Could a low dairy (and low calcium) diet lead to obesity?

(Bob M) #1

In mice, mainly, but they have data for humans. It’s calcium related, primarily, but they link it to dairy at times:

image

A 10 pound weight loss, by asking people to eat 2 cups of yogurt daily. Interesting.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916522039466?via%3Dihub

Now, I’m not suggesting everyone go eat dairy, particularly if you’re at all allergic, but I see statements like “milk is to make baby cows grow and thus is fattening”, yet I see no scientific evidence this is true. In fact, I’ve been losing weight WHILE drinking (raw) milk.

Hat tip to Nick Norwitz’s Threads post.

(Joey) #2

Might be attributable to (unsweetened) yogurt being low carb - and rather filling. Eating 2 cups daily for a year would likely crowd out other carb-rich menu items that contributed to the subjects’ obesity to begin with.

And weigh loss helps reduce hypertensive symptoms.

Thus, attribution of calcium might be misplaced. :thinking:

(Bob M) #3

Not to mention the biome…which does…something(?). (I know the biome does something, I just can’t quite figure out what.)

They have other discussions, notable the “ROLE OF DIETARY CALCIUM AND DAIRY PRODUCTS IN THE REGULATION OF HUMAN ADIPOSITY: OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES”. Of course, this is observational, which means I’m already ready to ignore it. However, a lot of it goes against the conventional wisdom.

Then there’s this:

image
image.png602×696 86.1 KB

Again, because they are eating dairy, they are not eating something else. But this goes against the idea (common and also seen a lot here and elsewhere, particularly with carnivore podcasts) that dairy is somehow fattening. Maybe dairy is simply more satiating for some reason?

Of course, this is all totally meaningless if you can’t eat dairy because of lactose or whatever. But for those of us like me who can eat dairy with seemingly no ill effects, maybe we SHOULD be eating dairy?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

Wow! And here I was contemplating giving up cheese and yoghurt, in hopes of stimulating some fat loss, and it turns out I should be eating more! Yippee!

(Bob M) #5

Well, I just listened to a podcast from The Carnivore MD where he had a guy on there who was convinced milk was bad because milk is used to make small cows grow into larger cows.

And I’ve seen this exact statement parroted many times, including by well known keto/low carb/carnivore folk.

Yet I find zero scientific evidence of this. None. Zilch. Nada.

Now, wading into the “research” for dairy is problematic, because a lot of this uses low or no fat dairy, which isn’t great. And a lot of the studies add milk to a diet that’s already “reduced calorie”.

But I believe that if you can eat dairy, dairy is not fattening. Or at least I see no scientific evidence of such.

And to your point, you may find that eating more dairy could cause you to lose weight. Maybe one reason is because it’s like meat: you get to a certain point in eating meat, and you’re done. Maybe dairy is like that?

Of course, by “dairy”, I’m not talking ice cream.

I’m following a guy on Threads who is again doing another carnivore test, and he eats quite a bit of dairy, yet is muscular and thin, as in ripped.

And Nick Norwitz posted that he was going to eat cheese, yet he’s also ripped.

Can anyone show me a well controlled study (RCT) where full fat milk, yogurt, or cheese caused weight gain. Anyone?

(Joey) #6

Ha! We wouldn’t want to consume something a mammalian mother naturally produces to promote sustenance and growth in her young, now would we? :man_facepalming:

Well, I would suggest observing a newborn gaining weight while subsisting solely on her mother’s (full fat) breast milk provides sufficient evidence - there’s no need for a control where the mother refuses to nurse her child in order to prove a difference in outcome. :grimacing:

#7

It’s all about calories for me. And how my satiation works. So dairy pretty much keeps me fat unless I am super good at control and I am not. It’s not satiating for me (except maybe quark as that is protein rich and not very fatty, it’s the only dairy item where the fattiest version is like that) and I consider dairy my number one reason for overeating. When I don’t eat a lot of carbs, at least.

Red meat and seitan are my top satiating items, according to my experience. Egg is a bit worse, IDK about quark but it must be fine, even the other meats when not used all by themselves… And everything else should be kept at the minimum. Of course, it’s just my N=1. I totally believe there are many people who find some dairy items filling. I don’t have this thing, I need a lot of protein and fat to get satiated when I am hungry. And dairy just adds to my daily food intake, at least some kinds, it’s not like I could make a very informative experiment but I have experiences, I have been tracking a lot and saw patterns. Anyway, I eat my eggs, I eat my meat, they are in a range but if I am a bit indulgent with dairy, my total calories will be way too high for me to lose any fat. Hence my inability to lose fat on keto, I love dairy too much. I could balance it out with lean meat but I like to eat fattier than that. Except quark, dairy items bring too much fat. My fat/protein ratio is problematic enough without much dairy.

I don’t believe that just because a calf gain weight from cow milk, it triggers that. I don’t only drink milk, many dairy items are different from milk nutritionally (maybe they think there is something inherently fattening in dairy? well it makes no sense to me, many people loses fat with dairy and why wouldn’t they? I did that too, way before keto) - and the calf surely drinks enough to support the urge in its body to grow. And it grows differently than I would… I don’t say there isn’t anything in dairy that hormonally supports something in some people but people clearly don’t become inable to lose fat just because they eat dairy… Does it make it harder? I suppose, it depends. It may help some people (see the filling yogurt for some people, should I be envious? :smiley: that would be a ton of extra fat and sugar in my case for me :frowning: though in a right moment it could be a better dessert than some other. but my desserts are typically WAY better than yogurt. I have learned to be careful with dairy but yogurt is so fluid, I taste it and bam, it’s 3-400g and I have “ruined” my day. Parentheses as I don’t lose fat either way), it may be bad for others (like me) and it may not matter at all (my SO.
he gets satiated by calories, mostly. he does need his protein and fat but his fruity - raisins and something else galore - oatmeal fills him up just as well as anything else and it lasts at least 2 times longer than any meal of mine except my OMAD ones. his beloved dairy works just as well as everything else. he doesn’t need to track, he automatically eats about the same sized meals, I mean the calories but he gets plenty of fat and enough protein without trying too. he does need some decent volume unlike I do but as he eats decent sized meals and plenty of watery plant food, that’s no problem either).

By the way… About small animals growing big by drinking milk… Doesn’t other small animals grow big by eating animals? Like small snakes, among others? It’s not like animal bodies can’t make a tiny growing animal getting big! It happens to mammals too when they don’t drink milk anymore but still aren’t full sized yet and their species is carnivore…

Dairy means pure dairy to me, it sounds logical to me. If the ice cream is 100% dairy, it’s dairy, otherwise it’s not, in my eyes, at least.
Obviously a ton of added sugar changes things… I am unsure what else is in ice cream nowadays. By the way, I saw vegan ice cream. From rice. Wow. With barely any fat (all rapeseed oil if I remember well). I never understood why some vegans want to replace something not replaceable (based on some very unique animal item) with plant stuff not even having the right macros, not even remotely. It’s like the “bacon” from rice paper. At least use protein and fat, lots of fat :smiley: It won’t be anything like that but maybe a good replacement for people with the right taste? I can make way better vegan food than too many people and I try to stick to carnivore most of the time… But I always liked fat so obviously my plant-based foods aren’t extremely low-fat… That can ruin a dish. Or my day.

(Geoffrey) #8

I had to quit all dairy except butter for a couple of months because it was just too addictive for me. I’ve come back to eating it again but in very limited quantities. I make my own yogurt and it’s so good and so addictive I could just about eat a half gallon of it in one sitting.
I’ve come across several people who were struggling with their weight loss while eating carnivore found that is they cut out all dairy they began losing again. That’s not proof that dairy causes weight gain but it definitely tells me that I don’t want to overindulge.

#9

I have decided I really will try to minimize my dairy for a while now. It feels less challenging than before. If I quit coffee (still my goal and it’s nearly always disappointing now so I have a chance), I will use way less milk and cream and cheese will be the only potential problem item. But mostly if I need it anyway as I don’t have enough good meat. Unless I get a crunchy phase again. Cheese whisps are great. Many eggs trigger dairy eating too but not always and usually not in big amounts. It’s a choice, I didn’t accidentally ate a lot of Masdaam cheese with my 2 egg omelet 2 days ago, it was a conscious choice.
If I really liked lean meat (or lean anything… gluten has a chance but it’s not carnivore and I run out of it anyway) or didn’t need high protein or could do OMAD, I could afford almost all the dairy I would like - but I can’t have fatty meat and fatty dairy multiple times a day (usually 2. if 3, my meals are tiny so it’s fine) and expect fat-loss! As far as I know, it’s just this in my case.

Wow! And I have thought my 350-400g yogurt at once (it’s basically just tasting it, it goes down so quickly) was much! Well no, it was little but a lot of carbs and calories and zero satiation effect so not a good idea for me regularly.

No dairy is triggering to me (well except the yogurt, I can’t stop at 200g as it’s nothing) but I do like many kinds and easy to eat too much when I am hungry. Until now, even when I was careful, dairy just added up. If I use fewer kinds and focus on some good meat dishes more, I can do much better.

(Diana) #10

It’s the addictive property of dairy for me and I thought due to ease of overeating it was reason it was often noted to cut out on keto/carnivore?

Case and point. I was stresssed out yesterday and away went 3 oz of Gouda without blink of an eye. This directly meant 300 cals above what I normally eat.

Strangely enough in my recent random correlation I’m finding butter is not satiating like other saturated fats. I feel like I’m the only one in that camp though lol. So maybe has similar impact to my appetite?

Oddly cream has opposite effect, granted I consume it in coffee but cream in that context has never driven me to want more.

Yogurt, I’d want to try this and see if it’s satiating but I have such a small carb window. :frowning:

(Diana) #11

Yes exactly. It becomes a staple in my mind of how and when can I eat more cheese….

#12

I am sure many of us can do that with cheese (others more than I, I am usually careful to keep it low and it’s not very hard for me as good cheese is tasty and firm, I have a bigger problem when eating soft, even liquid dairy! but I am getting good with those too)… It’s not a huge amount of cheese, it’s not very many calories, it’s easy to eat this much (with quite a few eggs in my case)… Cheese is one of the big favs of many, me included. Good stuff. I have some boring lean pork and cheese, no wonder I grab some cheese… (I have multiple reasons to eat lean pork and it works okay-ish but sometimes I just had enough and still hungry. And egg with cheese helps with that.)

No fat satiates me. (Except as calories, I mean, of course I can’t get satiated by protein alone as it can’t give me enough calories. So I need fat to get satiation but fat alone doesn’t satiate me and eating 150 or 250g fat is the same satiation wise. It’s quite weird, actually…)
The exception is when I barely eat any protein. Fat fasts is for me I guess (when I am satiated until dinner as that is a requirement in my case).

Cream is mostly fat (and sugar), it probably makes me more hungry (I always suspected that a slightly creamy coffee in the morning brings my lunch earlier). So it’s a bit worse than butter. But glorious! :smiley: I LOVE cream. It’s my day #1 without it and I almost miss it… But I can do it. I will have cheese today (I had none yesterday, accidentally but I had cream and milk and coffees). Just a bit but I made a great, complex dish that calls for some on top. Peasant’s breakfast, it’s a rich scrambled eggs :slight_smile: Scrambled eggs tend to trigger my cheese and sour cream eating desires but they are so great together and I eat so few eggs nowadays, usually below 5 a day. There is no way but eating more meat for me now, I hope I can do it if I use a big variety.

(KM) #13

Lately I’ve been consuming more coconut product (mct oil, and coconut milk in my coffee) and less cow dairy. Just not that excited about cheese at the moment. I’ve lost 4 pounds sort of magically in the last month, not on purpose and without making any other deliberate changes. I have no idea if it’s just coincidence, I’m eating less, the mct oil is moving things through me faster, the dairy was causing some sort of retention - fat or water, I don’t know - or if it’s actually the reduction in dairy making a change, so maybe there’s no causation, but this seems to be doing me well. (I am definitely lactose tolerant in that I don’t have any obvious adverse reaction to any sort of dairy, but perhaps I’m still better off without so much of it?)

(Brian) #14

2 cups a day… that’s a lot of yogurt.

I make my own Greek yogurt, and I like yogurt. But no way I’d wanna eat 2 cups a day. I just don’t wanna.

A normal use of it for me personally might be 3/4 to 1 cup maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Or, maybe not even that.

When I first went keto, I commented to someone who was trying to talk me out of it insisting I was killing myself, that I ate all the butter I wanted to eat. Oh, he latched onto that and went on and on about the evils of butter. And I finally wormed the conversation around to how much butter he ate. Interestingly, I, who ate all I wanted, ate less than he who was telling me how bad it was.

Just because a person has permission to eat all of something they want does not mean that they will overeat that thing. Yeah, some may. But many of us will only eat just so much of it. If I want butter, I’ll eat butter. If I don’t want butter, I won’t. If I want cheese, I eat cheese. If I don’t want cheese, I don’t. I’m still of the opinion that a person’s “cravings” or “desires” for certain foods may be the body telling us that it wants / needs something in those foods. Yeah, that can get messed up in some people. But for many, I still think it works well enough to be useful.

#15

2 cups is close to the absolute minimum amount when I just taste yogurt… No way I could eat much less without some extreme self control but I don’t have that. It’s soft, it’s basically (fatty and sugary but) water so I can’t stop easily…

BUT… I do it occasionally (I buy 450g once in 1-2 months, now I do it less frequently), surely I wouldn’t want nearly that much every day. But sour cream is safe as I can eat a tiny bit per day (after years trying to minimize it). It was 20g today, in my soup.

Very true! I eat all the banana I want on keto since the beginning (or close to it in the beginning… I did have some stronger off days occasionally but I was content with my intake on keto, I ate all I wanted). It was my daily treat in the beginning, maybe 2-3g carbs on average per day, now it’s almost zero (extremely occasional). I still love it and still eat as much of it as I want.
So… While yogurt is a watery thing I can’t keep low (as I never trained myself to do it), I can do really little for a super rich, tasty thing where a little goes a long way and I needed it every day so I made it work on keto.
I definitely don’t eat whatever I wish as I would eat 300g fat and 200+ g protein then, possibly… But I eat all the things I REALLY desire. Even if it means quitting keto. I can somewhat shape my desires given enough time and motivation or just sheer stubbornness. Some of us really need that.

I still think I should go as low as possible with dairy so I keep trying. I have just run out of milk and fight the (not too bad) desire to open a box of cream (it’s 500ml, insane amount, I could avoid the spoiling as I can just put it into the freezer, it changes it but still good), I wonder how many days I will last. I will be pleased with 1… Even when I do it, I should focus on NOT making coffee. Tricky. It’s a too strong and wonderful combo and my self restraint is non-existent or close to that.

The problem with no dairy that I love most items very much separately. I can resist a few but ALL of them? Won’t happen. (Quark never counts.) I can’t even eat that much meat and meat is never a creamy thing, I need dairy for variety and for the uniqueness of the items.

(Brian) #16

Hmmm… I wonder if we’re talking about the same thing. (?)

The yogurt I make is Greek, which basically means that a lot of the whey (where many of the carbs live) is drained out of it. I don’t add any sugar or sweeteners. It is actually quite similar to sour cream only a bit thicker, also similar in flavor.

I haven’t bought yogurt to eat in a very long time. I do sometimes by one of the smallest Fage containers of plain Greek yogurt to use as a starter for a new batch. I will use a piece of that batch for numerous repeats before buying a new starter.

Anyway, if it’s that big of a problem, yeah, maybe best to avoid. I’m kinda thinking of alcohol. I like a drink. I don’t get drunk. I don’t want to get drunk. It’s not a downward spiral if I have one. But I know others can’t do that or it’ll not end well at all.

I guess we all battle different demons.

#17

The Greek yogurt I buy is way thinner than sour cream, it’s drinkable. It’s what the supermarkets keep. And its sugar content is quite high, very much for keto when one eats/drinks the whole thing.

But yogurt isn’t a problem of mine, thankfully. And I don’t buy very much cream either nowadays. And run out of all the milk including milk powder. I am hopeful now.

(Brian) #18

Wow, very much a different thing. What I make isn’t really very sweet, and there is no sugar added to it.

I’ve heard of some who make yogurt that either don’t drain as much whey off of it or mix a little whey back in it, apparently the whey is sweeter and it does have a nice smooth texture. Have even heard of people blending in a bit of water or stevia as well but I’ve never done that. If I let mine drain a little too long, it gets a consistency of something similar to ricotta cheese. Definitely not drinkable.

I like my cream (and some butter), mainly in my morning coffee, blended until frothy. I buy milk locally by the gallon and the cream rises to the top. Generally, cream is for the coffee, milk gets made into yogurt, occasionally a little for an ingredient to a recipe, or given to the barn cats. I don’t keep the whey off the yogurt and never really did figure out a good use for it other than perhaps feeding the blueberry bushes. (They seem to like it.They like acid soil. So I sometimes mix the drained whey into water and water them. with it. Totally different topic…)

#19

Of courser there isn’t any sugar added, it’s all natural. And it’s not sweet. It just has quite much lactose in it according to the label. Not super much per 100g but 400g disappears in no time, it’s just a minimal taste to me as it’s mostly hydration - and fat but that goes down quickly too. I could drink a ton of cream too, most probably, I rather not try :wink:

Maybe it’s the sourness… :thinking: Lactose is less sweet than sugar and most sweeteners but cream is definitely sweet while I don’t feel it when I drink Greek yogurt. I still want more sweetness from all the sugar in cream so I buy lactose free version (why the name? it has no added sugar so it keeps the lactose, merely lactase is added, isn’t that the case…?) and that is quite sweet, it’s a perfect sweet dessert when whipped :slight_smile: For someone who had enough carnivore-ish times to feel it really sweet, at least. I still love sweet things even if I can live without them (probably. never tried).

Normal supermarket yogurt isn’t drinkable but there are some “drinkable yogurts”, it’s in the Hungarian name. Less common but we have it. That is way more thin than even the Greek yogurt I buy.

I have whey powder (I was curious…). It’s 70% sugar and not good but sweet. Not as much as I would want from such a pure sugar but lactose isn’t so great at it. I prefer milk powder if I need some dairy in powder form for some reason, it is tasty, fatty and almost as sweet.

:scream:
(I dislike stevia as I can’t stand the taste. And sweetened dairy too, usually.)

Sounds nice. More substantial. I can get carried away with very soft food and just like the hobbits in The Lord of The Rings, I do like something to chew on. I usually get that from my non-dairy items but I like that dairy has variation.

Oh yes, blueberries. I want some bushes myself. My fruit garden is quite good at this point but I still don’t have ALL the fruits I could and like. I don’t think I miss more than blueberries (and more purple raspberries. and I regret I didn’t buy some strawberries with hot pink flowers when I saw some) and peach. I skipped both due to the not right soil but it can be helped! No amount of carnivore days can make me stop loving growing fruits. And my SO eats them.

Fruits aren’t very off topic anyway, blueberries suit yogurt! :wink:

(Brian) #20

We have a few blueberry bushes, not a lot. Probably got a gallon or so off of the whole lot of 'em this year, which isn’t much considering there something like 4 years old. I think we sold most of 'em at the farmers market though we had just a few handfuls for ourselves.

Strawberries are something we always have. We grow them so can have fresh about 8 or 9 months out of the year (many of ours are everbearing) which we do sell at farmers market. Funny thing about those, I guess I’ve kinda worn them out, so to speak, because unless there is a particularly deep colored, soft, obviously premium strawberry lookin’ at me, I’m probably not all that interested. Yeah, I like a good one, but I have little interest in mediocre. Wouldn’t even bother with store-bought. Rarely have a peach, those are a couple of times a year kind of thing. Love 'em, but the peach trees we have didn’t produce this year. I think we had one peach early on and it dropped off.

I know, fruit is a controversial subject, some like it, some don’t, some want to eat it, some don’t. I eat a little and don’t worry much about it, certainly not every day, and I’m a little fussy about what I do eat.

I did try to make some sugar-free jams this year for farmers market. It didn’t go well. Seems like everybody has a problem with something but not everybody has a problem with the same something. Some had a problem with stevia. Some had a problem with erythritol. Some had a problem with allulose. Some had a problem with honey. UUUGGGHHH!!! So I just make a “low sugar” jam and am done with it. Pure cane sugar, just not so much of it. It sells well, plus, if I want to indulge a little sometimes (it goes well with yogurt, too), I’ll have a little.

Life is messy. I haven’t figured out a lot of stuff and am getting old enough that some of it is now past me whether I’d wanna do something different or not. I have some carnivore days but not a lot. I have some keto days, a decent amount of those. And I have some low-carb days that aren’t exactly keto but still low carb. And then I have some days when I just eat. I can get away with that last one on occasion but not too often or I don’t feel so good and the scale doesn’t like me as well. Negative feedback is probably my best friend in that regard.