hey everyone!

[karenb05]

I'm Karen and I'm new to being dairy free.

I went for an allergy test last week as I was fed up of permanently having allergy reactions and didn't know what to. There were a few surprises and a few I was expecting (such as pollen & grass) but the biggest surprise was the dairy. When I think about it though it does make sense - I've always thought I had a problem with chocolate but knowing this now it was obviously the dairy!

Anyway, I started at the weekend cutting back and I bought some soya milk, vitalite and feta cheese to get me started. Got desparate yesterday and bought some dairy free chocolate! lol :lol2:

I am amazed how many every day things have some form of milk or cheese in them.

I wanted to find somewhere to chat to people who are already dairy free so I can get some suggestions when I need them.

[Copper]

Welcome to the site.

At least I am only lactose intolerant and not allergic. I do have other food intolerances. It makes food shopping interesting.

I get annoyed when I see dairy added to so much food.

I developed an intolerance to soya after I changed to a diary free diet :( I have to check everything for soya and guess at how much soya lecithin I can cope with. A couple of days ago I managed to eat too much soya and felt ill for a couple of hours in the morning.

[rebecca c]

Hi and welcome to the site - hope you find us a friendly bunch

[Spindrift]

Hi and welcome!

Although I am pretty new to being dairy free myself, my son is dairy allergic so I was already used to the diet regime with him. I agree it can seem a daunting at first but it is something you will very quickly adapt to. As for products, my son and I use Pure Sunflower spread instead as we found Vitalite had soya in it (my son was also soya allergic but is fine with that now) If you find that you don't like the taste of soya milk then I can recommend Oatly 'H' Oat Milk, it has a much nicer flavour and comes in regular or fortified with calcium, you can find usually find it in tesco's and some sainsbury's stores.

[Copper]

Vitalite does not contain soya. I have checked the ingredients list and it says dairy and free soya on the tub.

Yes I have the calcium oat milk, as coffee with any other milk was yukky. I love the cream too but only one Tesco store sells the cream here.

[karenb05]

Thanks for your replies. I don't mind the soya milk I was surprised how nice it was as I'd heard lots of reports about it being horrid! I think I will try a few others as well as I've also heard too much soya can cause an intolerance to it :eek:

The main thing I am struggling with is I absolutely love baking and I don't know what to use as an alternative to butter. Has anyone tried goat's butter or do you know of a good spread to use instead? Suppose I could always use normal butter and then not eat any :(

Anyway, been offline a couple of days due to little hands tampering with things they shouldn't - all fixed now so will have a good look round the site over the weekend.

Thanks again x

[Copper]

I have not tried goats butter as it contains lactose.

I use Vitalite and Stork block margarine as they are dairy free. The only thing that would suffer would be shortbread as it would not be the same without butter.

[daddys fault]

i use Pure sunflower. seems fine in all the cakes i make for the kids but i'm not an everly experienced baker.

[karenb05]

thanks, I'll give them both a try and see how they come out!

I did find a recipe for a traditional sponge that doesn't even have fat in it! Just sugar, egss & flour - might give it a try one day.

[cnc]

Hi and welcome:) Hope you like it here.

I also discovered recently that Morrision's spread is also dairy free, but not soya free. I think it's mostly designed for baking. Don't despair, things can work okay with baking, have you tried looking into vegan cakes, these tend to use oils and things like carrot and apple, I know it sounds weird, but it works really well. It just takes a bit of research, but you tend to end up with a beautifully moist cake.