Model attracts ire for encouraging people to ‘ditch the dairy’

Model and former Miss World Rosanna Davison has been criticised by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association for encouraging people to drop dairy products from their diets and significantly cut back on meat.

ICMSA president John Comer said her comments were "reprehensible" and came at a time when there was an overwhelming body of research testifying to the fundamental necessity of dairy and meat for any sensible understanding of a good and balanced diet.

Ms Davison, a qualified naturopathic nutritionist, is a vegan and gave her views in a newspaper earlier this week under the headline “Why Rosanna Davison is the queen of nutrition”. Mr Comer said the comments were an “ill-advised and scientifically illiterate denigration of dairy and meat foodstuffs”.

Damage

He said she was a high-profile model and her views could do serious damage to the farming industry. “I have to ask why she seems fixated on continually undermining the image and reality of dairy and meat as excellent and healthy foods?”

Last year she came under fire from the same group when she blogged that people should eliminate dairy from their diet. Under the headline “Ditch the dairy for better beauty”, she wrote that more than three-quarters of the world’s population was genetically unable to properly digest dairy products and the practice of adults drinking cows’ milk was “totally bizarre”.

Mr Comer said recent research highlighting the benefits of milk was “rolling back the type of quackery and nonsense we’ve had to listen to for many years” from people who had pet theories on what constituted good food.