So I must admit to myself that I am lactose intolerant. Lactaid doesn’t help a lot, it eliminates the bloating, gas and cramps but it just delays the other symptom until the next day so I am avoiding dairy unless it’s really, really good dairy and I don’t mind paying the price the next day and plan to be home or close to a convenient bathroom. My discovery in my readings about lactose intolerance severity being connected to hormonal changes has given me some hope that once I have gone through menopause I might be able to enjoy dairy again but that could be years away and I have to be realistic and look for substitutes for now.
I won’t miss milk too much except for cereal but cheese and other dairy products sigh well, I was born in Wisconsin so let’s just say cheese is in my blood. I will miss all cheeses, ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, whipped cream … okay basically all dairy products. I know there are some doable substitutes. I’d like to hear some opinions and experiences from people who have tried a lot of the vegan “dairy” products so I might be able to save myself a lot of experimenting. I know taste is in the mouth of the beholder and I will have to try a lot for myself but I am looking for some basic information on flavor and texture and how well a lot of the substitutes do as replacements in cooking.
I am mildly lactose intolerant, so I use soy milk (“Silk” brand) on my cereal. It’s an adequate solution – even a good one – if you go into it with the right mindset. Do not try to think of it as a substitute for milk: think of it as a different kind of breakfast. It does not taste like milk, but it’s got a similar texture, weight, viscosity, and specific heat capacity, so it feels the same in your mouth. However, while there is no mistaking the taste for milk, it does have a charm of its own.
The “unsweetened” variety is unpalatable on cereal. The “plain” variety is fine, if still a little bitter. The “vanilla” variety is way too sweet.
As for yogurt, have you tried cutting out all other dairy besides it? I can eat it with no problems, and the medical textbooks all specifically say that yogurt is often well-tolerated in patients with lactose intolerance. Something about the lactose in it already being broken down into other simpler sugars.
In the past I haven’t noticed a problem with yogurt but in the past month or so my dairy intolerance really ramped up. I first made the realization that it wasn’t just milk that bothered me after having bad effects from a couple slices of cheese that had been the only thing I’d eaten all day as I was suffering from a migraine at the time. I had never noticed a problem with cheese before that. I am trying to avoid all dairy for a while before I start experimenting with certain kinds of dairy. I really don’t want to have to deal with the effects on a daily basis and my GI tract needs a break.
Are you using enough of the lactase pills? At first I used just one or two, but still had problems. So now if I have milk or ice cream I take six. Hard cheeses like cheddar I can do fine (if it’s not a lot,) and soft cheeses I’ll take three or four lactase pills. Of course, the pills aren’t cheap, so I mostly just avoid milk and ice cream, but I get cravings for cereal or some Ben and Jerry’s every now and then.
Wow, six? I had stepped up to two when one didn’t seem enough but two still leave the next day after effects. I guess I will try taking more but again only for cheese or ice cream that’s really worth the trouble. At least the chewable Lactaid tablets are tasty.
There are a number of true cow’s milk cheeses that are lactose free, along with lactose-free milk and other products.
Check out this page and other pages at that site for non-milk alternatives.
However, lactase is your best friend.
I’d really like to see cites about “lactose intolerance severity being connected to hormonal changes” because I’ve never heard this before and can’t imagine how this could be physiologically true.
I don’t have time to look for the sites again but I went to several medical sites about LI. It’s possible it could have been women relating anecdotally that it varies with their cycle but I was certain I saw at least one site where it was mentioned in the article on LI or by a doctor answering a question.
Thanks for the link on the reduced lactose products though.
Light Plain Soy Milk is the most tolerable to me - not too thick, not too sweet, not too bland. I just buy whatever brand is cheapest.
Tofutti brand cream cheese and sour cream are decent enough. The ice cream is kinda meh, but I never was a big ice cream eater.
For margarine, I use Blue Bonnet light, or squeezable Parkay light. For baking I use butter flavored Crisco.
Smart Beat cheese is OK, but expensive. I prefer Veggie brand cheeses (usually found in the produce section for some reason). The cheapest Kroger generic brand (called Value) cheeses actually have the same ingredients as the “lactose free” cheeses, but I had problems getting them to melt decently.
I’ve had no luck with lactaid, or the store brand equivalents, but the most I’ve tried is 3. Maybe I need to up it to 6 like bouv.
Surprising enough, pizza usually does not bother me. Maybe mozzarella is naturally low in lactose? I have heard swiss is.
I’ve found that lactose-free milk is good. Dairy-EZ and Lactaid both are on the market, but I usually just buy the store brand at Kroger or WalMart. I avoid soy milk because the palatable ones tend to have bunches of HFC, which as a diabetic, is a big no-no.
I seem to have no issues with yogurt, very few with skim mozzerella or some of the hard cheeses. I take a handful of lactase (about the same quantity as bouv if I’m going to splurge on ice cream or want some cottage cheese or other dairy.
Over the years, I just experimented to find what I could tolerate the best and work the diet around that.
For pourable Dairy Substitute I like EdenBlend the best. It is a blend of soy and rice milk. Rice milk on its own is way too sweet and thin; soy milk on its own is too thick and bitter. I haven’t tried the Almond Breeze product. (Careful, there is both a sweetened and unsweetened variety).
I liked the Cappucino flavor Soy Slender (no sugar added, sweetened with Splenda) when I was cutting back on coffee - it was nice to have something “coffee flavored” in the morning and it has a fair amount of fiber.
I haven’t had any luck with the cheeses, sorry!
Soy Delicious brand soy ice cream is pretty good, at least, I like the chocolate flavors.
I like the coconut milk based ice creams and yogurts. Great textures, especially the ice creams. (I am lactose intolerant, live with a vegan, and must cut soy out of my diet for the moment, so it’s fun…)
I hated hazelnut milk. I think it came from the devil. Almond milk is quite nice, but my favourite recently is oat milk. Pretty decent.
Non-dairy cheeses just don’t work out for me… bleh. The only exception I have is that there’s a kraft-parmesan-in-the-green-can equivalent that is equally salty and un-cheeselike, and pretty good on pasta with red sauce.
I’m somewhat lactose intolerant. I can eat cheese, but not milk. I can eat lasagna-type dishes, but not alfredo sauce. I can eat a little ice cream, but not if it’s part of a warm dessert.
I, too, love cereal, and have found that I can have raw milk. Supposedly it retains the enzymes that are removed through pasteurization. Or is it homogenization? Either way, I just had some cereal earlier. Yay.
Follow Your Heart mozzarella-style vegan “cheeze” is the BEST… (well really maybe the ONLY good vegan cheese - it tastes “real” and also melts when heated, unlike most others)
I like chocolate Silk, and loved their coffee flavor also… till they stopped selling it. Trader Joe’s stopped selling their coffee soy milk as well. Why? (pouts)
I can have butter and a tiny bit of hard cheese or some milk in my coffee, but most yogurt does not agree with me. Oddly enough, I have very few problems with Coldstone Creamery ice cream. Do they mix it with non-dairy substances to obtain the sticky texture? I really can’t think of any other explanation.
I like Lactaid milk, because it tastes more like regular milk. It’s good with cereal.
I’m surprised at some of these responses regarding cheese. I was under the impression that all hard cheeses and most soft cheeses (outside of cream cheese and maybe ricotta) have virtually no lactose. Certainly not enough to irritate anyone. I am lactose intolerant & have been living under this assumption for a long time, eating tons of cheese with abandon and not suffering from it.
More to the original question, I’ve found canola margarine very satisfying in place of butter.
Aged cheeses have very little lactose; the cultures convert it to lactic acid. Then, as the aging goes on, that can change to calcium lactate, the ‘crystal’ very old cheese gets.
If even aged cheeses cause you problems, the difficulty may not be lactose intolerance, but sensitivity to something else in cows milk. To see if that’s the case, you could try sheep or goat cheese. I’ve had a few customers find that non-cow cheeses don’t bother them at all.
I sell cheese, so I’ve found