Cheeses, All Kinds

Cheese is perhaps the "least bad" of the dairy products. Its lactose mostly disappears in the fermentation process and its fats, seemingly, are poorly absorbed by the body.42 So you could occasionally treat yourself to a nice ripe Stilton or camembert with a glass of red wine.

Eating in fast-food restaurants is a little harder. Find a salad, if you can; discard the packet of salad dressing, unless it is simple oil and vinegar. Consider carrying a bottle of your own vinaigrette. Or eat the all-day breakfast: Eggs with tomatoes and mushrooms (without bread or roll) are acceptable, but avoid the bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast, waffles, syrup, and muffins. It is not ideal to eat the processed meat in fast-food restaurants, but if you must, order the burger (no cheese) or grilled chicken sandwich and throw away the bun.

One USDA group, "Meat, Fish, Poultry, Dry Beans, Nuts and Eggs," seems to have been lumped together because they are, on the whole, protein-rich foods. However, not all protein-rich foods (for example, cheese) are included and some protein-poor foods (for example, chestnuts) make the list.

They were early Europeans who lived in the treeless plains of what is now the eastern Ukraine. By 4000 B.C., these people had learned to keep herds of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. However, under the sparse conditions of the steppe, a migratory way of life became necessary. The animals consumed the grass faster than it could grow, so the herders had to keep their animals moving in search of new pastures and, as a consequence, abandon planting. This was the first time that human beings learned to live largely from their animals. In practice, this meant consuming the only renewable resource: milk, cheese, and other dairy products. To do that, they had to tame mother animals that had just given birth to a calf to allow milking by human hand. By about 2000 B.C., the herders had mastered their techniques and, constantly in search of new pastures, these nomads infiltrated much of northwest Europe, carrying the practice of dairy farming with them.

. . . Slavs, Germans, Scandinavians, and Anglo-Saxons became dairy farmers . . . , focusing on the cow. Some parts of southern Europe adopted, in a minor way, sheep's milk and goat's milk. Roquefort cheese is made from sheep's milk in Toulouse, France, and the Greeks use goat's milk to make feta cheese. To the east, the Mongols took up the practice of dairying with the yak (a kind of massive ox).

The unhealthy properties of milk fat are now mostly accepted. We are told that fat-free milk is good for us and it is even better to stay away from cream, butter, and ice cream. For many years now, the connection between these foods and high cholesterol, heart disease, strokes, and hardening of the arteries has been well known. Scientific findings show that dairy consumption from any source (cow, goat, sheep) and in any form (including skimmed milk, cheese, and yogurt) is associated with a number of serious, slow-acting diseases, including osteoporosis, high cholesterol, cancers, allergies, heart disease, and obesity. The notion that dairy products cause osteoporosis is so contrary to conventional nutritional dogma that it needs solid justification.

There are dozens of fatty acids, most of which are either neutral or harmful to health. Saturated myristic acid and palmitic acid are aggressive to arteries. They are particularly found in butter, cream, cheese, beef, pork, and lamb. Palmitic acid is also the chief component of palm oil, which is used in processed foods. However, the body converts another saturated fat, stearic acid (particularly found in cocoa butter), into oleic acid (as found in olive oil). Oleic acid, which dominates the family of monounsaturated fats, is neutral on the body. Olive oil is "good" because it does no harm.

What are acid-forming foods? Not foods that taste acidic, but rather the ones that after digestion and metabolism have the effect of acidifying the body. They are foods that contain sulfur, phosphorus, and chlorine— found chiefly in proteins like meat, fish, eggs, and cheese. For example, bland roast chicken is one of the most acidifying foods around. Starches like bread, flour, pasta, and cereals are also acid forming.