink with your first few bites of food.
Take a digestive bitter like this one before your meal, makes sure to hold it in your mouth for 30 seconds before swallowing
Use a stomach acid supplement like this one.
5. More in-depth personalized testing
If you’ve been supporting your digestion and you still are not able to tolerate raw dairy the next step would be to do a stool test to see what pathogens are red flags in your gut. bad bacteria and other pathogens can reduce your stomach acid levels, create inflammation, cause a leaky gut and keep your digestion from working properly.
With my clients, I use a Gi MAP stool test which will reveal ideal and problematic levels of bacteria, pathogens or parasites, and inflammation and digestive markers. Once I have a client’s test results I create an individualized protocol to bring the gut and digestive health back in balance and optimal function.
6. Introduce slowly
When your body hasn’t been eating a certain food for a while it may take some time to get used to that food again. Your brain may also take a little while to stop being scared about reacting to the food. The fat part of dairy (cream and butter) along with fermented dairy products are easier to digest. If you have been avoiding all dairy for a while try this breakdown of a slow introduction. Ideally, try one item for a few days before adding in the next item.
Ghee (butter with all the milk solids taken out) you can find this in most health food stores
Raw butter
Raw cream
Raw kefir
Raw yogurt
Raw cheese
Raw Milk
I never recommend eating large amounts of pasteurized milk but it is nice to know that if you’re in public or eating a meal at someone else’s house that you aren’t going to suffer repercussions from eating something with dairy in it. The same pattern as above also applies to pasteurized dairy products with butter, cream, and fermented products being easier to digest than cheese and fluid milk.
If you’re new to the idea of supporting your digestion download my guide 5 Steps For Optimizing Your Gut Health PDF here.
