It looks like a family member is lactose intolerant, so I'll be using a lot more dairy free produce. Are there any dairy substitutes you can recommend? Soya milk and vegan cheese aren't very nice. I used some dairy free cheese sauce in a lasagne and, although it was like cornflour paste with Wotsits before being cooked, it turned out quite decent in the end.
How old are they and how bad are we talking? I was on life support at one point because of lactose intolerance as a child but over time people build up a resistance to a point that I can eat people food most of the time.
There are some soy milks that don't taste completely of water and arse I can't remember which I'm afraid. I think Flora might make one that is okay.
>>11994 Nutritional yeast is alright for giving a cheese like flavour.
When I was vegan, the worst meals I had were usually "nonvegan dish but with substitutes", though. It always feels like you're getting a shit version of a good meal.
There's a ton of stuff you can make, particularly in Asian cuisines, which doesn't feature any dairy to substitute in the first place, and it's usually much better tasting.
>>11996 >How old are they and how bad are we talking?
She'll be five months old next week, so we're talking somewhere in the region of 18 months of my other half breastfeeding her and having to avoid dairy.
I mainly just need dairy free milk, cheese and butter that don't taste like arse.
>>11997 >When I was vegan, the worst meals I had were usually "nonvegan dish but with substitutes", though. It always feels like you're getting a shit version of a good meal.
I'd agree in general, but sosmix (Granose call it something else but it's the same stuff) makes delicious sausages. I eat meat but sometimes I'll go for sosmix for fryups. Haven't had a Linda Mc pie in a while but they used to be pretty good too, though I think they went all peppery in the shite Great Desalination of 2006.
But yeah, if I'm cooking for vegetarians then it'll be some kind of cheesy bake or a pad thai; no point in a bad imitation.
As >>11994 says, the key to dealing without being able to eat lactose is to get your head around the fact that there exists a world of cuisine where dairy is not a lynchpin. This is pretty hard in the UK (don't even get me started on French cuisine) but don't worry, it'll be reet. Your daughter is 5 months now, so she's got a life ahead of her of not eating cheese so she doesn't get horrifically ill. She will get used to it - she will go through tasting it at some point, being jealous of her friends, but hopefully at some point she'll just accept she doesn't get to have a baby cow's food and be fine. In the meantime, you have a whole world of lactose-free cooking to introduce her (and your family) to. It'll be a tasty ride. Honest.
So, yeah, as >>11997 said, stop trying to treat your cooking as "what is a lactose-free substitute for x ingredient" as this will just make you sad, and unable to deal with soya milk after a lifetime of familiarity with the taste of dairy. Start trying to approach your cooking from the point of view of making a dish which doesn't rely on dairy as a flavour base or carrier. There are other fats in the world. If the entirety of the Jain population can cope, so can you.
If you're still sure you want to try and approach it from using subs, Alpro is the nicest soy milk, closely followed by M&S's own brand (for different purposes). Try Alpro Simply Mild (big supermarkets: Sainsbury's, Asda etc.) for cooking where you want a more neutral taste and don't want the effect of sweeteners which are normally added to soy milks. As for the M&S one, I found it to have a texture and opacity scarily similar to dairy milk, which in my uneducated brain indicates it might sub well for milk in white sauces etc. Its fat content wasn't any different to normal (soya) milks, but I think it has some other ingredients in it that add to its mouthfeel. When I tried it on a whim I was quite astounded by the taste - nicer to drink straight than any Alpro, and I thought it tasted like cow's milk. I was then informed by my milk-snatching meat-eating cunt of a boyfriend dear partner that it didn't taste anything like dairy, and admittedly my knowledge is a few years out of date. But I still think it's nice (it does still taste sweetened though, so take this into account if you try cooking with it. I very rarely cook with soya milk because I'd rather eat channa masala until my belly explodes, but I have successfully made vegan lasagne in the past. It can be done. Just don't use fat-reduced milk, as you wouldn't if you were using dairy).
Best substitutes for butter are dairy-free spreads; I particularly like Vitalite (any big supermarket) for cooking and eating. There's nothing wrong with margarine unless you're after the distinctive butteryness of a butter chicken sauce or something. But she can't eat that, so deal with it.
Don't bother with cheese substitutes. They will leave you sad. I've had some luck with making cashew cream (inc. nutritional yeast) for use as a sour cream substitute for certain dishes but it's definitely not the same as real dairy, it's a big faff and for you the taste definitely won't wash. Get some Indian cookery books and try to think outside the box of British bangers-n-mash. Our national food can be pretty dire; if you'd like some recommendations of good, accessible vegan cookbooks (or blogs, they're free) I can help here. Ones which cover Thai, Indian, Tex-mex, Mediterranean, Levantine/Persian (stop buying shop-bought houmous and make it from scratch, you won't look back), Caribbean and many other types of cuisine. My current favourites are Thug Kitchen's hardback and an obscure recipe book called The Joys of Nepalese Cooking. That's a good final point: eat the food of some of the world's poorest and you'll naturally avoid meat and often dairy simply because they can't afford it - in the Himalayas, ghee is for the bourgeoisie. The common folk cook in mustard oil. (Don't ever cook in mustard oil, it's rank.)
Naturally as soon as I typed all this out I remembered that Lactofree's range of products existed and wondered why I bothered trying to help. Then I got annoyed with myself and decided to attach this image to the post for my own kicks. Anyway, have you checked those out yet? They do hard cheese and soft cheese and mozzarella and all sorts along with the lactose-removed milk. There's also (near it in the same chiller section in larger supermarkets) another form of treated milk: I looked it up for you. Can she have this? http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/soya---dietary-needs/a2-milk-semi-skimmed-1l You say "lactose intolerant" but if she's even having a sensitivity to any lactose present in her mother's breast milk (which I would've thought would've been broken down in her mum before it reached her but I'm not a doctor) then fuck knows. Is it definitely lactose she can't have, or is it actually a milk protein allergy or just a larger dairy intolerance?
Lactose intolerance is quite rare in otherwise healthy infants. Are you sure it isn't a milk protein allergy?
Lactose intolerance is a piece of piss. It's a deficiency of the lactase enzyme, so the symptoms disappear with lactase supplementation. No need for weird dairy free bollocks, just a cheap tablet with each meal. Liquid preparations of lactase are available for children too young to swallow capsules.
Milk protein allergies usually resolve themselves within a few years. If there's a risk of anaphylaxis, get trained in epipen use.
>>12004 >Lactose intolerance is quite rare in otherwise healthy infants. Are you sure it isn't a milk protein allergy?
Not sure, to be honest. The dietician said to avoid dairy for a couple of weeks to see how that goes and she's doing less whiffy farts and her poo is looking better, as far as poo can look better.
>>12005 Does Lactofree really taste that different? >>12003 here, I had an ex in the past who was horrendously allergic to everything including lactose and he could consume Lactofree without turning into Violet Beauregarde so incidentally I've tasted it, and I don't remember it tasting massively dissimilar to normal cow's milk.
Anyway, let me know if you want some recipes. I made a sweet potato puree chilli the other day from Thug Kitchen, it's rather nice - and with a bit of common sense you can put meat in it wherever you like.
> (Same principle applies. Actually, I don't mind almond milk but nobody else in the household does. Soya milk is awful.)
The lactose free milk I linked isn't soy or almond milk, though. It's actual milk milk with lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) added to remove the lactose. It should, in theory, taste just like milk.