For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been suffering from mild to moderate digestive problems - nothing big, just some fairly regular heartburn/stomach discomfort. My doc diagnosed me with gastritis, and prescribed me omeprazole, which does seem to help, but I don’t like the idea of taking it daily for the rest of my life (along with a Calcium and Vitamin D supplement to stave off bone loss), so I stopped taking it a few months ago, with few ill effects.
But lately, the discomfort has returned, so my wife decided to try to cut out various foods from my diet, starting with dairy. And goddamit, wouldn’t you know it, after several days of being dairy-free, I seem to be feeling better.
But I’m jonesing like you wouldn’t believe for a grilled cheese sammich fried in butter, with a cheesecake chaser. Which leads to my question: does anyone have any good suggestions for non-dairy replacements? For example:
[ul]
[li]Is there a decent vegan cheese substitute out there that actually melts and doesn’t sit on a sandwich like a slice of greasy tofu? [/li][li]Or how about half and half for coffee? [/li][li]Yogurt? [/li][li]Pudding? [/li][li]Cottage cheese? [/li][li]Cream cheese?[/li][/ul]
Dammit, now I’m salivating all over my keyboard again.
FYI, I’ve found a decent margarine for frying/spreading on toast, and I’ll be using Rice Dream on my cereal (it’s the one milk substitute I don’t despise, but I hate it in coffee). I just need to know how to fill the rest of the cheesy, buttery, creamy hole in my life.
Humans have eaten dairy for an awful long time, but our bodies sometimes stop making the enzymes. I was lactose intolerant but found I only needed to re-accustom my body to it and can eat milk every day now.
You also might want to try taking Lactaid, which saved me from having to quit my cheese addiction cold turkey when I developed lactose intolerance a few years ago.
Silk brand soy yogurt isn’t bad, and tofu substitutes very well for cottage cheese or ricotta for cooking. I have never found a substitute for any other cheese.
See if you can tolerate cooked dairy or canned evaporated milk. Some people can tolerate cooked dishes.
Mimiccreme is the first non-dairy cream replacer that I’ve ever found to be halfway decent. They have a product specifically intended for coffee, but I’ve never tried it. I’ve made good chocolate pudding with almond milk, but can’t find the recipe at the moment. I’ve used the Tofutti brand of ‘cream cheese’ when a recipe called for a tablespoon or two of the real thing (or for sour cream), but I’ve never made it the focus of a recipe.
I’ve heard good things about Daiya vegan ‘cheese’ on the Kosher board at Chowhound (where people want something to put on meat dishes), but haven’t tried it myself.
Another good site is GoDairyFree.org. Alisa charges for comprehensive lists of dairy-free food but she also reports regularly on food substitutes.
Carper’s list are free and were comprehensive, but he doesn’t taste test and he hasn’t updated in a long time. Still, start there and you’ll see the range of what’s been put on the market, and most of it should still be available. And there are addresses and web information for the brands, as well as for online sellers. As you’ve noticed for yourself every single person has a different idea of what an acceptable dairy substitute is, so there’s really no way around taste testing for yourself.
I’m gonna put a plug in here for my friend’s blog - she is a foodie who also happens to be violently allergic to almost all dairy (I believe she can have goat cheese in very small quantities, but anything else causes her SEVERE and life-threatening distress).
http://beyondsorbet.com/ is her attempt to create a truly awesome, dairy-free plated dessert. Check it out.
By happenstance, I was at Trader Joe’s today and the guy manning the sample counter had to go dairy-free too. He suggested a soy-milk creamer that isn’t too bad, and almond milk for cereal and other applications.
I’ll check out the online resources, too - thanks again!
