For those of us who are forced to live with a restricted diet, the first step to reducing diet-related agony is choosing not to cheat. If the health concern is serious enough there will typically be one or more “aha” moments where you realize that the joy of cheating is a mere drop in the gulf of agony which soon emerges. That commitment is a personal development milestone on the wellness build, but that is not the what I am focusing upon for this post. The larger task immediately emerges after the commitment is made. How do I avoid the offending items?
For some of you, there may be a level of consumption of an ingredient to which you will not react. Make sure that the tract amount you are consuming is not causing internal damage, such as GI inflammation or villi damage. For the rest of us, we must arm ourselves.
I will contribute many articles and posts related to cooking, shopping, and labeling. For now I will attack a couple of main offenders.
- Vegetarian: lol to yourself that you did not fall for this one. We still have no idea if the product contains traces of dairy or dairy proteins such as casein.
- Suitable for Vegetarians: read the above.
- Milk Free: Whoa! Stop… spit it out fast. I have even fallen for this one, to my subsequent detriment. Milk free ≠ Dairy free. Not even close.
- Vegan: read #1. This one is even more lucrative than the first two, but provides no better insurance. Just don’t do it.
- Lactose Free: This is ONLY useful if you are ONLY lactose intolerant. I am lactose and dairy protein intolerant. The relief from lactose would become very very far from relief if I were to eat these products.
- Eg: many soy ice cream products contain this labelling.
- Q: What does it mean? A: Usually this indicates shared equipment with dairy products, with an incomplete cleaning between.
SIDENOTE on terminology: I believe in my heart that being deprived of ice cream in the first place is agony. The actual pain and symptoms of dairy consumption is just the cherry on top. I will not sully my work by selling out my heart and telling you all that life is better without it. We can, however, aim for an conservation of joy levels. Sorry, I was overcompensating for my heartache for a second with pseudo-science speak, true as it is.
This list only covers a few main offenders in the realm of dairy-free agony. I will delve deeper into the seemingly arcane art of Pain-Free Shopping in the next post in this series. For now remember the points above, as well as your commitment to non-agony. Focus on eating the foods you know you tolerate well that you can build a nutritious diet around. Next, we will focus on safely adding products and dishes one by one.
Build well,
CRC
