Is cream bad for you?
Not in Dr. Martin's book. He took two cartons from the same dairy into the studio, one of 1% partly skimmed milk and one of 35% heavy whipping cream. They looked almost identical on the outside. The labels told a different story, and it is the opposite of what most of us were raised to believe.
His case against the low fat carton and for the cream comes down to one line on the nutrition panel: sugar.
Cream versus milk: what the two labels show
He started with the milk. Partly skimmed, with vitamin A and vitamin D added back in. Whole milk straight from the cow, he says, would not need either added. Then he went to the sugar line.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 120313 grams of sugar in one cup. Okay? So a little under four teaspoons of sugar in one cup of milk.
Then the cream, same dairy, same size carton.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203Now I'm going to show you the difference in 35% cream, okay? 35% cream. And we're going to look at the sugars in cream. Zero sugars. Zero sugars.
Sugar in cream vs milk
This is the comparison most people never make. When you take the fat out of milk, he says, people do not realize what is left behind. Leave the fat in, as cream does, and the sugar line on his carton reads zero.
That is why he tells people to read labels rather than trust the word "low fat" on the front. The two cartons sit side by side on the shelf, and the one that sounds healthier is the one with almost four teaspoons of sugar in every cup.
"So you see the deception in labeling, and you better be aware of it."
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203Why he calls skim milk white Pepsi
His parents' generation, and his own, were told skim was the better milk. He tells it the way he heard it for 50 years, then answers it.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203No, it's not. No, it's not. It's white Pepsi. You're drinking a soda.
He is not against milk itself. If you have a cow in the backyard, he says, drink milk. For the rest of us, buying cartons at the grocery store, his point is that you do not need low fat milk, and you do not need to be afraid of cream.
Does the fat in cream make you fat?
The low fat idea, he says, rests on one belief: fat makes you fat. He traces it back to the 1960s, when medicine, dieticians, the drug companies, the food companies and the media all bought it. It became doctrine. He thinks it was never true.
He gets the same feedback almost every day. Can I really have bacon and eggs, red meat and cream? It cannot be good for me. His answer:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203Yeah, but fat don't make you fat. It don't make you fat. It doesn't give you heart disease. It doesn't clog up your arteries.
For Dr. Martin, fat and protein together are how food comes in nature, with no carbs attached. He puts cream in the same group as his favourite foods.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203The best fuel in the world is eggs, meat and cheese. Cream, dairy, butter. You know how good that stuff is for you?
Is cream bad for your cholesterol and heart?
This is the worry most women over 60 have about cream. Dr. Martin turns it around. He says your body makes about 85% of your cholesterol and you supply the other 15% from food, and cholesterol is only found in animal foods. He wants you to do your 15%.
In the same episode he read from an article by a cardiologist who described cholesterol as the repair crew for damage done by poor metabolic health. The pattern that cardiologist flagged as dangerous was high triglycerides with low HDL, not cholesterol. Dr. Martin's picture is the delivery trucks on a highway: cholesterol is always circulating, carrying repairs to blood vessels damaged by sugar and crappy carbs.
And what drives triglycerides up, in his view? Sugar. That brings it straight back to the milk carton. For more on how he reads a cholesterol panel, see is there such a thing as bad cholesterol.
Low fat milk and fatty liver
He goes one step further. Triglycerides are made mainly in the liver, and he says fatty liver is now everywhere, even in children, and usually has no symptoms. Nobody picking up a carton of 1% thinks of their liver.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203How can this give me fatty liver? It doesn't have any fat in it, but fatty liver comes from sugar, honey.
His good news is that the liver can regenerate like no other organ. Change the fuel, he says, and you can fix it. More on that in how fast does sugar cause fatty liver.
How Dr. Martin uses heavy cream
He does not just tolerate cream. He recommends it, in his perfect smoothie, made with heavy cream, for adults, children and grandchildren.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1203And this is why I tell you, give your kids, give your grandchildren a Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie with heavy cream. The cream is good for their brain.
In another episode he goes as far as swapping the milkshake for what he calls a cream shake: heavy cream, a few berries and a scoop of bone broth.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1595I want you guys cream shakes, not milkshakes, cream shakes. Make them for yourself. Make them for kids.
If cream has a place in your day, his advice is simple. Pick the heavy cream, check the label for added sugar, and leave the low fat carton on the shelf. Cream also fits the way he eats generally, which he lays out in the eggs, meat and cheese diet.
Common questions
Is cream bad for you?
Dr. Martin says no. Heavy cream has zero sugar on the label and he counts it with eggs, meat, cheese and butter as some of the best fuel there is.
Is cream healthier than milk?
In his view, yes. A cup of 1% milk has 13 grams of sugar, a little under four teaspoons, while 35% cream has none.
How much sugar is in cream vs milk?
On the two cartons he compared from the same dairy, 1% milk showed 13 grams of sugar per cup and 35% heavy cream showed zero.
Does heavy cream raise cholesterol?
Dr. Martin is not worried if it does. He sees cholesterol as a repair mechanism and says the danger sign is high triglycerides with low HDL, which he puts down to sugar.
Why does Dr. Martin call skim milk white Pepsi?
Because taking the fat out leaves the milk sugar behind. He says drinking it is like drinking a soda.
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