Do you suffer from any of the following:
- digestive problem like gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea
- skin problems like acne, rashes, redness, irritation
- respiratory problems like post nasal drip, sinusitis
These symptoms can be due to an intolerance to dairy! It may be time for you to go dairy free.
The culprits in dairy known to cause the uncomfortable and often embarrassing symptoms above are either the milk sugars or milk proteins. What you need to know about them:
- Lactose is the sugar that naturally occurs in milk from cows. Lactose needs to be broken down by an enzyme called lactase to be absorbed properly. However, the general population does not produce enough of this important enzyme to digest dairy
- Casein and whey are the proteins in milk. Casein is a slow digesting protein that your digestive system has a tough time dealing with. Whey causes less issues than casein because it is digested faster
Going dairy free would give your digestive system a break from breaking down these products and you may find the above listed symptoms improve.
Dairy free essentially means giving a miss to any food that contains milk. Here is a list of foods to eliminate when going dairy free:
- milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt, cream, ice cream, cheese
- baked goods/pastries, chocolate, custards/puddings, egg replacer, frozen desserts, sauces/spreads, deli dips, flavored coffee drinks, breakfast drinks
Going dairy free is a highly individualised process. You may find that you can tolerate different dairy foods better than others due to the amount of lactose and casein they contain. What you need to do is figure out if it is the milk sugar or protein, or maybe both, that are exacerbating the symptoms that you are experiencing. Going dairy free should not be taken lightly as elimination a whole food group can lead to nutritional deficiencies. Straight up you will be concerned about where your calcium source will come from without dairy in your life. There are plenty of non-dairy sources of calcium, check out our next blog for a list of options!
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