milk and gastrointestinal stuff

[resonance]

I started having intermittent gastrointestinal problems earlier this year - abdominal cramping and also discomfort where my stomach connects to my intestines and where my gallbladder is. Also a thing where my face feels...lax? Like I feel with a histamine reaction.

I think it's caused by milk. My worst cramps stopped after I substituted soy milk for milk with breakfast, and I have them again when I have nutritional drinks. Boost Plus is particularly bad and has no lactose, just milk protein. It happens anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours.

I'm going to see a GP after I move in December and I would like to just avoid dairy until then (including reading ingredient labels for non-obvious dairy). A lot of websites say to only do this under a doctor's supervision. Is there something obvious I'm missing that could screw me up within a month or so? I'm taking a multivitamin that has vitamin D and calcium, in addition to soymilk.

[Maddy]

I'm avoiding milk and milk products for a similar reason. I don't do soy for a different reason. I've found that rice milk for me is an ok substitute.

[pinkiemarie]

I'm not positive about this, but there may be warnings about not not going to the extreme as far as avoiding milk because the websites you're reading don't know your specific reasons for doing it. Some people may be going ultra vegan and putting themselves at risk for various deficiencies because they're not only cutting milk out of their diet. As far as I know, past the first year or two humans don't necessarily *need* milk. It was only with the domestication of animals like cows and goats within the last few thousand years that adult humans even began to drink milk.

[AirMarshall]

I'm not aware of any dangers from NOT drinking milk. The calcium is nice, as is the fortified Vitamin D. Other than those conveniences you can get in other foods. Especially deep greens like kale, spinach, etc... and of course they put calcium in calcium these days.

a..m.

[resonance]

Thanks!

I have my fingers crossed that I'm actually right that this is the problem...

[AirMarshall]

Yeah. You are just doing a basic "elimination diet" where you cut out one or more suspected foods. I a no-msg diet for a month a number of years ago.

Last month I was reading up on lactose and digestive problems and found that the medicos now say that something upwards of 80% of the world population is unable to digest lactose after childhood. They now recognize that it is normal for the production of lactase enzyme in the gut to decrease or stop as we age.

pasta's ready, bye. a.m;

[rowen]

Milk is overrated. Kale is nummy.

Like dianthus, I can do some cheese and yogurt. That's it. I like ice cream, but it doesn't like me.

Milk protein is low in lactose, but there's still some lactose in there. You could very well be that lactose intolerant. I once met a woman who's child couldn't eat Silk soy yogurt because it was processed on the same equipment as dairy products - and that wasn't due to an allergy, it was lactose intolerance.

If you feel better without milk, don't worry about it. Like it's been said, there are other ways to get the calcium.

[resonance]

I like spinach a lot but I've never found a kale dish I liked.

I suppose I could even be extra-lucky and be allergic to milk and have lactose intolerance...

[olga]

Res, I have a recipe for Kale & Chorico soup. I think you like spicy sausages, right? The soup also has chick peas and potatoes, so it's a hearty meal. Let me know and I can post it for you.

Here's my favorite way to eat it:

I pull kale off the stems, blanch it in boiling water for a few minutes until it has just wilted. Lift it out with a slotted implement (saving the green boiling water for your pasta). Put it in a colander and run cold water over the kale to fix the bright green color and stop it from cooking.

If you like onions and garlic, sauté a whole mess of them in a big frying pan. Add anything else that you like: a can of tomatoes, a can of beans or garbanzos, some dried hot peppers. Chop the kale and put it in the frying pan with all the other ingredients. In the meantime, you have been cooking pasta in the green kale water. Drain the pasta, saving half a cup of the pasta water. Put the pasta into the frying pan with the kale mixture, and toss to combine.

If it's dry, add some of the pasta water. Salt and pepper are good. If you can eat hard cheese, grate some Parmesan or Romano on top.

The key with kale is that it's tough, so you need to soften it up a bit by blanching it.

However, Swiss chard and spinach and other dark greens are also nutritious, as I'm sure you know.

olga

[resonance]

That sounds delicious. I'll see if I can get chorico here.

[SolitaryDawn]

I know this is an old post, but I also discovered when I was eating something that was labelled lactose free, that it contained sodium caseinate (ie milk protein) which is how I found I had an intolerance to milk protein as well. This is less common than lactose intolerance, but not uncommon. I would think that they just don't suggest you eliminate a food completely without trying to replace it - and also generally want you to check levels of vitamins, minerals etc in general to make sure that you aren't missing nutrients or have some health condition that eliminating a food could aggravate.

Here are some milk allergy recipes