What I learned being dairy-free

Last year I was completely dairy-free due to my youngest child having a milk protein tolerance and I was exclusively breastfeeding her. I knew something was wrong when she was around 6 weeks old, she kept constantly having bowel movements that were outside the norm for a newborn. Plus she had a flaming red diaper rash that no amount of diaper ointments touched. Oh, and let's not forget the constant screaming and inability to sleep for longer than 15 minutes.

I tried to tell myself it was just colic, and then the rashes came. It was obvious something I was eating was reacting in her little body, and the most common cause I found in my research was dairy, specifically the proteins in dairy products which include casein and whey. So I eliminated all forms of dairy in my diet for a couple of weeks. She seemed to get better. Then I did a trial, I think it was a twist cone from the Dairy Queen, and lo and behold the pooping, screaming, rashy baby came back. Bye-bye dairy.

After some trial and error I also found she couldn't tolerate peanut butter, anything in the cabbage/cruciferous family, and large amounts of soy. It was quite an adjustment, but after I got the hang of it, it wasn't that bad, promise. People told me "Oh, I could never do that," but I think they would if it meant the difference between a happy baby and an unhappy, hurting baby. Sure, I could have switched to formula but I love breastfeeding, and there was the risk that only certain incredibly expensive formulas would only be the ones she could tolerate.

It really helped that there are so many incredible products on the market now for living dairy-free. I still had to read labels closely but because of the push to label things more accurately for allergens, it was easier to know right off the bat if something was safe or not safe.

REVIEWS

A good replacement for butter is Earth Balance Buttery Spread, a non-hydrogenated margarine spread. We still use it in place of butter for toast to this day. They do make sticks you can use in place of butter in baking, but for convenience I often just substituted canola oil.

For cream cheese, I love Tofutti's Cream Cheese but only the one in the yellow container, the other one has trans fats and other yucky junk. Tofutti also makes a sour cream substitute, but again you have to find a certain one without trans fats. Being soy based, I only ate these occasionally and just learned to do without.

There were various non-dairy milks I tried, soy milk was right out. Almond Breeze was my favorite, good taste and worked fine in cooking and baking. Rice milk was too sweet for me, and other milks (like hemp) were way too expensive to use regularly.

Ice cream was one of the things I missed most, and it was just my luck that Turtle Mountain came out with a coconut milk based ice cream at the same time. Heaven on a spoon. My favorite is mint chip.

And finally, cheese. The bad news is that as far as I have tried, there is no good cheese sub out there that is readily available and tastes good. The good news is that the cravings for it go away. I've read that cheese is addictive, and I can believe it.

Next month I hope to post some of my favorite dairy-free recipes since I will be starting to eliminate things from my diet to help prevent migraines.

-Empress