10 Tips for Those New to Eating Dairy-Free

I will never forget the day I was diagnosed with a milk allergy. After my doctor delivered the news and handed me a list (a long list) of everything I couldn’t eat, I sat there and cried. On that list were foods like ice cream, cheese, butter, sour cream and ranch dressing plus ingredients like whey, casein, lactoglobulin and nonfat dried milk. What!? How could I live without milk, cheese, cream cheese, cheesecake (my favorite dessert) or coffee ice cream (my other favorite dessert)!? Oh, the pity party was ON! I sure could have used a “10 Tips for Those New to Eating Dairy-Free” back then along with my “no-no” ingredient list.

That was a little over 20 years ago, and it took place after living with a painful, miserable, exhausting sinus infection for 6 months that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many horse pill-sized antibiotics, nasal sprays and steam showers I threw at it.

SPOILER ALERT: after quitting dairy cold turkey, my life significantly improved in 3 ways: 1) The 6+ month sinus infection finally went away after a month or so with no dairy, 2) My recurring sinus infections went away (I had averaged about 3 per year … and since giving up dairy have had only 3 in more than 20 years!) and 3) My occasional migraine headaches stopped. While I won’t get rushed to the hospital if I accidentally get a tiny bit of cow’s milk, you bet your booty I avoid it like the plague! You don’t know how bad you’re feeling until you feel soooo good. I’m NOT giving that up for all the real cheesecake or coffee ice cream in the world!

So I’m paying it forward and writing this list of going dairy-free tips, to help all of you who have been newly diagnosed with a milk allergy, milk sensitivity or lactose-intolerance (or have a child in that boat) … and for those of you who have known for quite a while that you have an issue with dairy and are finally ready to give it up. These tips are equally helpful to those who are choosing to eat dairy-free for other health or lifestyle reasons (and there are plenty of good reasons, I learned).

10 Tips for Those New to Eating Dairy-Free

1) Go Cold Turkey and Remember Your Misery

If my doctor had simply suggested I eliminate dairy from my diet, I’m not sure how committed I would have been. I probably would have tried to phase out dairy … and then I would have done a misery-creating backslide. Luckily (truly), I was sooooo miserable, and I had a large itchy welt to “prove” that going dairy-free was my solution. I walked out of that doctor’s office and quit dairy cold turkey, never looking back.

My daughter, on the other hand, was born with a lactose-intolerance (which affects the digestive tract) and ate dairy-free the first few years of her life, but then seemed to be able to tolerate a little bit of cheese and a few bites of ice cream. When she went away to college, she ate quite a bit of dairy at first. It not only made her digestive tract hurt, but it eventually gave her hives as well. She finally quit dairy completely, and she feels soooo much better.

Remember your misery; it will help you stay the course.

2) Go Ahead and Have the Pity Party … then Make a Plan

Give yourself a day (or an hour) to feel sorry for yourself. It’s ok. You know what you’re going to be missing. And learning new shopping, cooking, eating and restaurant ordering habits isn’t a piece of cake (literally, because in most restaurants, you can’t have the cake). In addition to my original pity party, I vividly remember my second one as well: it was the first holiday season after I was diagnosed. I was shopping at the mall and got hungry, so I went to the food court. As I looked around to decide what to order, I thought: nope, can’t have that; nope, there’s nonfat dry milk in those buns; nope, there’s milk in the chicken strip’s batter … and it went on. I sat down on a chair and cried. This time it was a public (but quiet) hungry pity party for one …

The next time I went to the mall, I did my research beforehand, took a dairy-free snack with me and arrived at the mall knowing a couple things I could safely eat at the food court.

At home, I got busy with meal planning. I went through my existing recipes and cookbooks and realized I couldn’t make the majority of my favorite dishes or desserts anymore (I skipped the pity party this time). I earmarked and saved the safe recipes plus those I could maybe re-make into dairy-free versions.

Next, I went on the hunt at the library and bookstore (it was 1996!) for any dairy-free cookbook(s) I could get my hands on. I found a couple vegetarian cookbooks and ONE (you read that – only one) dairy-free cookbook. It was written by Jane Zukin, an early pioneer in the lactose and milk allergy education and recipe development field, and I am forever grateful for her cookbook!!

3) Quick: Find 3 Key Dairy-Free Foods or Recipes

Your next suggested task is to find at least one of each of these as soon as you can:

1) A portable and decently healthy dairy-free snack (or a recipe to make one for yourself). This could be an apple, an energy bar, a muffin or, my favorite, whole raw cashews. The key is to always have something with you that you CAN eat. We don’t want you having my kind of hangry food court meltdown!

2) A dairy-free comfort food recipe. Early on, I found a recipe for tuna tetrazinni on the back of a mayonnaise jar that was “accidentally” dairy-free. I changed it up and made it often. It wasn’t super healthy, but my kids loved it, and I needed creamy comfort food! So do you!! My favorite now is my fast and easy “Cheesy” Tomato Pasta Bowl.

3) A dairy-free dessert. Jane Zukin’s “Best Ever Brownies” in her Dairy-Free Cookbook were a saving grace for me in the early days, and that recipe is still a family favorite today (and now a favorite of my daughter’s college roommates). The key is to arm yourself with something sweet you CAN eat, because in the beginning, it will feel like almost every dessert is now off-limits to you, and you will likely crave dessert more than normal. It’s especially difficult when you go out to eat, where you can probably have fruit, sorbet (not sherbert!) or, if you’re at a Mexican food restaurant, sopapillas. I grew to love sopapillas simply because I could eat them!

4) Allot Yourself More Time at the Grocery Store for Your New Hobby: Label Reading

My first trip to the grocery store after I was diagnosed took more than THREE HOURS! Armed with my no-no list (which looked a lot like this helpful dairy ingredient list), I had to read the label on everything. You will too, so go ahead and give yourself extra time for the first few trips. And if you have kids, find a way to go grocery shopping without them for a while, if you can.

Some food packaging loudly says “dairy-free” on it; other dairy-free food items may say “pareve” on them, usually in tiny letters on the front of the packaging. Pareve is a kosher label that means the item contains no dairy or meat (therefore, it’s safe to mix with one or the other to keep it kosher). However, a product may be considered pareve even if it contains a very small amount of milk protein, which is enough to cause an allergic reaction in certain people, so it isn’t a complete dairy-free green light for everyone. ALWAYS read labels.

If something is labeled vegan, it will not have any dairy (or meat or egg products). However, if it’s only labeled lactose-free, it simply means it is free of lactose — just one of the elements in milk. If you have a lactose-intolerance (but not a milk allergy), these products should work for you, but if you have a dairy allergy, suspect a dairy allergy or are otherwise trying to go completely dairy-free, lactose-free isn’t going to be enough for you.

5) Find New Favorite Foods

Before I had to go dairy-free, my answer to “Would you like some grated cheese on that?” was always yes … and then more yes. My favorite dessert was cheesecake, I LOVED having a glass of milk with any meal and my coffee was always loaded with generous amounts of milk or cream. All the casseroles and party snack recipes I took pride in were filled with cheese, sour cream, cream cheese or all three. No wonder I was so miserable with sinus issues!

I was a full-on, hardcore all-things-milk lover! So when I say “find new favorite foods,” I KNOW that can be really hard. But I am here to tell you, friends, that it CAN be done. This dairy-free girl now loves bread without butter (seriously, I taste the BREAD now), oven roasted cauliflower, pan-roasted asparagus, pizza without cheese (think bread sticks with toppings dipped in marinara sauce), dairy-free gelato and sweet dairy-free cornbread. Do you know how many of these things I liked before? Only the cornbread.

6) Do Some Research on the Health Benefits of Going Dairy-Free

If you’re going dairy-free by choice, you likely already know the benefits of eating a dairy-free diet. If you’re going milk-free kicking and screaming, like I did, doing this kind of research will help you stay the course. For starters, milk is one of most most common food allergens and approximately 65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy … and it only gets worse as we get older.

7) Find Favorite New Brands

It will take some trial and error, but find some favorite new brands. One “real” dairy item I actually never liked was yogurt … but I love dairy-free yogurt (go figure). My daughter does too, but we prefer different brands of dairy-free yogurt. I point that out because you may try a specific brand and not like it: try another. One brand doesn’t fit different taste buds the same. Also, keep an open mind — new products are coming out all the time (like the new-ish Bailey’s almond milk liqueur pictured above!!).

8) Stock Up on These Dairy-Free Staples for Cooking

Note: this post is not sponsored in any way by any of the brands mentioned below. Other note: if you’re one of these brands and want to change that, contact me. 😉

Milk substitute – there are a lot of options (thank goodness) today, so you have your pick between almond milk, coconut milk, soy milk, cashew milk and rice milk (the only one around 20+ years ago and my least favorite). If you’re using the milk for cereal or baking, a vanilla-flavored one might work best for you. Some people like the taste of a milk substitute right away. For others, like me, it’s an acquired taste. If you don’t like one type or brand, try another. At first, I only liked “fake” milk with chocolate cereal, using the tiniest amount of the milk I could. Now, I generously pour my almond milk into a cereal bowl and drink a full glass of it with a brownie, almost like I used to drink regular milk. NOTE: do not use vanilla flavored milk for cooking (eggs, casseroles, sauces, etc. taste really weird with vanilla in them; I learned that the hard way so you don’t have to – LOL!).

Dairy-free cheese – this option didn’t exist when I first went dairy-free, and it’s my favorite dairy-free product ever! I have tried all the dairy-free “cheese” options available near me, and I like the Daiya brand cheese shreds the best (as you can see from many of my recipes).

Butter substitutes – vegan “butter” (like Earth Balance brand buttery sticks), coconut oil, canola oil, grapeseed oil and margarine (my least favorite) are your new baking friends.

Dairy-free bread crumbs – most traditional bread crumbs have cheese or nonfat dry milk lurking in them. If you love meatballs, meatloaf, homemade chicken strips, etc., stock up on the dairy-free kind. My favorite dairy-free bread crumbs are the Edward and Sons Organic Breadcrumbs (sometimes I can find these in a grocery store, but I buy them in bulk on Amazon to be safe). Ian’s Natural Foods also makes a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free breadcrumb that I really like.

Canned coconut milk – this will be your new best friend (unless you are allergic to coconut). I can find this easily in the Asian food section of any grocery store. I use it to make homemade whipped cream and cook with it a lot.

Yogurt – some stores carry little to no dairy-free yogurt options … while others carry many; at these, you can typically find milk-free yogurts made from coconut, soy or almond milks. If you try one and don’t like it, I highly recommend trying another. More than anything, I think the dairy-free yogurts vary a lot in taste.

Ice cream – like yogurt, there are a wide variety of dairy-free ice creams in many stores now. I think a favorite is really subjective, so try several and find yours.

Cream cheese and sour cream – unfortunately, I’m not a fan yet of any pre-made substitutes I have tried so far; homemade versions of sour cream get closer than the store bought, and I’m still working on cream cheese … sigh (that was a one-second pity party – ha!)

Things that, surprisingly, don’t have dairy in them – phyllo dough, puff pastry dough, marshmallows, mayonnaise, creamed corn and junior mints (although read the labels anyway). None of these will win an award for being the healthiest thing on your shopping list, but one or all of the above can help you through. I’d love to hear others you would add to this list (you can leave a comment below)!

9) Be Your Own Advocate

If your child had a food allergy, you’d be all over pointing it out at restaurants, family gatherings, friends’ houses, school, etc. Will you do the same for yourself?

Please give yourself that same kind of love and protection. It’s hard to be “the difficult one” when ordering at a restaurant, but trust me: the wait staff, cooks and managers would much rather know about your allergy or intolerance upfront than have to send something back to the kitchen because you were shy, didn’t want to be an inconvenience or forgot. Your friends and family don’t want you to be miserable or sick either, so speak up when visiting their homes.

This has been a struggle for me. Recently, I went to an Asian restaurant at an airport (on purpose, to avoid dairy). To be safe, I carefully read the menu’s description and ingredient list for the meal I ordered. With nothing listed (and it was an Asian restaurant!), I assumed I didn’t need to point out my dairy allergy to my server. My meal arrived with odd white chunks in it — that turned out to be blue cheese! Who in the world would think they’d add a whole bunch of blue cheese to an Asian broccoli chicken dish and not mention it in the menu description!? Lesson learned (again): always ask, never assume and don’t worry about being “a pain”!

10) Celebrate the Silver Linings

Going dairy free isn’t easy, but I promise you that it’s worth it (and gets easier). A dairy-free diet will make you feel better, and you will discover new foods and recipes you love.

I’d love to hear about your challenges with going dairy free, what you miss the most, etc. Feel free to leave any questions or comments in the comment section below.

You can also pin/save these 10 tips for those new to eating dairy-free. Thank you and good luck!

 

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