Lactose, Casein, and Whey Oh My!

Due to an illness, the husband (somewhat) recently became lactose intolerant. This was such a blow to him. He already had a list of foods that he had to cut out of his diet because of this illness, and now dairy. DAIRY! This is a man who loves all of the goodness of milk, cheeses, and ice cream.

This was a blow to me as well because I could no longer cook like I usually did. Now we have to read every nutritional label of all the food we buy. I never paid close attention to food labels except for a quick glance at calories, fat, and fiber, but guess who sits there now and reads every item in the ingredients list? We do. And they sneak dairy into all sorts of strange places like stove top stuffing, hot dogs, and baked bbq chips. And dairy is known by many names, such as lactose, casein, and whey. So you have to really pay attention (actually casein is a milk protein, and is ok for some who are lactose intolerant, like the husband).

After the lactose intolerance development, we began the hunt of all hunts for a good soy milk. I had no idea that there were so many brands of soy milk out there. I of course was a good wife, and tried every soy product he tried. We decided to first try Silk. That's the brand of all brands, and after some interweb research, we found that a lot of people preferred it. So we tried it and well....it wasn't so good. I think the husband called it "flour poo," and I like to compare it to the consistency and taste of flour mixed with water. I don't know how people can drink that stuff every day.

We tried several other brands as well, and in the end we found that West Soy Non Fat Plain and 8th Continent Lite in chocolate and vanilla were by far the favorites. I particularly like the 8th Continent Lite chocolate. In addition to trying all the soy milks, the husband also decided to try rice milk by Rice Dream. He had read about it online somewhere, and thought the idea of a rice drink would be good. I was skeptical from the get go, but he was determined to try it. He thought it would be the greatest thing ever. Well he tried it, and was greatly disappointed. I don't think he even finished a glass of the stuff.

In addition to finding a soy milk, we also looked into soy cheeses. We were able to find sliced soy cheese for sandwiches and sprinkle soy cheeses for dishes without much difficulty. I think the brands were Veggie Slices and Veggie Shreds. Overall they're pretty good, but there are some differences from real cheese. They do taste a little different, and they don't melt as well.

But as it turned out, we didn't have to avoid real cheese after all. I don't remember how we discovered this, but certain Kraft cheeses contain zero grams of lactose per serving. It even says so on the package. Apparently, during the cheese making process, most of the whey is removed (and this is where most of the lactose is found). Because of this, most aged cheeses don't contain lactose, but I'll only buy the ones that actually say so. After this discovery, the husband and I immediately bought some Kraft mozzarella cheese to make pizzas with. He ate the cheese with no ill effects, and was ecstatic to have melty delicious cheese again. Also, Smart Balance recently released their version of lactose free shredded cheeses. We gave these a try as well, but they just aren't the same or as delicious as the Kraft cheeses.

After the discovery that dairy products are okay without lactose, the husband switched to Lactaid brand milk. Their version of skim milk is pretty good and it tastes pretty much the same as regular lactose filled milk, except a little sweeter.

The husband has also started taking Lactaid pills. They work great, and now he's able to enjoy everything from a sweet treat at Cold Stone, to a deliciously cheesy meal at a local Mexican restaurant.