A life without Lactose...

So, those of you who follow me on Instagram may know already, I’m Lactose Intolerant and since finding out at the age of 15 my life has been changed.

Growing up I was miserable and constantly suffering from a bad tummy. My symptoms included sickness, tiredness, lethargy and bloating. It was only after completely eradicating dairy from my diet that I actually started to feel human again.

I had been seeing the Doctor for a long time with no diagnosis. They kept telling me that it was IBS, but I was sure that it wasn’t. After many many tears I decided to keep a record of what I was eating, otherwise known as a food diary. Each meal or snack that I had, I would write in my diary. I would then write how I felt an hour later, two hours later and at bedtime. I’d record any sickness / ill effects in there.

After a while, it became blindingly obvious that it was dairy that was causing my symptoms. I then had the very hard task of cutting ALL dairy out of my diet. It was so tough, and for a while I refused to give up chocolate. When I had eventually given in and accepted that my body just didn’t tolerate any lactose at all and had fully cut it out of my diet, it felt like I had a new lease of life!

Luckily for anyone experiencing similar things, there’s now a whole range of substitute products that will make life easier. Here are some of my favourites:

-          Lacto-Free Range – the Lacto-Free people make semi-skimmed and skimmed milk, two cheddar cheeses, a soft cheese, cream and ice cream. I’ve never found a supermarket that sells them all, but most places stock the semi-skimmed milk at least. I’ve found Sainsbury’s the best for having the Mature Cheddar cheese (my fave!). I personally didn’t like the ice cream, although it’s just vanilla I found it really rich.

When supermarkets have Lacto-Free on offer, I do tend to go a bit mad!

-          Substitute milks – there are so many different ‘milk’ options nowadays! And the best thing is that you can usually find at least one alternative anywhere! Soya is the most common, a taste that took me a while to get used to, but something that I now really enjoy in coffee. It doesn’t heat too well, but is great for iced coffees. I love the Hazelnut milk (Alpro) and it’s delicious on coco pops and in a latte! My favourite Almond Milk is Almond Breeze – they offer a sweetened and unsweetened (I always go for unsweetened). There’s so many to try and often the big supermarkets will have them on offer, so give them all a go.

-          ICE CREAM! I missed Ice Cream SOOOOO much when I was first dairy free. I happened to come across the Swedish Glace ice cream (cholesterol & dairy free) and this is still my all-time favourite. It’s fairly reasonably priced too! There’s quite a few other ice creams out there now, but I never seem to find them stocked in any of my local supermarkets, I’m dying to try the new almond one, and can’t wait for the lactose-free Ben & Jerry’s to come out in 2016!

Over the years I’ve taught myself how to cook and can now make the vast majority of recipes suitable for me with a few tweaks and the help of the above products. I’ll be doing some blogs on my favourite meals soon, but I’d really encourage anyone to give it a try. If you’re feeling groggy and bloated all the time then you may have an intolerance – try keeping a food diary to find out. If you’re in the depths of despair then let me tell you, it DOES and it WILL get better. Just be patient and be strict with yourself and cut all ties with your food nemesis!

Em xx