Dairy And/or Soy Free?

[DarkIvy]

Okay, so I've been gluten free for about a week and a half now and am starting to get vary curious about the whole soy/dairy free thing. I hear often that people should go dairy free in the beginning, and I've also read a lot suggesting that avoiding soy for a while is also good.

I guess my question lies in how much is too much, or should it be totally completely given up for a while.

I know I seem to be having issues with dairy, particularly cheese and milk. I think that it would be wise for me to try and get dairy out of my diet for the time being, but I'm really not sure how to go about it. Should I start reading every label for dairy, too? Should I just not eat anything with tiny bits of milk? What about yogurt? I've been eating lots of yogurt because I hear that's helpful to reintroduce good bacteria into the gut. I don't seem to be having any problems with yogurt, but it's dairy. Would it be beneficial to cut that out, too? Or should I just follow basically what I've already been: limiting most dairy products in general besides yogurt? Is it kind of all or nothing like gluten?

And what about soy? I'm even more confused about soy. Do people mainly just give that up since it is a common intolerance along with gluten and milk? How do I start figuring out what things are issues for ME? How do you tell if it's short term or permanent?

Thanks

[BRUMI1968]

I think it's possible the dairy thing depends if your casein reactive, or lactose reactive. I don't eat dairy at all - no cheese, butter, milk, or anything with dairy in it. That said, I will cheat on that once or a twice a year in a fine restaurant - my reactions are different from gluten - more cumulative than instantaneous.

There is a large debate about the healthfulness of soy products. W/O going into that (happy to give my opinion if you'd like it, though), lots of people are allergic. The highest allergen foods are: wheat, soy, dairy, corn. Those are the tops. Lots of folks with Celiac have secondary food allergies thanks to having a leaky gut for plenty of years. I don't eat any of those things.

In ways, going dairy free is easier than gluten-free, because so many folks are lactose intolerant. That said, it's hard to do both. If your problem is lactose, it's possible that you would regain the ability to eat dairy once your villi are happy again. If it's casein, not so much. It really depends on the person. I've been gluten free for a bit over a year, and tried dairy again. It still constipates the life right out of me, so I guess I fall into the forever dairy-free camp.

As to figuring out which issues YOU have, I'd say doing an elimination diet, or getting allergy tested. Allergy testing is helpful, but some folks have reactions to food w/o being allergic. I'm fine with walnuts, for example, on paper. When I eat them, though, or walnut butter, I get a very focused pain in my lower intestine. It's really just trial and error and it takes a while to get it right. I find the hardest thing is that when you're having a hard time, you might have to go all the way to just white rice and yams or something, to even out, then add things back to find the culprit. Someone else knows better than I how to do the elimination diet.

-Sherri

[jnclelland]

Well, I went gluten and dairy-free at the same time, and soy-free about a year later as I slowly realized that soy seemed to be what was causing my remaining symptoms (eczema, mostly). And in terms of the learning curve, I think that soy is the hardest of the three to give up. They all have a learning curve, but ultimately my take on it is:

- To give up gluten, you mostly lose convenience and spontaneity, but you don't actually have to give up much of anything in terms of what you can eat; you just have to work harder to find/cook gluten-free versions.

- To give up dairy, you lose cheese (assuming you're giving up casein as well as lactose), but almost everything else can still be faked.

- To give up soy, you lose entire categories of food (I miss Chinese food - WAH!), including a lot of the subsitutes for dairy.

I guess my point here is that unless you KNOW you have a problem with soy, I'd give yourself some time to get the hang of the gluten-free thing before you pile on a lot of other restrictions too. It really does get easier with time, and I found it a lot easier to change my diet in stages than I would have if I'd done it all at once.

Jeanne

[tarnalberry]

- To give up soy, you lose entire categories of food (I miss Chinese food - WAH!), including a lot of the subsitutes for dairy.

I'd elaborate on this by noting that this is true if you are whole sale eliminating soy rather than significantly reducing it. I find, for instance, that having so much soy as what is in soy yogurt (as I'm dairy free), is a problem. But the amount that's in soy sauce in stir fries is not. (And, there for, the amount in the lecithin in chocolate is not.) But YMMV, as is true with all of these things.

[jnclelland]

I'd elaborate on this by noting that this is true if you are whole sale eliminating soy rather than significantly reducing it. I find, for instance, that having so much soy as what is in soy yogurt (as I'm dairy free), is a problem. But the amount that's in soy sauce in stir fries is not. (And, there for, the amount in the lecithin in chocolate is not.) But YMMV, as is true with all of these things.

True - unfortunately, even soy lecithin is enough to make me break out in an itchy rash about a day later. Once in a blue moon I cheat a little bit, but I usually decide it wasn't worth it.

Jeanne

[DarkIvy]

Thanks guys for all the input.

Guess I'll just wing it for now and cut back on dairy pretty significantly to see what happens. If I find it's not enough, I'll try to cut it out totally.

I agree that soy is probably one of the harder ones. I'm also a Chinese food fanatic, and I like soy milk, tofu, etc. I suppose there is always rice milk. I think I'll continue with soy for the time being until I have enough time to see if gluten and dairy-light is enough.

[aikiducky]

The only thing I would NOT do is increase your soy intake when you go dairy free... so don't replace all dairy with soy products, but look for other alternatives as well.

Pauliina

[grey]

I went gluten-free a little over a mo. ago, and then realized I needed to drop dairy too because I wasn't tolerating it well. My doctor recently tested me for soy and casein antibodies, which (yay) I don't have, with a blood test.

I've gotten rid of all dairy for now because my gut needs a break. It may be too picky, but I am trying to look for dairy on labels - switched gluten-free breads, for ex. - but I don't worry about cross-contamination w/ dairy.

I'm also eating greatly reduced soy; processed soy especially - soy lecithin in particular, seems to aggravate my system.

I like almond milk - Pacific Natural Foods low fat vanilla is good. A lot of the soy milks have gluten in them anyway and this has less aftertaste.

My theory is that the villi need all the help they can get right now and anything I can do to make my food more whole, less processed, while digestible and nutritricious ...