Why would
anyone choose
Americans love cheese, ice cream, milk, and yogurt. A dairy free diet
sounds extreme,
even to many vegetarians. They understand the reasons
for avoiding meat, but dairy products seem to be
healthy, maybe even essential. Everyone believes
we need dairy products for calcium. |
More than half the members of the
advisory board that creates the
guidelines have close ties to the dairy industry. And as with the
tobacco industry, their goal is to promote their products, not to
protect public health.
| Race | Lactose intolerance |
| Asian | 85 - 100% |
| African-American | 75% |
| Hispanic | 50% |
| Native American | 50% |
| American Caucasian | 25% |
When people who are lactose-intolerant drink milk, they suffer from abdominal cramping, gas, diarrhea, nausea, and bloating. Milk is obviously not a perfect food if it makes so many people sick. When lactose intolerant people understand the connection between milk and their misery, they usually follow a milk free diet.
If so many people around the world (and in the U.S.) survive and thrive on a dairy-free diet, we clearly don't have to panic about giving up dairy. Our biggest challenge will be finding the hidden dairy products that lurk in so many of our foods.
Hidden dairy products
The easiest way to avoid hidden dairy products is to eat whole plant foods in their natural form: vegetables, fruits, beans, intact whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
When you buy packaged foods:
- Read
nutrition labels carefully. Look for obvious dairy products
like milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, cream, sour cream, and yogurt.
This includes skim milk, milk powder, butterfat, buttermilk, kefir,
lassi, whey, and most margarines.
- Check for any ingredient that contains the word
casein, such as sodium
caseinate, calcium caseinate, or casein. Casein is the main protein in
cows milk. Many soy cheeses contain casein.
- Beware of lactose and galactose, which are milk sugars.
Dairy substitutes
Although there are vegan substitutes for most dairy products, many of them are highly processed foods. See our page on vegan foods to learn about soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, oat milk, hemp milk, soy yogurt, soy cheese, soy ice cream, and other vegan ice cream substitutes.
If you crave cheese, get a copy of The Ultimate UnCheese Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak. She has many delicious and creative recipes to make your dairy free diet interesting.
You may want to use dairy substitutes occasionally, but it is better to re-educate your tastes to like simple plant foods. Instead of soy milk, we eat our oatmeal with no milk at all. The oatmeal stays hot that way, and we love it.
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