It must be a thing they teach in midwifery school or something. Both of the midwife groups we've talked to have encouraged the Paleo diet. I get it. I do. Eat only things that your ancestors would recognize as food. No processed crap. No refined carbs or sugars. There are a lot of great aspects to the diet that we actually follow. But on the whole, it's just not for us. There is too much emphasis on meat. And I gotta say: our Paleolithic ancestors were not eating a ton of meat. They had a feast of it when they brought down a big kill, but the winter months were pretty lean on the ground for meat sources. They had small portions of meat and most of their diet was made up of foraged food. They were Hunter/Gatherers. Not Hunter/Hunters.
But that's not really the point. The point is, I see many merits to the diet, but I don't want that much animal protein in my system. There is a lot of evidence to show that it just isn't that good for you in large (a.k.a American) quantities. And I want to know where my food comes from. If I don't know the farmer, how do I know how he treats his animals and his land and his workers? How do I know the animal had a good life before becoming my dinner? Also, I am a lifelong vegetarian. Meat does not smell good to me. In fact, it smells really gross. I cannot ever see a time when I will eat meat. Never had it before now, so why start?
Having said that, I could see a time when we add some small bits of dairy back into our diet. The midwives get their cheese and milk from an Amish farmer directly, so they know the animals are treated with care and respect and love, and the farmer is ethical in his practices. That doesn't sound so bad... They asked me to consider adding some dairy in as a source of B12. This vitamin can be hard for vegans to get, since it is primarily found in meat and diary sources. I'll need to do more research on it first. On the one hand, being deficient in a crucial vitamin means your diet isn't sustainable. I've long believed that if you have to take supplements (not counting prenatal supplements), you aren't doing your diet right. On the other hand, I'm not positive that it can't be found in vegan sources. One midwife told me it was only found in animal proteins, but I'm pretty sure that just isn't true. It's just harder to find in veg sources (and maybe harder to access?). My understanding is that B12 is a byproduct of a bacteria that lives on food. Since we wash our fruits and veggies before eating them, we wash all of that bacteria and B12 away. But we don't wash meat, we cook it. As such, the bacteria is destroyed but the byproduct - B12 - is left behind. Like I said, more research. My prenatal vitamin has B12 as a component, so I have some time.
The other thing the midwife said that is potentially cause for concern is that she sees postpartum hemorrhaging more frequently in vegan mothers. Now, this is all anecdotal, and I'm inclined to put less weight in the statement, but it's worth thinking about in general. Overall, however, my blood work came back from the lab "perfect" according to my OB. My iron, calcium, etc., etc., are all in a good range, so I'm not noticeably deficient in anything right now. Like I said, I have some time, but we are considering all of our options. I'm also undecided about the raw vs. pasteurized issue. I understand the raw proponents - you want those probiotics that live in dairy for your own healthy digestion. And there are some horror stories from dairies about how they get the bacterial counts down... (Bleach. Seriously.) But there are also some pretty nasty bacteria that thrive and flourish in dairy, particularly if the farm is not as careful about sanitizing. It's a hot-button topic, and both sides have "evidence" to support their claims. I'm not really interested in being dragged into it. Plus, pasteurization has saved countless lives - mainly children and those with weakened immune systems - since its invention. And I won't even get into whether or not human beings should even be eating dairy products in the first place. That's a discussion for another day. (And a shorter post than this one has become.)
And I'm not a huge fan of the raw milk proponents speech around the issue. I have frequently heard pasteurized milk referred to as "dead milk" with a condescending sneer. Most of these people don't mind eating dead animals, so I don't really get the holier-than-thou attitude about raw versus pasteurized milk. It's, at minimum, not helpful. The best way to win someone over to your cause is not to regurgitate pejorative rhetoric, but rather to present facts. Sometimes it seems that diet is the new religion, with all of the associate faith required. I fully recognize that my diet isn't optimal for everyone on the planet. In fact, I would go so far as to say that human beings are not designed to be vegan, but rather slightly omnivorous. My choice is in part a reaction to American gluttony, and in part due my sensitivity over the treatment of animals in our society. But I do stand by the idea that we all need to eat less meat and dairy. That's been proven time and again in study after study.
Aside from all that, though I love chevre and feta and cheese in general, and yogurt, the idea of dairy seems gross to me now. I've lived without it for almost four years, and the thought of adding some back into my diet is both appealing and disgusting. I also keep going back to The China Study. That book changed my life and my diet, and I highly recommend it. The author (T. Colin Campbell, a professor at Cornell University) basically advocates for a 95% vegan diet, but since it's difficult to make sure that you are getting no more than 5% animal protein, it's easier to just eat vegan, and have some feta on your salad once every year or something. One of the most interesting conclusions drawn in the book was that the countries with the highest dairy intake also have the highest rates of osteoporosis. Yes, milk has a ton of calcium. But you can't absorb most of it. And milk also has a ton of protein, which raises the acidity of your blood and not only makes it harder to absorb calcium from outside sources, but can induce your body to leech calcium from your bones in order to balance the pH of your blood. (I am paraphrasing from the book. The study was well-designed and well explained, so you should read it yourself rather than take my word for it.) The bottom line is that the dairy farmers lobbying groups have used specious reasoning. "Milk has a lot of calcium. Humans need calcium. You should drink milk." There are quite a few leaps of faith in between those sentences that they count on the public to make, which aren't necessarily true.
I kind of got derailed in this post and rambled around quite a bit... The main point is that our diet is a work in progress. We are constantly re-evaluating and adjusting. We're taking the dairy thing under advisement, but for now we're staying the course.
No comments:
Post a Comment