Image via: Free People Blog
I see all these memes about lactose intolerance
like this one and this one, and although I
have a sense of humor and I can laugh about my own issues, it's hard for me to
find humor in these because I have not so pleasant memories of being curled up with
severe stomach discomfort as a child and not having a clue why.
As a kid I remember having strong stomach aches.
I had no idea what triggered it but all of a sudden it would start and I
would cry and hold my stomach and just try to find relief but not really
succeeding. I would try to tell myself to relax and to just pretend like it
wasn't all that bad, but it was really bad.
I noticed that ice cream would always give me a
stomachache and I stopped eating ice cream at a very early age. Even then I
would still get discomfort and over the years it kept getting worse and worse.
I grew up in a house of milk lovers. My dad and
my sisters still have several glasses of milk a day. I never loved milk and
when possible I would opt for juice or just plain water. In Brazil, I would
normally drink a glass of juice, or a cup of tea, and eat some bread and fruit
for breakfast.
When I left for college and came back to the U.S
I would always have a big bowl of cereal with milk in the mornings, because
that's what everyone ate and that's what the cafeteria had available. I started
noticing my stomach aches coming back and I would usually be really
uncomfortable during class. That's when I started skipping breakfast, because I
thought that the problem was eating in the morning, I never made the connection
that the real problem was milk and was lacking solutions to effectively overcome
this barrier while still consuming dairy foods
After my first year of college, I went back to
Brazil and left on a two month field study, in remote areas where I just didn't
have access to milk. After three weeks without milk I noticed that I had been
feeling great, that for the first time in my life I wasn't suffering from
stomachaches. Then I was moved to a different location, where there were cows
right there on the farm, and the family that hosted me served milk for
breakfast. About an hour after breakfast I was so sick. It was one of the worst
episodes I ever had and my stomach hurt so much I thought I was going to have
to go to the hospital. That's when I finally made the connection, that drinking
milk makes me feel sick and was there even a solution to still drink milk?
Stubborn as I am I tested my theory a couple
times after that incident, not by drinking a full glass of milk but by having
milk with cereal, or milk with oatmeal, and inevitably I would get sick. I
never thought that slowly introducing dairy foods back into my diet may work or
even giving lactose-free milk a try, its real-cow’s milk, just without the
lactose and providing the same essential nutrients.
The National Dairy Council has
created a great resource page about Lactose Intolerance and Dairy to help people understand what lactose intolerance is and
isn't. The thing is that lactose intolerance affects people in different ways.
I know people who can't have any dairy at all, while I can't have a glass of
milk I can certainly make quiche and add both
milk and cheese to the recipe. So many of the recipes I create have dairy and
they don't make me sick.
People have different levels of intolerance and don’t
have to miss out on the great taste and health benefits of low-fat and fat-free
dairy foods. It’s important to
understand it so you can be better prepared with a solution to meet most needs
in the dairy case – from lactose-free milk to dairy foods that are typically
easier to digest. Whether you are hosting a party and wants to make a recipe that has dairy that is great for everyone, or if you are experiencing stomach pains and are wondering if
you are lactose intolerant.
Stay tuned, in my next post I will share some
tips for living with and managing your lactose intolerance.
This post was sponsored by
the National Dairy Council. As always all opinions are my own.
This post was sponsored by the National Dairy Council. As always all opinions are my own.
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