Cream

Cream is milk with the water taken out and the fat left in. That makes it the simplest way to add saturated fat and fat-soluble vitamin A to a meal without changing what the meal is.

The 50 Man Foods use it where a dish needs richness that grains and seed oils would otherwise supply: in a pan roast, in a custard, in coffee.

  • Daily, in food or coffee
  • 1 recipe
  • Dairy
  • Updated Sep 2026

What it supplies

Nutrient · per 100 g (about 6½ tablespoons) Amount % DV Relative amount
Fat 36 g 46%
Saturated fat 23 g 115%
Vitamin A 411 mcg 46%
Calcium 66 mg 5%
Vitamin E 1 mg 7%

Source: USDA FoodData Central.Percent Daily Values are based on adult reference intakes. The bars stop at 100%; the numbers do not.

Why it works

Saturated fat does not oxidise readily and does not suppress thyroid or testosterone output the way excess polyunsaturated fat can. Cholesterol from dairy fat is the raw material for steroid hormones; the body makes most of what it needs, but starving it of dietary cholesterol has never been shown to help.

Vitamin A in cream is retinol, the active form, which supports testosterone synthesis in the testes and does not need converting.

How much, how often

  • 2–4 tbsp

    Daily, in food or coffee

    Enough to shift the fat in a meal toward saturated without displacing protein.

  • Cream, nothing else

    Read the label

    Skip cartons with carrageenan or gums; ultra-pasteurised tastes cooked.

How to buy and prepare it

Read the ingredient list: it should say cream, and nothing else. Many supermarket cartons add carrageenan, mono- and diglycerides or gellan gum to stabilise it. Pasteurised is fine; ultra-pasteurised cream tastes cooked and whips poorly.

Grass-fed, higher-fat cream (38–40%) is worth the price when you can find it. Colour is the tell — pale yellow means carotene, which means pasture.

It needs no preparation. Warm it gently if adding to a pan; boiled hard it splits. Whipped with a little honey it is a dessert. In coffee it replaces the seed-oil creamers.

Keep it in the coldest part of the fridge and use within a week of opening. Cream freezes, but the emulsion breaks; frozen cream is for cooking, not whipping.

Recipes that use it

In these guides

Questions

Is cream better than milk?
Different job. Milk brings protein and calcium; cream brings fat and vitamin A. Most men are short of good fat rather than protein, which is why cream earns its place.
What about the saturated fat?
The evidence linking dairy saturated fat to heart disease has not held up in the large reviews. The fats to limit are the industrial seed oils, not the ones humans have eaten for as long as they have kept cattle.
Can I use it if I am lactose intolerant?
Usually. Cream is almost all fat and carries very little lactose — under 3 g per 100 g. Most people who react to milk tolerate cream.