dairy-free milk, cream & icecream
dairy-free spreads
dairy-free cheese alternatives
Today in the Guardian Katy Salter shares some great ideas for dairy alternatives.
Read more here.
VLA RESPONSE:
Hi Katy
Interesting and helpful feature, thank you.
Our research suggests actually that as many as 70% of people may have some degree of lactose intolerance without realising it. It may be causing minor ailments and discomfort that becomes the ‘norm’ of how they feel day to day – but it’s never picked up on or medically diagnosed. Hardly surprising really given that cow’s milk (or any other animal milks for that matter) are not of our species and hence we react to them. Despite humans having been drinking the milks of other species for some estimated 5000 years now we haven’t evolved enough to be able to tolerate them.
It’s kind of strange when you think of it as to why we even started doing it! We suspect out of starvation or necessity and then it became a cultural norm.
Fortunately nowadays there are so many alternatives that it isn’t a necessity in any way at all – as your article proves and we’re finding increasingly it’s a cultural ‘norm’ that people don’t want to participate in because of the inherent cruelty involved in the dairy industry (if anyone isn’t aware of it a short google search will enlighten).
We’ve added a few more suggestions below for milk, cream, yoghurt and cheese replacements that show just how easy it can be to ditch the dairy and start recovering your health. And on our site we also link to all of the major brands that produce ready-made alternatives for everything.
https://veganlifestyleassoc.com/pre-made/
There’s a plethora to chose from and if you try a few you’ll find favourites to love really quickly. They’re also increasingly available in supermarkets and improving all the time! We even have artisan vegan cheese being made in the UK now following hot in the footsteps of pioneers in the US opening all vegan cheese shops – such as Vromage!
So we’re glad to hear you’re feeling so much better and we’re here to help and support anyone who wishes to try going dairy-free as well.
Dairy Alternatives:
To replace milk, try plant based drinks including soya, oat, rice, hemp, coconut, almond, hazelnut, quinoa and even macadamia (although macadamia is pricey!).
As you’ve said, you can also make your own milk, such as almond, at home.
For cream there is soya cream, oat cream, coconut cream and home-made cashew nut cream.
You can use a plant milk and apple cider vinegar (which curdles it) to make a buttermilk/thin yoghurt mixture.
Butter can be replaced with many ready-made spreads or nut butters such as peanut, cashew and almond or mashed avocado, hummus and oils (hemp, rapeseed, and olive are good).
There are lots of dairy-free cheese on the market and cheesy effects in cooking can be achieved with:
Blended nuts (such as almonds or walnuts) with nutritional yeast flakes and salt added for a parmesan substitute.
Sprinklings of nutritional yeast flakes on their own.
Nutritional yeast flakes plus mustard powder and tumeric for ‘cheesy’ sauces.
Home made Vegan cheeses (there are even books on how to make them!)
Vegan Lifestyle Association
https://veganlifestyleassoc.com/