The official way of finding out

While I've talked about other ways to find out if you're lactose intolerant, there are two other more official ways. The most common way, which I've talked about is mainly to stop eating/drinking lactose products for two weeks to see if your symptoms disappear, then reintroduce it and see how you feel, is the easiest and most widely recommended. If you still have doubt in your mind, there are tests that can be done.

Both of these are performed in a doctor's office. First they will take a complete medical examination and find out your family history. Then they will most likely perform a hydrogen breath test. With this test they will test the level of hydrogen in your breath before you have anything with lactose in it. You will have to breath into a tube, which registers the hydrogen amount. Once you have some lactose, they will test the level of hydrogen every half hour for two hours. If the hydrogen levels increases over time, you are lactose intolerance. This test works because undigested lactose will sit and ferment in the intestines, creating different gases, one which is hydrogen.

The second test a doctor can perform is a endoscopy. They will send a camera and light down your stomach into your intestines. There they will take tissue samples and pictures of the inside of your intestines. By doing this they can look for clues as to why you've been having trouble with what you've been eating. They can also measure the level of lactose in the tissue sample.

For obvious reasons, like the time and discomfort, I highly recommend trying to figure out if you are lactose intolerant by changing your diet for two weeks. Keep a detailed record of what you eat everyday and how you feel. By looking at the similarities over time you can determine if you are lactose intolerant.

Sea Lions Milk... the safe alternative

Did you know that all mammals milk is made out of mostly lactose, except for sea lions? (Not that you should run out to the store for this, I'm pretty sure it will never be on store shelves... but who knows) Humans have the highest lactose concentration in their milk, about 7 percent. Cows, sheep, goats and other mammals whose milk we commonly drink is usually between 4 and 5 percent. However, most adult mammals lose their ability to break down lactose at a certain age. This suggests that being able to break down lactose is a mutation or evolution that has developed over time. Being lactose intolerant is normal!

Today I thought I would bring up one of the biggest problems of being lactose intolerant (besides the fact that it is so hard to eat anything you don't cook or can read the ingredients off the back). There are alot of necessary nutrients in milk products that those who are lactose intolerant often don't get enough of. Milk is a rich source of protein, calcium, carbohydrates and other nutrients. For infants and children who develop lactose intolerance at a very young age, lactose intolerance can be devastating. With technology they have developed other formulas, such as those made from soybeans, which provide the necessary nutrients for infants. For adults, it is important to have enough calcium and protein to stay healthy. Dark green, leafy vegetables are a good source of calcium. Protein can be obtained from animal products such as chicken or beef. As with any allergy or eating disorder, it is important to regulate what you eat and make sure you are getting the necessary nutrients.

Of course now you can go out to the store and buy lactose-free products, making it much easier to get all the benefits from milk and milk products without working to figure out what can replace them.

Avoid the Stuffing and Mashed Potatoes!!

Thanksgiving... it's finally here. A day of eating amazing food then feeling sleepy, content and absolutely stuffed. Sounds amazing and typical, right? Wrong. One of the worst annoyances about being lactose intolerant is missing out on the best parts of holiday meals, most of the appetizers, side dishes and desserts. I'm lucky, since there are multiple members of my family suffering from lactose intolerance, our cooks (aka my grandmas, aunts, mom and I) make sure to use margarine or Earth Balance instead of butter and lactaid milk instead of regular milk. These simple changes allow me and my mom (most of my family can still use lactaid pills) to enjoy ALMOST every dish. This year, after my experimentation, we'll even be able to enjoy the pumpkin pie. I highly suggest trying to convince your family to do this, or maybe even volunteer to help them cook, then slip in the changes yourself. I guarantee they usually won't notice.

So what if you can't "help" them cook? Well, then I hope you like turkey. Recently, I have been to two "Thanksgiving" dinners. At the first the only things I could eat were the turkey, cranberry sauce and apple sauce. Be sure to avoid the skin of the turkey, it's often rubbed with spices and butter. Not quite the huge thanksgiving spread I'm sure you imagined. Stuffing almost always has butter in it (even though it doesn't have to). Mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes will have milk and butter. Cooked vegetables are usually made with brown sugar and spices, with butter. And I've already told you about desserts. Pumpkin pie has condensed milk, any baked dessert will have butter. Apple pie usually isn't safe, but the chances are better than other types of pie. Unfortunately this is a meal usually homemade, which means there aren't even labels to check for ingredients.

Another Diary-Free Dessert

With the holidays coming up so quickly (next week... can you believe it?!?)... I decided to post another two dairy-free desserts for my fellow lactose intolerant friends. Make these for a holiday dinner and your friends will be thrilled. The best part... for once you'll be able enjoy dessert at the end of the meal and not feel like you're the only one on some strict diet.

So today I'm going to give you two recipes... one for chocolate lava cakes and another for the traditional christmas cookie, gingerbread.

First, the chocolate lava cakes, these may be tiny but they are so rich, it seems sinful. Also, my brother and sister can't get enough of them (they aren't lactose intolerant), even when I easily adapt them so I can enjoy them as well.

Ingredients

• 6 (1-ounce) squares bittersweet chocolate
• 2 (1-ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
• 10 tablespoons earth balance
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons orange liqueur

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Grease 6 (6-ounce) custard cups. Melt the chocolates and earth balance in the microwave, or in a double boiler. Add the flour and sugar to chocolate mixture. Stir in the eggs and yolks until smooth. Stir in the vanilla and orange liqueur. Divide the batter evenly among the custard cups. Place in the oven and bake for 14 minutes. The edges should be firm but the center will be runny. Run a knife around the edges to loosen and invert onto dessert plates. Don't leave them in too long or the center will be fully cooked. Ideally, you want the outside of the cake baked and set and the inside runny and hot, picture a center of hot fudge. Yum!

Next up is your traditional christmas cookie, ginger bread. These can be rolled out as think or thin as you want them. Decorate them with a little powder sugar and water icing and you've got a cute gingerbread man to enjoy.

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly milled black pepper
• 8 tablespoons earth balance
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2/3 cup unsulfured molasses
• 1 large egg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, salt and pepper. Beat earth balance and vegetable shortening together in a separate bowl. Add brown sugar and beat until combined and light in texture. Beat in molasses and egg. Gradually add in flour mixture with a wooden spoon. Separate dough and refrigerate for 3 hours.

Take out dough and let it warm up for ten minutes. Roll out dough on a floured surface until it is 1/8 inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to make cookies. Continue collecting scraps and rolling dough, until it is all used. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until edges are crisp and set. Cool on wire sheet. Enjoy!

Thank God for Vegans!

One of the first things I quickly discovered as someone living with lactose intolerance in Philadelphia was... VEGAN FOOD!

ok so I've never been much of a vegetarian. I love hamburgers and a occasional steak and especially in the summer, grilling is one of my favorite pastimes. As much as I respect vegetarians and their choices, I love meat. Vegans are even most exclusive, refusing to eat anything that is even a byproduct of animals, such as milk, eggs, etc. Which means... Vegan food is safe!

Because of their beliefs, there will never be any milk, cheese or butter in anything that is vegan. Great... but how does this really affect us? Well Philadelphia has a ton of vegans and vegetarians. Any Whole Foods store has vegan options for most of their cakes, breads, snacks, etc. This means for once in your life, you can go to a food store and buy a cake without becoming sick afterwards. Now you know I love cooking anything. But there will always be that night where you're tired from work and don't want to bake, but you're really craving a slice of chocolate cake, now you have somewhere to go.

Another benefit of Philadelphian's love of vegan food... vegan restaurants. Now there are restaurants you can go to and eat without any fear of later repercussions. For those of us lactose intolerant, this is nothing short of a small miracle.

Here's a list of some popular vegan restaurants in the Philadelphia area:

Basic 4 Vegetarian Snack Bar
Reading Terminal Market

Belgian Cafe
2047 Green St. (Fairmount)
Philadelphia

Blackbird Pizzeria (Vegan Pizza?!?!)
507 S. 6th St.
Philadelphia

Cafe Spice
35 S. 2nd St.
Philadelphia

Farmicia
15 S. 3rd St.
Philadelphia

Horizons
611 S. 7th St.
Philadelphia


For next week... I have a special request for my readers. Please pick any dish or recipe and I will try to adapt it so those with lactose intolerance can still enjoy it. I'm waiting on your suggestions so let me know!

Race by Digestion

So I was reading my Anthropology textbook the other day and came upon a weird fact.... there is such a thing as a lactase-negative race. I've heard that lactose intolerance is the way humans are really supposed to be and that it is often genetic (that I can attest to... my mom, grandma, two cousins and aunts are also lactose intolerant). But that it can depend on your ethnicity!?! That was definitely something new.

According to "Applying Cultural Anthropology: An Introductory Reader," we can define a race by their ability to digest milk. Seriously. I promise I am not making this up. Most northern and central Europeans, Arabians and West Africans are able to digest lactose. Most southern Europeans (well up until now I had no reason to regret my Italian and Spanish heritage), East Asians, American Indians, Australians and Africans are in the "lactase-negative race."

Of course we all start out with the lactase enzyme, as infants it is necessary to digest milk. Up until 6,000 years ago, nearly all humans lost the ability to digest milk after they stopped nursing. So then why are lactose tolerant people considered normal!? Technically they are the ones that should be weird. But I guess 6,000 years of adaptation allows humans to completely change some of their lesser abilities (we're not talking about learning to fly or anything), leaving some of us lesser races behind in our ability to digest certain things.
Who would have thought... lactose intolerance caused by our race. It seems a bit ironic that my ethnicity (by the way... all my family members with lactose intolerance are on my mother's Italian and Spanish side), which is known for pizza and mozzarella and calzone and cannoli and the hundreds of other things I can no longer eat, is also the reason that I can no longer eat their delicious cuisine.

No More Dessert?!

But what can I eat during exams or after a bad breakup, if sugar and chocolate are no longer there to get me through?! First of all don’t panic. The rule is merely avoiding desserts that are made in restaurants or found in food stores. Sugary treats, like Swedish fish, are still safe, as is dark chocolate, and can save you when you’re short on time. Otherwise, there is rarely a dessert that you can’t make. Don’t get me wrong, it will be nearly impossible to enjoy another canola (unless you know a pastry chef that can figure out a way to make the cream sans diary), but most desse rts you won’t have to give up forever. For ten years, my mom was able to enjoy only a nibble of pumpkin pie and even that was with four lactaid pills. However last week, I took to experimenting. The main ingredient in pumpkin pie that makes it indigestible for us is the evaporated milk. However, after trying a couple versions, I found that lactaid whole milk works just as well. Many of my friends tried it and found no difference. They were thrilled to have homemade pumpkin pie and had no idea that I had completely changed the recipe so I could enjoy it with them! Here’s a copy of the recipe:

Ingredients

1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust

3/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 eggs

1 (15 ounce) can Pumpkin

1 (12 fluid ounce) can Evaporated Milk (or 12 ounces Lactaid Whole Milk)

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F.; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. (Do not freeze as this will cause the crust to separate from the filling.)

Some of the other desserts I’ve made (with slight alternations of course) are elclairs (even with the creamy filling, I still was able to make them), red velvet cake (usually has buttermilk), Peppermint Chocolate Roll, even Ice Cream Sandwiches (Lactaid ice cream will never cease to amaze me)!

Hidden Dangers

Can’t you at least have a taste? This is one of the most common questions I get asked when I say I can’t eat something because I’m lactose intolerant. My answer is no. For me, it’s much easier to refuse something than to just take one taste of that delicious cheesy lasagna then stop. Yet even when I think I’m eating something safe, often in an hour or two I know I was wrong. So how do you tell if there is something in what you’re eating, even when it isn’t smothered in cheese? To be honest, it is sometimes impossible. But there are certain tells, anything Asian is usually safe. Unfortunately this does not include hibachi, as they love to smother the grill with butter for flavor before they start to cook. As much as I love my family’s food, Italian is rarely safe, unless you cook it. Mexican is big on cheese, but you can always ask they don’t put that on. Many middle-eastern foods are safe, unless they are made with yogurt, but that is rather easy to tell.

The biggest thing to avoid is any food claiming protein! I know that sounds a bit weird, but whey, one of the most popular ways of getting protein in the US is like eating a stick of butter. Unfortunately it is hidden in things you would never expect, this morning I even found it listed as an ingredient in my beef stock. It is also common in cereal, crackers, bread and other products that shouldn’t have any dairy. Two other foods I have learned to avoid are veggie burgers and buffalo sauce. Although these sound safe, veggie burgers 90% of the time are made with cheese. One of the main ingredients in buffalo sauce is butter. Who would have thought! And of course any dessert, besides sorbet or fruit and dark chocolate, is never free of dairy.

Right, so I'm lactose intolerant... now what?

From personal experience, living with lactose intolerance really isn't that bad. Sure it is extremely annoying, especially for a college student where pizza is often the go-to food, but it's not impossible to live with. The best way to deal with it is to learn to cook. Over the years, I've made almost everything, from Broccali Cheddar Soup to Pizza to Eclairs to Pumpkin Pie. With the right ingredients and the many cheeses, margarine and milk products that are lactose free, it is possible to satisfy almost any craving. The hardest thing is often waiting for the food to cook. There is no more running to the corner pizzeria or ordering out late night after a night of drinking (with the exception of chicken tenders and fries). You learn to control cravings and not binge on certain foods because, well let's face it, no diet I've ever heard of makes you sick if you don't follow it. You learn control because you have to or you will pay the price.

Other Options:

Of course if you don't have it that bad yet, then you are in luck. Lactaid makes a pill that contains the lactase enzyme to help those with lactose intolerance break down the milk proteins. This enables most people with lactose intolerance to enjoy whatever meal they would like. There are many other Lactaid products for people with lactose intolerance, such as Ice Cream (I know! you can still have it!), in Chocolate, Vanilla, Cookies and Cream, Strawberry Cream and Butter Pecan, Cottage Cheese, Milk and even Eggnog. The great thing is that Lactaid is no longer the only company that makes Lactose Free products. Most Kraft cheeses are lactose free. Cabot Cheese and Finlandia Cheeses are almost all lactose free. There is a great butter substitute, that actually has a buttery taste rather than the oily taste left by margarine, called Earth Balance. With all these products it is possible to enjoy almost all the food you could before becoming lactose intolerant.

What is it?

Lactose intolerance is the inability to breakdown lactose. But I'm sure you could have gotten that from the name. So let's go a bit more in depth. Lactose is the sugar found in milk and milk products. Once broken down, it turns into galactose and glucose. In order to break lactose down, you need lactase, which is a digestive enzyme. People who have low levels of lactase, have lactose intolerance. It can sometimes be hard to diagnose this but if you find yourself often feeling bloated and uncomfortable, as though you ate a huge three-course meal, rather than just a yogurt, there is a good chance you are lactose intolerant. These symptoms can be mild to severe, depending on how bad your intolerance is. If it is bad enough to avoid diary all together, I suggest claiming a milk allergy at restaurants. They often hear lactose intolerance and think it can be cured with a pill or a bit of cheese or milk can be tolerated. While this is true for some, it is not true for all.

But what is the difference between milk allergy and lactose intolerance? A milk allergy has very similar symptoms to lactose intolerance. The major difference is that a milk allergy is when the immune system doesn’t recognize one or two of the milk proteins, whey and casein, and lactose intolerance deals with the digestive system.

If you suspect you have either of these reactions to dairy, it is best to get them checked out. The easiest way to check is to keep track of what you eat, using a food journal. Then you can look back and see when you ate what and when you were sick. This is the first step. Next cut out diary from your diet for a couple days then reintroduce it. If you don’t have any adverse reactions during the diary-free days then start feeling sick again, there is a good chance you are lactose intolerance or have a milk allergy.