Dairy & Your Heart

Occasionally I hear that a client is cutting back on dairy in an attempt to lose weight or improve their heart health often at the expense of addressing their real dietary problems. Dairy products are extremely important in the diet and reducing them can cause many more problems than it attempts to solve. Dairy products have a distinct advantage over other foods in their ability to supply calcium - while many other foods provide calcium, it can be almost impossible to consume them in sufficient quantities to make a real difference. Not so with dairy. And calcium is essential for strong bones and helping to prevent all-too-common conditions like osteoporosis in later life.

Often I am asked if it's okay to include dairy products on a cardiac or heart friendly diet. And like all dieticians, the answers is a resounding YES! :-). My advice is to choose low fat dairy products, which are no less helpful in terms of calcium content but do have less fat. The advice for recommended dairy intake is three servings per day for adults - usually made up of milk, yogurt and cheese. For teenagers and pregnant or breastfeeding mums, it should be five servings per day. Yogurts and milk tend to be lower in fat than cheese products, so if your goal is to reduce fat intake, you might want to substitute more milk and yogurt and a little less cheese. 

To put it in context, a pot of low fat organic yogurt has 1.7g of fat whereas a a large Danish pastry has a whopping 32g of fat!

But - and this is the important bit - take care to look at the bigger picture and address the real dietary issues: if you want to eat well for a healthy heart, it is far more sensible to reduce or cut out foods at the top of the food pyramid, like cakes, biscuits, chocolates and crisps. To put it in context, a pot of low fat organic yogurt has 1.7g of fat whereas a small, treat size bar of chocolate has 3g of fat; a chocolate biscuit has 4g of fat; a medium sausage roll contains 12g of fat and a large Danish pastry has a whopping 32g of fat!

In addition, foods from the top of the pyramid tend to be nutrient-dilute as they are poor sources of important nutrients such as calcium and vitamin D etc. In addition to supplying calcium and vitamin D dairy products help add to healthy eating by their ability to supply protein and probiotics. Protein is the building block nutrient that is needed to help keep our body cells healthy - essential for healthy skin, hair and nails. Meanwhile probiotics are those healthy bacteria that help keep our intestinal flora balanced and fight harmful gastric bugs.

Click here to check out the full food pyramid from the Health Promotion Unit at the Department of Health & Children.

Read Siobhan's column on Understanding Cholesterol.