Why Some People Don't Do Dairy

I'll begin this article with a confession. I hate milk.

My aversion to milk stems from my vivid memories of an incident in my childhood. In the 1950's, when I was a small child, my family lived on a farm. Our part of Texas was struck by a catastrophic drought. The crops all failed for two years in a row, and we had to start hauling water 6 miles (10 km) each way once a week for drinking, bathing, and watering the garden and the animals.

To keep the farm and the house, my parents had to figure out a way to live on $75 a month. Part of their strategy was to raise vegetables, fruit, sheep, chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs, and to depend on a cow, kept in a pen near the house.

One day when I was about three years old, I went with my dad to milk the cow. My father almost got a full pale of milk when the cow decided to add another brown bovine product to the mix. Knowing that we had no money, we were almost out of groceries, and we would not have dairy that week if we did not use the milk, my father fished out the offending substance and off to the kitchen it went.

I have never voluntarily drunk milk again ever since.

I can tell you that from what I have seen of modern dairies, there is very little chance of your milk suffering similar contamination. However, there is one basic reason most people around the world stop drinking milk after they finish breastfeeding or bottle feeding as infants. Between 85 and 90% of people in the world, most people who don't have ancestors from northern Europe or certain cattle-raising tribes in Africa, don't make the enzyme lactase that digests the milk sugar lactose after the age of 6.

What Is Lactose Intolerance?

Lactose is a kind of sugar found in milk. The lactose molecule is known as a disaccharide, that is, it consists of two different smaller molecules of different kinds of sugars chemically bound together. Before the human body can use lactose for energy, the lactose molecule has to be broken down into its chemical constituents, glucose and galactose. Otherwise, the lactose stays in the lumen, or central canal, of the intestines, where it can ferment and cause intense gassiness.

What Can Be Done About Lactose Intolerance?

If you are one of the over 6 billion people in the world who is lactose intolerant, there are several ways you can use dairy products in your diet:

• You can consume dairy products in fermented form, as cheese and yogurt. Many people who cannot consume unfermented milk don't have a lot of problems with fermented milk.

• You can consume dairy products that already have the lactase enzyme added to them.

• You can take a lactase pill before you consume dairy products.

• You can add liquid lactase to dairy just before drinking them.

But even if you aren't lactose-intolerant, there is a good reason you might want to avoid dairy products altogether. That reason is, dairy products are addictive.

A Look at Your Brain on Dairy Products

Is there someone you know who just has to have a tall, cold glass of milk two or three or four times a day? Do your kids always scream for ice cream? Are you someone who eats cheeseburgers for the cheese?

Dairy products, particularly cow's milk, are literally addictive. The culprit in cow's milk is a protein called casein. This protein can circulate intact through the bloodstream and even cross the blood-brain barrier to enter the brain. Once inside the brain, it attaches to specialized receptors sites and activates neurons that generate the "yum" response many people also get to beef, wheat, and sugar.

The feeling of satisfaction we get from the casein in milk isn't exactly like the sensation we get from fruity flavors or spicy flavors or even (despite what advocates of vegan diets like to tell us) savory flavors from eating meat. Casein is transformed into chemicals that reset the biological clocks in our brains to tell us that it is bedtime. Some people literally get the feeling of being tucked into bed when they consume dairy products.

Our brains respond to casein proteins in some of the same ways they respond to morphine and alcohol. And the greater your brain's genetic tendency to be addicted to stimulants such as methamphetamines, the greater the effect of milk products, especially cow's milk products, on your brain chemistry.

And This Is Your Brain on Cheeseburgers

The brain's response to casein, which is especially abundant in cow's milk, is the reason many people find dairy products to be addictive. But the addictive power of milk is magnified when it is consumed with two other commonly addictive foods, wheat and meat.

Wheat contains compounds known as exorphins, which act in the brain in the same way as the pain-relieving chemical morphine. If you feel better after you eat bread, bagels, and baked goods, it's probably because the exorphins in wheat have calmed and relaxed you. From the perspective of the wheat plant, this is a very good thing. If you are lounging around on the couch after eating some wheat products, you won't eat more, leaving the wheat with more opportunities to reproduce.

There are also compounds called mu-opioids in beef blood. They are not broken down by cooking. These chemicals also circulate to the brain to give you a feeling of relaxation, safety, security, and satisfaction.

Add wheat and meat to milk and cheese and you have a potently addictive food combination. The more you eat, the more you want, except you become too lazy to cook it. You want your wheat and meat and dairy from a fast food place. You certainly don't want to get out in the wheat fields with a scythe, you don't want to take Flossie to the barn for milking, and you don't want to herd your cow to the butcher shop. You just want your cheeseburger now.

OK, I Get It, But I Still Want My Milk

If you know you are addicted to milk and you know your health would benefit from not drinking quite as much, why not try the next best thing, almond milk?

Low in carbohydrate but (as processed) high in calcium, almond milk is almost like milk in terms of nutritional content. It looks like milk, and drinks like milk, but it doesn't lock into addictive centers in your brain. If you are a dairy addict, try at least adding a bit of almond milk into your daily routine.