Lactose Intolerance

[T.H.]

This is probably old hat for some of you, but it was all new to me!

My kids both have dairy issues, but unlike me, they don't test positive for dairy allergies. We think it might be intolerance. However, I keep finding lists of dairy foods that should be 'low lactose,' like yogurt, and my kids still react to them. I just stopped trying and we ditched the dairy altogether.

However, today I came across a website discussing lactose intolerance, and it mentioned how often a cheese, cream cheese, butter, or sour cream SHOULD be low in lactose, but how often modern processing changes that.

One example was that powdered milk is often added to a cultured dairy product like yogurt, to thicken it. Or citric acid is added for a sour taste to something like buttermilk, instead of letting actual fermentation (which would lower the lactose content) take place.

It was an interesting read, in large part because of the suggestions for what to look for to find lower lactose products.

The webpage is here:

Open Original Shared Link

And here is a short list of truly low lactose products.

* Lactase treated milk

* Natural yoghurt, preferably one with live culture (has to use this term)

* Aged, fermented cheeses

* Dry cottage cheese (creamed cottage cheese has milk or cream added back in)

* Cultured sour cream

* Cultured buttermilk

* Cultured butter

There is a detailed explanation of why these are safe, and others aren't, in the article. It's mostly looking at processing. I am really interested to go and see if we can find any cheese that might actually work for my kids, using this as a guide. Or maybe try to make my own. :-)