Like most other mammals, humans begin their dietary experience with milk. Breast milk, or simulated breast milk in the way of formula, provides children with the essential nutrients they need to grow and develop.
Eventually, children reach a stage in which they are able to process more complicated foods and, often slowly, are weaned from their diet of breast milk. This weaning process is a natural part of one of the earliest moves from a child’s total dependency upon its parent(s) to independence and self-sufficiency.
Weaning is the result of natural processes such as the child’s development of his first teeth and a reduction in the body’s production of the enzyme lactase; this is an enzyme essential to the digestion of lactose. This reduction in lactase production is often the cause of lactose allergies.
Most lactose-intolerant people can still consume processed dairy products such as cheese or yogurt, but these products may still trigger reactions in some who are allergic to milk proteins. Often, other symptoms of dairy consumption are overlooked or not recognized by those who suffer them as results of the presence of dairy in their diet.
There are dairy free alternatives readily available that often allow for changes in diet without large changes in overall food choices. Foods like soy milk, margarine, non-dairy cheeses, and other non-dairy products can help long-term consumers of dairy products wean themselves away from some of the more harmful dairy products without giving up their favourite food choices.
Some dairy free milk alternatives include coconut milk, rice milk, hemp milk, soy milk, and a milk-alternative from potatoes. Some dairy free butter alternatives include, fruit butters, coconut oil, apple butter, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.” Some dairy free cheese alternatives include, yeast flakes, vegan parmesan, vegan singles, vegan cream cheese, yeast spread, soy feta, soy bleu, tofu sour cream.
Some of these products do a decent job of mimicking the flavour and texture of the product they’re replacing, others don’t, but they have a good flavour all their own. It’s just a matter of adjusting your tastes and way of thinking to accept the new products.
And if you’re having trouble adjusting your way of thinking about these products, consider this: Dairy products, despite old conventional wisdom of how good they are for you, lack sufficient amounts of things such as iron which are necessary for correct bodily functions.
The nutrients that can be found in processed milk, such as Vitamins A and D, aren’t naturally found in dairy products. They’re added later, so don’t be duped into thinking that that these vitamins make dairy products indispensable.
