Why I Keep The Fat In My Dairy
Besides the fact that fat free dairy tastes gross
If you open the double doors to my fridge right now, you’d find a lot of dairy.
Whatever image you conjured when you read a lot, go ahead and double that amount and then the image in your head would be more accurate.
We start the week with 3-4 gallons of whole, raw milk (that means our milk has not been pasteurized or homogenized at all). I ferment a 1/2 gallon from this weekly purchase into Kefir. You’ll also find grass-fed butter that I buy in bulk, Greek yogurt, regular yogurt, sour cream, and a large assortment of mostly raw cheeses.
My kids and I love the beautiful food that comes from cows . . . it’s just delicious. But it’s more than that, too. Dairy is filling: it packs so much protein that a small snack is enough to leave you feeling satisfied so you don’t overeat. It’s delicious: Cheese with a drizzle of raw honey. Yogurt covered in granola. A glass of milk with a date stuffed with peanut butter. Eggs cooked in butter. A cup of coffee with a big dollop of cream you skim off your milk. Mmmmmm, the combinations are endless and they’re all delicious. Most importantly: they’re filled with nutrition you don’t find in abundance in any other food. Dairy is a unique source of:
Calcium (hard to find bioavailable calcium in other foods. people try to say you can get calcium from plant foods like spinach, but research proves that our bodies absorb about 5% of the calcium in spinach vs. milk1)
Protein (8 oz of whole milk has 8 grams of protein; 1 oz of cheese has 7)
Fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K (the word fat-soluble is important here. The fat acts as carriers of these vitamins and drops them off in the right places throughout our bodies. Without fat present, these vitamins can’t easily dissolve and be absorbed)
Certain B vitamins like B6 and B12 (B12 is not available in plant foods, that’s why vegans are highly encouraged to take a B12 supplement)
Probiotics (did you know that unprocessed, raw milk contains beneficial bacteria that protects against pathogens and contributes to a healthy flora in the intestines? it’s also loaded with enzymes like lactase that help our bodies digest the lactose—it is any wonder people are lactose intolerant? they’re processed milk doesn’t have any lactase in it!)
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA has been found to have anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties, can improve the immune system and metabolize the lipids in our cells. CLA also plays an important role in infant growth and health2)
Dairy also contains vitamin K2, which is not widely available in other foods. This vitamin helps move important minerals in our bodies to the right places: our bones and teeth. It’s no wonder, despite a “healthy” diet, my teeth suffered with persistent cavities for so much of life (cavities are often a result of teeth not having the nutrients they need). . . until I started eating real dairy. Fermenting your dairy, like I do when I make Kefir, multiplies the Vitamin K2 content in your dairy even more.
Finally, one of my favorite things about the fat in particular is that good fats in general help slow down nutrient absorption so that we feel fuller longer.3 This is why I almost never need a snack between breakfast and lunch or even lunch and dinner (outside of my occasional afternoon latte, which is made with whole milk). When my eggs are cooked in butter and I’m drinking 8oz of milk with the meal, I stay full and satisfied with no cravings.
Need I say more about why dairy is one of my favorite foods?
I used to think I was lactose tolerant because eating too much dairy made me bloated, gave me stomach cramps, and just made me feel overall icky. That’s why I didn’t eat too much of it. But that was before I discovered that dairy was not the issue for me. It was the quality and amount of processing of the dairy.
And I think the same is true for many people.
It’s why the demonization of dairy drives me bananas. Not only has dairy been given a bad rap, but full-fat dairy has been turned into an untouchable food.
The “science” (in quotes because this “science” is poorly conducted and extremely biased. Read The Big Fat Surprise for a deep dive into the history) tells us full-fat dairy has too much saturated fat, which can cause high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, etc. Harvard has been saying this for decades.4 Arguable the “smartest” university in the U.S. refuses to take into account any new research that says otherwise, and you can read about the reason why here (to summarize: the man who served as head of the nutrition department for 25 years is a devout Seventh Day Adventist—a religion that promotes a plant-based diet—and he’s personally/religiously promoted this kind of diet his entire reign at Harvard).
Why We Stopped Eating Full Fat Dairy (and other “fatty” foods)
Institutions like Harvard, the National Institute of Health, and the USDA advise all humans to eat a lot less meat (none if possible), dairy, and eggs, and to increase their consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
In fact, in 1985, the USDA recommended anyone over the age of 2 switch to low-fat dairy products as an approach to control fat intake. How sad is that? A 2 year old restricted from real, whole foods by their pediatrician without any demonization of highly processed foods like Goldfish, Lunchables, or alternatives to whole milk that offer nothing but sugar.
How is this working out for people in the real world?
First, despite the widespread acceptance of these guidelines (public schools and hospitals won’t even serve full-fat milk! but not to worry, they’ll happily serve soda) our country has never been sicker or fatter.
In 2021, 12% of the population had diabetes and 38% of the population had prediabetes. 1 in every 5 deaths in the U.S. is attributed to heart disease.5 An estimated 50 million Americans have an autoimmune disease.6 And 74% of Americans are either overweight or obese.7
You read that correctly: SEVENTY FOUR PERCENT.
Despite Americans reducing their fat consumption in the U.S. in the last three decades,8 we continue to see an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even infertility.9 So what’s going on here? Is fat really the problem?
Does The Fat in Dairy (or Any Real Food) Make You Fat?
Let me just preface this by saying that every body is different and requires different amounts of macro nutrients to maintain a healthy body weight. There isn’t one perfect diet for every person. Some people can’t tolerate dairy, while others can only tolerate it once they’ve switched to the real, unprocessed version. That’s why this question isn’t completely black and white.
But I will say, much of the research in the past decade has shown us that fat from whole foods do not make us fat, contrary to popular belief. Here’s some of that research:
In 2016, scientists studied 18,438 women to see if their intake of dairy would impact their weight and/or put them at risk of becoming obese. These were women at a “normal” weight who didn’t have cardiovascular disease, cancer, or diabetes. Guess what they found after 11 and 18 years of following these women?
A greater intake of high-fat dairy products was associated with less weight gain. Their official conclusion reads: “Greater consumption of total dairy products may be of importance in the prevention of weight gain in middle-aged and elderly women who are initially normal weight.”
This 2013 review looked at several observational studies on the relationship between high fat dairy foods and obesity and cardio metabolic disease. This review found that the current observational evidence does not support the hypothesis (emphasis on this being a hypothesis, not a fact) that high fat dairy foods contribute to obesity or cardio metabolic risk. In fact, studies examining the relationship between high-fat dairy consumption and metabolic health reported either an inverse or no association.
International scientist and nutrition researcher Andrew Prentice, put it this way: “In global ecologic comparisons, milk and dairy intakes are strongly associated with adult height . . .” No wonder Americans are getting shorter . . . Prentice goes on to say, “Despite concerns that the high-saturated-fat content of full-fat dairy products would promote heart disease, recent meta-analyses show that dairy consumption is neutral or beneficial for weight control, coronary disease, diabetes, hypertension, and most cancers.”
Finally, over 8 years, scientists monitored postmenopausal women on a low fat diet who had also increased their intake of vegetables, fruits, and grains . . . sounds like a pretty good idea, right? No. This diet did not reduce reduce the risk of cardiovascular heart disease or stroke.
When you think about what I wrote earlier (fat helps you feel fuller longer), it makes sense why full fat dairy could help control weight gain, doesn’t it? If you’re satisfied and not experiencing cravings, you won’t be tempted to snack on easy-to-grab, highly processed foods or overeat in general.
It’s quite alarming to me that despite all the evidence we have that full-fat dairy is not making Americans gain weight or develop heart disease, we continue to stock hospitals, schools, and nursing homes with strictly low fat and fat free foods and drinks. It’s more alarming that we’re afraid of full-fat real food, but we allow endless amounts of sodas and other highly processed foods into these same institutions.
One quick stroll through a hospital cafeteria and you’ll find all the same foods you’d find in a gas station: every type of soda (even the diet ones, which have carcinogenic ingredients), chips, cookies, french fries, candy of every description, muffins with 50 ingredients, and so on. How the heck does a building FULL of DOCTORS and other medical professionals allow this? (Yes, i know they have bigger fish to fry . . . but, wait, do they?! Food IS medicine.)
Why aren’t we cautious about what those foods are doing to us?
We’ve got it all backwards in the U.S.
The fat in our dairy (and any real food) matters. Dairy is not a whole food if it’s lacking the fat because the fat is an essential part of the food.
Take away the fat and you take away an essential macronutrient that helps our bodies absorb all the micronutrients.
There’s no need to be afraid of whole milk, whole milk yogurt, butter, etc. What we need to be more cautious of—the foods that are actually negatively impacting our health—are refined sugars, refined carbohydrates, and all highly processed foods.
I’m thankful there’s more and more research coming out around highly processed foods and how they contribute to obesity and other metabolic conditions. But until this research results in new health recommendations, I encourage you to do your own research around saturated fats.
You might just discover—like I did— that doing everything the USDA tells us not to do will heal every ache, boost your mood, improve your sleep, curb cravings, and leave you feeling better than you’ve ever felt before.
Great breakdown on dairy, Johanna. Dairy will always be a polarized food in the nutrition world. Some love it and some hate it. I agree with you though, full fat is where all the flavour is. It is also where most of the nutritional value is as well. Vitamins A, D, E and K are all fat soluble meaning they are found in fat. When we process the dairy and remove the fat, we remove the nutrients, of which they know because they add those vitamins back in a synthetic way. Doesn't make any sense. And yes, we need to get over the fear of animal fats and not listen to the old studies that have been debunked. But that is a whole other discussion.