 Could cheese be part of a healthy diet? All right, most people would be lying if they said they don't love cheese. So for all you cheese lovers out there, there's something you need to know. Four out of the five blue zones have one food item in common that actually explains their longevity and it's not beans and grains. It's cheese. So I say cheese please, but hold on one moment. Let me tell you which cheese is best. Now most dairy products in the United States come from a breed of cow such as the Holstein, that black and white cow that contains a highly inflammatory milk protein called casein A1. Now casein A1 is a lectin-like protein and it was actually caused by a mutation in cows about 2,000 years ago. In other words, most cows didn't have this mutation. They had what was called casein A2. Casein A2 is still produced by cows like the Guernsey cow, the Swiss brown cow and the Belgian blue cow. Fun fact, Jersey cows are half A1 and half A2 casein, but for pure casein A2 cows, you gotta have Guernsey, Swiss brown or the Belgian blue. Now how does casein A1 negatively affect the body? It actually can cause an autoimmune attack on the beta cell, the pancreas and cause literally type one diabetes. It can also cause gastric distress and it can really cause leaky gut in a lot of my patients. In fact, many people who think they're lactose intolerant are actually reacting to the casein A1 in American cow milk. I get a chuckle out of the number of my patients who go to France and Italy and have the ice cream or gelato in France or Italy and are shocked that there's no lactose in French and Italian ice cream because they don't react to it. It's because they're eating A2 ice cream and not A1 and there's plenty of lactose in French and Italian gelato as I assure you. All right, so how do you know where the A2 is hiding? Which cows and which cheeses are free of the casein A1 protein? Now most cows in Southern Europe are casein A2. So what you don't want to have is cheeses, believe it or not, from England, Spain, Ireland and Northern Germany. Now cheese made from A2 milk is now becoming more widely available in the United States. These milk products are much closer to what our ancestors actually ate. Now if you want to learn more about this topic, check out episode 176. I talked with the Alexandres, one of the only A2 milk farmers in the United States. But there are plenty of other types of cheeses that are A2. Goats milk cheeses, feta cheese, goat's milk brie, goat's milk mozzarella and now there's even goat's milk cheddar cheese. There are great sheep milk cheeses out there. Pecorino Romano, Pecorino Sarda, feta cheese from sheep and Menchango are all great sheep milk cheeses, all A2s. Parmigiano Reggiano cheese from Italy, an aged great cheese for you. Bufalo mozzarella, commonly called mozzarella di bufalo. There's now a buf, B-U-F, creamery from Uruguay which is readily available in a lot of shops here in the United States. Also looked for aged cheeses from Switzerland. And if you can find them, look for the word raw on any French, Swiss, Italian cheeses even from America from goat and sheep cheeses. It turns out that there's exciting new research that bacteria in raw cheeses that aren't pasteurized actually make compounds in the fermentation of cheeses that reduce our satiety, that makes us less hungry. And one of the interesting facts from Europe is that cheese eating does not contribute to obesity and remarkably cheese eating lessens coronary artery disease progression. Fascinating study that just came out of Norway. So they're compounds particularly in raw cheeses that are really beneficial to your health but more important than that. Four out of the five blue zones, their secret to their longevity is the goat and sheep cheese and goat and sheep yogurts that they routinely eat. Now, you do have to be aware that a number of my patients with leaky gut and particularly patients with autoimmune disease may react to not only casein A1 but casein A2 and the other components of dairy. So when in doubt or when you notice that cheese yogurts don't agree with you, even though you're using A2 milk cheeses, then you're probably one of those people that ought to at least for now avoid cheeses. So what do you do? There's actually a number of quite decent cheese substitutes out there. One of them that I like a lot is Kite Hill ricotta cheese. Now it's made from almonds, it's made from blanched almonds. I like to add olive oil to it to change its consistency. There is a so delicious vegan mozzarella and cream cheese and there are a number of products made by Violife, V-I-O-L-I-F-E that are useful and I use them for my patients who are sensitive to both casein and A2 components of cheese. Okay, why not just drink A2 milk? Why not just drink goat milk? Why not just drink sheep milk? Well, remember that milk has insulin-like growth factor, IGF-1, and IGF-1 is the factor that makes baby sheep, baby cows, baby goats grow quickly. And having an animal that's subject to a predator like a wolf or a coyote grow quickly is a really good idea. On the other hand, a human is designed to grow incredibly slowly. So we really want to avoid the effects of IGF-1. The good news is that that's a soluble factor. So when you make cheese, that factor is eliminated. So that's another reason that cheese may be so good for you. Finally, we're beginning to learn that cheese has two fatty acids, they're saturated fatty acids, called C15 and C17 that I write about in Unlocking the Keto Code that have remarkable mitochondrial boosting benefits and studies out of the Framingham Heart Study show that one of the things that was constant in people who avoided heart disease over a long period of time was the amount of C15 and C17 in their blood, fun fact. All right, now remember that just because something said grass-fed doesn't tell you about the breed of the cow. So you gotta be buyer-beware. You're better off getting raw cheeses from France, Italy, or Switzerland where they have all been grass-fed and they're all casein A2. So how much cheese per day is okay? Well, believe it or not, there are people in my practice who eat one, two, three ounces of cheese a day do extremely well. Now, beware, your local doctor may say, oh my gosh, your LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol is going up and you have to stop the cheese. And it turns out we now have some very sophisticated tests to look at whether that LDL is actually sticky or oxidized. And the fun thing I'm happy to report is that those cheese eaters who have high LDL actually do not oxidize their LDL which may partially explain why this study out of Norway showed the more cheese you ate, the less coronary artery disease you got. Exciting new news. All right, so how do you use cheese? Well, I have a delicious mac and cheese recipe online and in my books. And if you're dairy sensitive, it calls for sweet potato, coconut milk, oil, olive oil, flour, and your choice of approved cheese. I prefer goat's milk cheddar in this recipe. It's delicious. I also have a broccoli cheddar cheese soup recipe found in the plant paradox. So if you still have an issue with cheese, give it up entirely. Give these delicious vegan cheeses a try. Listen to your body. Fine, there's no human need for cheese. So if it doesn't work for your body, just skip it. But there's plenty of room for other delicious uncouplers like dark chocolate. Okay, so most people do not be afraid of cheese. Embrace the health benefits of the cheeses I've listed. And if you're one of the few people that still reacts to cheese, get your mitochondrial and couplers elsewhere. Make sure to check out the next one here. Mushrooms have incredible properties that you should know about to improve your health, your brain health, and your longevity.