The Lactose-Free Auto-Immune-Fighting Diet

I have been having health issues.  My already-cranky immune system has suddenly become quite peevish and I have found myself in a battle with non-cancerous (but still annoying) salivary gland tumors, swollen surgical areas that refused to return to normal months after said surgery, the constant appearance of mouth ulcers and a general feeling of malaise and unease.  

I am a firm believer in the power of good nutrition but when sick, I tend to comfort eat.  

At the time when my body could use natural foods and nutrients the most, my mouth convinces me that multiple cookies and soft, warm baked-goods would be the better option.  I know that I should eat that vegetable soup, but being the champion of self-pity that I am, I convince myself that I deserve the soft sweet roll instead.

It's quite the mental dilemma.

Fortunately, for the last few weeks, good common sense has been winning the battle against my sweet tooth, but I've found that cooking a nutrient-rich, whole-grain meal that is also lactose-free is not as easy as it looks.  I've also learned that my three children and husband are not as enthusiastic about eating whole wheat pasta and endless amounts of sweet potato.  

Cooking the nightly meal has become a three-act play involving different meals for different people.  Wheat pasta for me;  white pasta for everyone else.  Spinach and kale added to the pasta sauce for me and kept on the side for everyone else.  You get the picture.

I HAVE managed to find some wonderful recipes that please everyone and which are lactose-free and safe for me.

For instance: 

Spicy, sweet-potato chili, which was absolutely delicious that night and even better the next day at lunch.

Whole wheat pasta with homemade tomato / spinach sauce.  (the photo includes a small helping of grated cheddar cheese on top.  My lactose intolerance does not seem to be bothered by hard cheeses in small quantities, but not everyone is so lucky)

Quinoa-coated, baked chicken breast:

which was moist and wonderful along with being extremely fast and easy.

I've posted the recipes on my Pinterest account.  click on these words to be taken to my pinterest page

I have two boards for these recipes:  Lactose Intolerance and Improve Immunity.  Feel free to "Follow" me as I pin new recipes quite frequently.  If anyone has any recipes they'd like to share, I'd love for you to leave a comment.  I'm also on the look out for good, nutritious, easy ideas.

Let the healing begin!

The Lactose Intolerance Master List

If you were to go on the internet to try to find a comprehensive list of foods that a Lactose Intolerant person could or could not eat, you would search for hours without finding any information whatsoever. The frustrating fact is that lactose intolerance affects people in different ways and what foods bother me might be quite fine for my lactose intolerant neighbor.

For instance, I can eat most cheeses except for those that are very runny - like ricotta and cottage cheese.  I am also lucky enough to be able to tolerate small amounts of butter.  However, give me an ice cream cone or a butter-cream frosting made with regular milk, I'm doubled over in pain in minutes and in full-fledged agony seconds later.

One of my friends' husbands is lactose intolerant as well, and while he can't eat butter, milk or runny cheeses, he has no problem consuming whip cream.  Go figure!  I did a blog post (Click here to read) about a wonderful lactose-free yogurt I discovered and I was pleasantly pleased when the company posted my review on their Facebook page (click here if you want to see that facebook post!) along with my recipe for yogurt/zucchini pasta.  I was not surprised to see that they did warn lactose-intolerant readers to be wary of the fact that I included cheddar cheese in my recipe.

I can eat cheddar cheese, but some other lactose intolerant might not.  It's a puzzle that takes one bad experience to solve.

So I am starting a Master List of Foods For The Lactose Intolerant and maybe make some poor person's internet search a little easier.

Dairy Foods Acceptable for Lactose Intolerant People:

Most hard cheese, up to and sometimes including Mozzarella (as long as it is not milky)
Small amounts of butter
Sour cream if cooked into a Bundt cake
Lactose-free milk
Lactose-free yogurts (I recommend this brand)

Dairy Foods To Avoid Like The Plague If You Are Lactose Intolerant:

"Soft" cheeses like ricotta, cream cheese, cottage cheese etc
Large amounts of butter
Sour cream
All regular milks
All regular yogurts - cups or tubers
Heavy Cream - half & half, whipping
Butter milk
Cheese cakes
Butter cream frosting of any sort unless made with lactose-free milk
Cream cheese frosting
Sour cream-based veggie dips
Mousse  or puddings

Foods I'm Just Unsure Of:

Condensed milk - I can eat this when it's baked into Seven-Layer cookies
Brie cheese - I've had some successes


Feel free to leave me a comment and I'll add to any of the lists!

Regrets - Lactose Intolerant Style

My sister cut out the above cartoon from her New Yorker Magazine for me.  After I had stopped chuckling and composed myself, I realized that the cartoon really hits very close to my home.  If only time travel was possible, life with lactose intolerance would be so much easier to deal with.  Sometimes, I wish that all food would come with ingredient lists -including meals in restaurants.  Lactose intolerance is such an imprecise ailment and types of food that I eat successfully at one establishment might prove deadly at another.  A future Martha, whose entire purpose was to travel back in time and warn me of various impending lactose intolerant dangers, would be absolutely lovely.  No more worrying over ingredients, no more trying to explain lactose intolerant to wait-people who could really care less about my stomach issues, no more choosing a plainer entree over a more decadent & potentially cream-filled choice....  ah the joy!

Time travel is probably a long time in the future, so instead I stick to places and recipes that I have previously determined to be safe.  I have to be my own time-travelling advocate.  It's the only way.

The Problem With Lactaid

Over the years, I've had hundreds of people ask me why, when encountering food that has too much dairy for my lactose intolerant stomach to handle, I don't just take a Lactaid tablet and soldier on.

If only lactose intolerance was so easy.

There was a time when I used Lactaid tablets frequently and carried around a tube of chewable Lactaid pills in my purse, but I don't bother anymore.  Lactaid Pills were like a bad boyfriend who treated me horribly one night and wonderfully the next.  It took me a few years of lactose intolerant-focused abuse before I matured enough to dump those Lactaid Pills and forced myself to stick to a dairy-free diet instead.

Lactaid tablets are not the Knight in Shining Armor that they are advertised to be, and I learned the hard way that they don't always work (for me, I should add).  Part of the problem was the packaging which used to read "chew one or two tablets before eating dairy food." (I'm paraphrasing, of course.)  I tried taking one Lactaid tablet and had no success eating the ice cream cone.  The next time, I tried two tablets with only slightly better results.  I think my lactose intolerance is worse than the two tablet maximum dictated by the Lactaid package.  It became obvious very quickly that two Lactaid tablets only worked fifty-percent of the time and the fifty-percent of time when they DIDN'T work was so agonizingly bad that they weren't worth the successful times.

So I don't bother with Lactaid anymore.  For the same reason I gave up chocolate mousse and bakery-made butter-cream frosting, I gave up trying to eat ice cream cones by chewing a Lactaid tablet before I began.  I am a firm believer in the old adage "Fool me once, shame on you;  Fool me twice, shame on me."  And besides, there's dairy-free ice-"cream" now.  So, HA! Lactaid.  I am in a new, kinder, gentler, lactose-free relationship and I'm pretty sure it's going to last for the long haul!

Could It Be True?

I was picking up my daughter from a birthday party the other day, when I was offered a piece of birthday cake, which I refused because of the obvious whip-cream frosting and my wretched lactose intolerance.

A woman who I had been talking to when the slice of luscious cake was offered, noticed the sad look on my face when the dessert left my sight and asked why I had refused something which I had so obviously wanted.  I told her about being lactose intolerant and how that meant that I had to say no to cream-based desserts.

And that's when she told me that her husband too is lactose intolerant but that he had learned that whip cream does not cause any symptoms!  Apparently, the sugars in dairy which cause lactose intolerance are missing in heavy cream.

I rushed home and did some internet sleuthing but I don't see anything which supports this woman's claim.

Does anyone have any idea about whether or not whip cream is indeed a food that lactose intolerant people can consume without fear or painful incident?

Let me know!

Praise For The Intercontinental Hotel

Last Friday night, my husband and I went to a fund-raising gala at the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston.  Fund-raising dinners are notoriously famous for rubbery chicken dishes and bland, unimaginative sides.  I'm willing to admit that hotel caterers do the best they can with these mass-produced and unimaginative meals.  If you dissect what's on your plate, you'll find tons of flavor-enhancing butter, cream and milk.  Great, right?  Wrong.  These same ingredients - so beloved for their wonderful taste - turn an already blah dinner into a lactose intolerant's worse nightmare.  I've found myself staring down at an unappetizing, cream-filled plate more times that I care to count, which is why I contemplated eating a homemade, lactose-free dinner at my house before I left for the event.

But on this occasion, I'm so glad that I didn't!  The Intercontinental catering staff out did itself.  Get out the word, oh lactose intolerant internet readers!  The Intercontinental is the place to go for your fund-raising gala needs!

Unbeknownst to me, when Gordy filled out the form for our dinner, there was a section about food issues and he was able to alert the staff to my problems with dairy ahead of time.  When he and I sat down to dinner, I found that the salad at my place was creamy-dressing free and I found a wonderfully attentive waiter standing by my seat, with a handful of papers detailing all the ingredients in the meal.  I've been to plenty of these hotel functions and I've never, EVER received this kind of treatment.  I felt like a Princess - a lactose-free Princess, that is.

My waiter didn't miss a beat.  He helped me chose between the chicken and the vegetarian dish, answered all my questions about hidden cream, cheese and butter and made sure that the correct dish arrived in front of me when dinner time arrived.   It was truly a lactose-free miracle.

But the miracle didn't end there.... dessert arrived.  I had read on my menu card that the dessert was a trio of cheese cakes, creme brule and chocolate mousse.  In other words:  no, nope and absolutely not.  I figured I would just pass on dessert.  Plates were delivered and my waiter appeared once again holding a special dessert just for me!  A glorious fruit plate displayed almost exactly as my my cream-filled neighbors.

Now, normally, I wouldn't be making much fuss over a fruit plate.  Fruit, after all, is part of a meal and not really dessert, but this particular fruit plate touched me greatly.  I was thrilled to have something sweet to eat while every one around me dug into their delicious-looking cheese cakes.  I was joyous that the lactose intolerant were being given the equality that we deserve.

Hooray for the Intercontinental Hotel!  Good job!  You are lactose intolerant friendly and I appreciate it!

Living With The Lactose Intolerant

After reading all about my woes as a lactose intolerant person, you must feel tremendous pity for my husband.  After all, his house is completely devoid of ice cream, he can't go into bakeries, his wife is a pain in the neck at dinner parties, she brings home strange tofu-based, "dairy-free" products to fill his refrigerator..... sounds like a real drag, huh?

Well, you're wrong.  It just so happens that my husband is allergic to dairy.

I know!  What are the odds?

What's even more amazing is that he's also allergic to all seafood and I HATE fish!  We are the perfect pair.

Having a husband with actual allergic reactions to foods that I can't - or won't - eat, lifts an enormous burden off my shoulders.  When we are planning to eat out with friends, I can always use My Wonderful Allergic Husband as an excuse to stay away from ice cream places or seafood restaurants.  When we are dining at a friend's home, I have the perfect reason to request that dairy and fish be avoided when my host is preparing the meal.

Now, of course, as a lactose intolerant person, I know that I have the right to ask that dairy be avoided anyway, and that my friends should understand why I'm asking, but as I've mentioned here, there are more than a few people out there who do not understand lactose intolerance or could really care less about it's effects on my stomach.

Allergic reactions, on the other hand, are taken much more seriously in this world.  I do think things are changing, however.  Just look at how many lactose-free items can be found in grocery stores now and other specialty foods like gluten-free and nut-free items are becoming more common place.

I may be the only lactose intolerant person in my circle of friends, but there are more people like me out there.... somewhere!  Right?

Butter Cream Dreams

There is very little that pleases me as much as a bakery.  I love all cakes and pastries.  When I was growing up in suburban New Jersey, we had a bakery right in my town that I would visit each week on my way to choir practice.  Once inside it's fragrant room, I would slowly peruse the racks, admiring the chocolate boxes, the eclairs, the tollhouse cookies, the crumb buns.... whatever delicacy that caught my eye that day, I was able to purchase and eat.

Um, Martha,  you ask?   Where was all this money coming from?  I have really no idea.  Allowance?  Birthday savings?  And where were my parents while I was making these face-stuffing, fatty purchases?  I haven't any clue because I've blocked out all the details except the pastries.  (okay, I can answer that last question - it was the 1980's and kids walked places by themselves and my parents have a healthy appreciation for a bakery, themselves.)

Oh, how I love a bakery!

Oh, how I love a pastry!

Oh, how I miss them both!

It's a completely different experience going into a Bakery, now that I am lactose intolerant.  Bakeries - once a source of such joy and pleasure - are now evil torture chambers from Hell.  I'm okay with small amounts of butter, so I can have a puff pastry item or a pie, but my beloved butter cream frosted cakes, chocolate boxes, napoleons and eclairs are completely out of the picture.

There is nothing so depressing as a fruit pie when there are chocolate mousse cakes being offered.  Especially once you realize that you can't eat said fruit pie with a generous dollop of whipped cream on top.

Lactose Intolerance - you really take all the fun out of eating!

I have learned to compensate for my body's bakery ban.  I make cakes at home and I choose recipes without milk or heavy cream.  I make my own butter cream frosting using Lactaid milk, but it's not the same as buying a beautiful cake from the bakery and eating a thick wedge for dessert (or dinner, if we are really being honest).

So I ask you, if you live in Massachusetts and are looking to start a business.... would you consider opening a lactose-free bakery?  You would be guaranteed at least one, very loyal customer!

Marry Me Bars: My Constant Obsession

I am not a huge fan of ice cream.  Even before my lactose intolerance reared it's ugly head, I never craved ice cream or ordered a dish of vanilla for dessert at a restaurant.  I did enjoy walking into town, as a youngster, and getting a clown cone at Baskin Robbins, but  I suspect that it really was the icing clown buttons I was actually after.

Of all the foods I had to give up when I became lactose intolerant, ice cream was the least difficult to say good-bye to.   Bakery-made butter cream frosting, on the other hand?  I'm still broken hearted about that one.

I do love desserts, though, and I always scan the freezer aisles of my local grocery store in search of lactose-free products.   I feel it is my lactose intolerant duty to support as many lactose-free businesses as I can.  When I discovered Tofutti Marry Me bars and their cousins the Tofutti Cutie, I had to give them a try.  It's a tough job to sample desserts all the time, but it's mine and I take my jobs very seriously.

That first exposure to Tofutti products was years ago, and yet I remain a faithful Toffuti customer.  The Marry Me bars are probably my favorite.  They are simply amazing.  The chocolate is dark and smooth and the "ice cream" is vanilla-y and creamy.  It's the lactose-free answer to the Dove Bar and it pleases me to no end to be able to enjoy a frozen novelty from time to time, without fear of debilitating pain.

Tofutti Cuties (ice cream sandwiches) are delicious as well.  I particularly like their small size which is perfect for small children who need very little additional sugar.  If you were to open my freezer, you would be certain to find a box or two of the Cuties waiting to be eaten.  

But my latest Tofutti obsession?  The New Yours Truly cones.  Lord a mercy!  An ice cream cone filled with solid chocolate?  A lump of dairy-free ice "cream" on the top?  Covered in chocolate and crunchies?  What's not to love about that!

So good job, Tofutti company!  The lactose intolerant solute you!

(and thank you, too)

Lactose Intolerance in Paris

Bonjour!  Ooh La La!  Tres Bien!  Planning a trip to Paris --- the land of cheese and baguette?  Home of creamy coffee and buttery croissants?  In other words, are you prepared to travel to a lactose intolerant's worst nightmare?

When I think of Paris, I am always reminded of Meg Ryan's fabulously funny scene in the movie French Kiss when, after years of avoiding dairy products due to lactose intolerance, she succumbs to the temptation of milky cheese on a French train.... ah the hilarity!  Ah, the painful accuracy.  I go between hysterically laughing and crying in commiseration.

I am always on the look-out for other lactose intolerant bloggers and any good article on living with the annoyance of dairy issues.

This morning, I stumbled across a fabulous article written by Bryan Pirolli about living with lactose intolerance in what is undoubtedly, a very lactose-full city.

Read Bryan's Article by Clicking Here (thank you)

I am book-marking Bryan's blog on my list to the right.  He doesn't write exclusively about his lactose intolerance, but his essays on an American's Life in Paris and his accompanying photos make clicking over to his blog a fun treat.  As Meg Ryan would say "... ah!  Beautiful!  Wish you were here!"

Lactose Intolerance and The City

I love eating out at restaurants.  I love eating, period, but eating out at a restaurant is the absolute best.  Unlike at a friend's house, where you have to be honest about your lactose intolerance or forever after be labelled as a liar, at a restaurant full of strangers, it is okay to throw the truth out the window and just tell the server that you are allergic to dairy.

A food allergy is always accepted as truth and no one ever rolls their eyes at you when you say that you have a food allergy.  

Should I be embarrassed by the fact that there are currently about 1,000 waiters in the United States who think I am allergic to milk?  I don't think so.  Even Carrie Bradshaw lies about being allergic -- and parsley isn't even a believable allergy!  

Poor Lactose Intolerance - it gets no respect.  But I'd much rather claim an allergy and eat a wonderful, milk-free dinner than tell the truth and hope that the chef understands exactly what ingredients need to be avoided when making my dinner.  I don't want to pay to be sick.

So join me in the lie ... and have a cosmopolitan, too:  they're dairy free!

The Woes of A Lactose Intolerant Dinner Guest

It is hard to bring your lactose intolerance to someone else's house for dinner.  Lactose Intolerance makes for the most rude and obnoxious dinner guest.  Unlike the safe confines of one's own home, at a party, it is hard to avoid milk products and even harder to ask a hostess for a list of ingredients before you partake of her cooking.  No one thinks to ask if a guest has lactose intolerance as they might with a food allergy and if you are like me, you find it hard to bring the subject up to people who you don't know intimately.  A discussion of lactose intolerance often encourages the question, "what happens when you have milk?" and who really wants to explain THAT to an acquaintance.  One small lactose intolerance talk can turn awkward in a hurry.  Not to mention a little rude, considering that the hostess has kindly offered to cook for you in the first place, and is going to feel badly that you can not eat what she has prepared.

I've had all sorts of luck at dinner parties.  I'm pretty good at guessing ingredients without much fanfare.  Appetizers are a breeze.  Main dishes are often fine and it's easy to fake being full instead of taking that cream-laden dessert plate.  Sometimes its easier if the host has no clue that you ARE lactose intolerant.  You can skip food without causing much fuss.

Really, it's the people who know you are lactose intolerant that pose the most problems.  I can put these people into three categories:  those people who know you are lactose intolerant and go out of their way to buy/use lactaid milk and avoid anything else you might have issues with (I won't bother writing about them);  those people who believe that you are lactose intolerant but don't realize how vigilant you have to be;  and those people who think lactose intolerance is a bunch of hooey and go out of their way to stick milk into dishes to prove that you don't really have a problem.  I've encountered those last two types of people more than I'd care to admit.

Let's start with the people who believe that milk is your enemy.  After all, these are the good guys - your friends and neighbors who want to be accommodating and kind.  I know these people are going out of their way to find something to serve that I can eat and they have my best intentions in mind but avoiding milk is not as easy as you would think.  How many times have I been offered a fancy baked dish that the host assures me I can eat because it's "a simple bechamel sauce."  Um.  Did you use Lactaid Milk in that simple bechamel sauce?  Because if you didn't, I'm going to be spending most of the evening in the bathroom.  I've also been shown a lasagna that has been made In My Lactose Intolerant Honor which I have to pass on since ricotta cheese is like kryptonite to my stomach.  I hate having to point out that I can't eat ALL cheeses and I'm never sure how to sit at a table and pass up the main course that someone has made especially for me?  How do you remain kind and polite without embarrassing the host?  It's quite the quandary.

I know.  These are Princess Problems.  I am extremely grateful to be fed anything at all and I love a good night out with my friends.  I don't mean to complain.  I just wish there was some way to avoid milky foods without making a fuss or drawing attention to myself.

I CAN complain about the third group of dinner party hosts:  the nonbelievers.  These are the kind of people who think that you are weak if you get a common cold.  These are the kinds of people who fear not the ecoli-laden spinach salad or undercooked turkey filled with stuffing.  These are the kinds of people whom stomach ailments never bother and they do not understand how something as simple as milk could possible annoy you.  These people do not believe in Lactose Intolerance and when dining at their house, you must have Constant Vigilance.

On more than one occasion, I have been offered food -- mostly desserts - that I have been assured "has no milk" or worse yet "has milk, but I used Lactaid" only to find myself doubled over in pain a short time later.  It is while in the bathroom, cursing that chocolate cake, that I realize that I've been fooled.  I never fall for the same trick twice.  I may be too polite to confront the person (thus leaving them with the misconception that I AM indeed just pretending about the whole lactose intolerance thing), but I never accept anything uncertain to eat from their hands ever again.  You know the expression... fool me twice....

How do you handle dinner parties and your lactose intolerance?  Any suggestions?

Lactose Intolerance, How I Hate Thee

I discovered I was lactose intolerant the hard way.  I was in my teenage years, and had stopped at a road side ice cream stand to indulge in one of my favorite summer-time treats.  Oh, that soft-serve, vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.... I can taste it now.

Except, that I can not taste it now and unless some miraculous twist of fate occurs, I will never taste it again.  That soft-serve ice cream cone attacked my stomach with angry vengeance.  I remember barely making it to my grandparent's house thirty minutes away.  I had hoped that the problem lay with the softness of the soft-serve ice cream, but then I had similar reactions when I ate hard ice cream and whip cream.  The day that my stomach started its wretched churning after I had eaten the butter cream frosting off a bakery cake, I knew that my life had changed forever.

Nothing is more wonderful than butter cream icing.

I've done my research, but there isn't much information to be found.  Mostly, I get around being lactose intolerant by avoiding all milk products.  I've learned that I can eat most hard cheeses and soft cheeses up to and including mozzarella.  Brie is okay in small quantities, but I have to avoid ricotta like the plague.  Butter seems fine, but cream freche is a definite no-no.  I can drink Lactaid milk, but those lactaid tablets only work 50% of the time and who wants to risk that?  I've been lactose intolerant for years, but I still have so many questions:  Does cooking milk change anything?  Can I eat cream cheese?  Am I doomed to cool whip forever?  There are so many "buts" when you are lactose intolerant.

What have you found out?