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For athletes and bodybuilders everywhere, the day would not be co*plete without a delicious serving of dairy, but with so many factors to consider, including the bad rap that milk, cheese, and butter gets for potentially raising out cholesterol levels, is dairy really the devil when it co*es to healthy eating? Not so, says Alan Argon in a recent Instagram post in association with the Nutritional Coaching Institute.

Not withstanding the obvious animal welfare and environmental concerns that mass food production on any scale is justifiably under the microscope for, Aragon says that fears of dairy foods negatively effecting our health are overblown. That’s great news for active people who rely on milk for essential minerals like calcium and significant shots of protein, but what about those who are lactose intolerant? Fortunately, Aragon has a solution for you too.

Dairy has often been dissed, but does the ant-dairy eating movement have scientific backing? “So, the answer is a little bit co*plicated,” says Aragon, breaking it down in his usual logical way.

“Dairy enco*passes a diverse set of foods, with a diverse set of effects. For example; butter is a dairy food and its effects are distinctly different from something like Greek yoghurt.”

With that acknowledged, the nutritionist points to an umbrella review by Zhang and colleagues, who all took a detailed look at multiple health outco*es as a result of eating dairy foods like cheese and milk, “and overall, they found that dairy does more good than it does harm to human health,” sums up Aragon.

And he’s right: The cheese study he refers to found that “although cheese is theorized to have detrimental effects on blood pressure and blood lipid profile based on its high sodium and saturated fat contents, a moderate quality of evidence suggests that cheese consumption does not increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and may even have protective associations with overall CVD (cardiovascular heart disease), CHD (coronary heart disease), and stroke incidence…”

The study also concluded that “milk consumption does more good than harm for human health.”

Alan Aragon Explains Why You Shouldn’t Discount Diary as a Healthy Food Source

“In fact, dairy was found to lower the risk for colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and osteoporosis,” adds the evidence-based coach. “But that’s not too surprising, since dairy is probably the best one-stop-shop that we know of in nature for bone building, and muscle building nutrition all in one package.”

So then, aside from the animal welfare or environmental concerns, why has dairy received such a bad rap in terms of it’s value as a healthy food source? “The main problems with dairy is that a large proportion of the population is lactose intolerant,” explains Aragon. “In other words, they simply don’t have the enzymatic machinery to break down lactose and properly digest it.”

Fortunately, Aragon has the answer: “Those with lactose intolerance would need to either find lactose free versions of the dairy products they like, or keep their portions down to where they only get a maximum of about 12g of lactose in a single serving, and preferably that would be consumed with other food groups to minimize the potential for GI distress.

The good news is that foods like cheese and most yoghurts are low lactose foods. Cheese has pretty much a negligible-to-nil amount of lactose in it.” Aragon acknowledges that, just like with nuts for example, some people are allergic to certain dairy foods and are forced to avoid them. “But for people who can tolerate dairy and who can get around it by using either lactose free foods, or lower doses of dairy at a time, then it is a net positive for human health.” Just remember, like with all foods, to monitor your total calorific intake.

For more evidence-based co*mentary on fitness and nutrition follow Alan Aragon on Instagram: