I personally still think its the high fat food the french eat that keeps them slender, and most of the fat is from cheese and meat, i.e. cheese / dairy is not evil for anyone who is not allergic to it, its an excellent way to keep your fats up.

Oh and I'd take the theory that North Europeans have muted to tolerate cheese while the rest of the world didn't with a pinch of salt.... by the same logic the Americans would have muted to tolerate doughnut... but they didn't ... no one muted... its as it is, some people are intolerant or allergic to dairy, but this is a minority, most of the nations are not allergic and there is no harm from consuming dairy...

/disagree Humans still aren't calves no matter how much we like to eat cheese.

Got it totally wrong, sandydown. If you read the article I posted you will note that the mutation about 10 thousand years ago relates to MILK drinking, i.e. raw milk, not cheese.

There are a lot of dairying societies out there that cannot drink milk - for example Turkey - but they eat a lot of dairy. How come? well they ferment the lactose out of the milk to produce yogurt and cheese. Yogurt is actually a Turkish word, which says something.

Well may you take it with a pinch of salt but I enjoy new and well reasoned research that impinges all things Paleo.

This is a very silly comparison. Americans started eating donuts a coulpe hundreds years ago, while we're talking about around 10.000 years of adaption for the North Europeans.

Lactose intolerance varies greatly between people of different decents. Asians for example have a much higher rate of it than North Europeans.

But, hey, don't get me wrong. I don't really think dairy is bad for people that are not allergic/intolerant to it. My point is just that it is a fact that ethnicity does matter.

Did you notice that this was the paleo forum? Paleo = dairy-free. No one's yoinking the cheese off anyone else's plate. I'm even drinking cream in my coffee as I write this post: but just because I choose to indulge in cream doesn't mean I can't also acknowledge the science and my own experience which confirms that I'm better off dairy-free.

You forgot white bread in your list of foods that seem to save the French from heart disease.

Ditto what Kristine said.

Enjoy your dairy, by all means, but don't expect that we, in the Paleo sub-forum, are going to celebrate it as a wonder food anytime soon.

Nope, not odd at all. I tried some of that 'ghee' the other day - now admittedly, it's possible I didn't make it properly...

Here I am - in dairy intolerance hell. Runny nose, sneezing, serious bloating, cramps and all that.

Fun huh?

As to the question of what's so bad about dairy - well, my reactions to it have caused me to re-think whether it's a good thing for anyone to eat.

Kind of like how we recognize that white flour or whatever isn't such a good thing to be eating. Oh sure, maybe we can tolerate it - but does that mean it's a good thing for us to eat?

I don't think so.

How does your allergy have any bearing on how well other people's bodies respond to dairy? How is it different from eating tree nuts, even though some people go into anaphylactic shock or break out in hives after consuming those?

I lose more and feel better with yogurt on a regular basis. No one in my family has ever broken a bone drinking milk throughout their childhood years, even with the SAD. That's how I know dairy can be a good thing. Wouldn't be able to stay mostly paleo without it!

Guess it's all comes down to a YMMV situation.

Hey - I've done an all dairy experiment for the last 3 weeks (only ate cream, cheese, veg, salad and tofu/protein powder to increase my protein intake), I have had no side effects at all I found that with dairy I get satisfied a lot easier. I don't drink milk as I never liked the taste even as a kid, but I do eat a lot of yogurt, cheese and most importantly cream

I am aware however that some people can be allergic to dairy and its not good for them to eat the stuff. This don't mean that the majority and the rest of the world should quit eating cheese... heck I think my system doesn't like red meat , this doesn't mean the rest of you should be banned from eating meat.

The majority of the world doesn't eat dairy products to begin with, and perhaps they should stay that way.

I just did Atkins induction for two weeks for the first time ever, and I found myself resorting to a lot of cheese to keep the calories up. It made my skin take a definite turn for the worse, and I'm not sure but I think it caused me to get what I call "mouth zits." They're on the inside of my lip and kind of look like water blisters. I usually bite them and pop them and they leave a weird little crater. Sounds delightful, huh? Anyway I got a lot of them on induction, and I am currently attributing them to the dairy. I also had some GI issues return that I didn't think were related to dairy but I guess they were.

Well at least now I know for sure the stuff's bad for me.

Just to step in for a second, Kallyn, mouth zits are from B12 deficiency.

You make a very good point. I hadn't thought of it in quite that way.

Makes sense. I mean - there are people who are allergic to all kinds of things, but they aren't bad foods for everyone.

That said though, for people interested in trying to follow a more Paleo-style diet - the dairy is something to try to avoid.

I don't think I'd have given up the dairy if I didn't have to. After giving up the dairy, I become more interested in Paleo. And 'Paleo' has helped me in terms of getting away from processed meats, focusing on whole foods and so on. Geeze - I even gave up Diet Coke.

I'm on track to giving up all forms of artificial sweeteners now too. I'm sure I'll have them on rare occasions, but it's neat how the dairy issue forced me to become acquainted with Paleo-style eating, and in turn, how 'Paleo' has helped me improve my diet in many other ways.

There's plenty of issues with dairy outside of people's individual responses to it. You don't have to search far in this forum to find them documented.