**IK** re: cow's milk allergy

[jennlin]

have you always had this?

tell me the best places to buy non-cow yummyness, and what kinds of stuff you eat at home.

[Deleted]

I have a senstivity, not allergy. (Ready for my novel?)

I have had issues with liquid milk since I was a young child and usually could only have cold cereal for dinner. Having it first thing on an empty stomach for breakfast gave me stomach cramps. My mom always could tell if I was having more milk than usual because the dark circles under my eyes would get dramatically worse.

When I went to the nutritionist for food elimination testing to see if any foods were causing my weird miscellaneous health symptoms, milk was interesting. I felt a little better without it in my system, but when I added it back in...instant bloating, gas and if it was a lot...then trapped in the bathroom with diarrhea My problem seems to be mostly cow cheese and liquid milk, I don't notice issues with ice cream or butter. Yogurt & sour cream are questionable and only in little doses. Sheep cheese is better and goat cheese gives me no issues.

H doesn't really care about milk, so we keep Almond Breeze in our fridge. I definitely prefer the taste of the one that comes in the cold section in the half gallon size. For ice cream treats, most of the non-diary stuff is rather pricey. However, hands down the best tasting is Trader Joe's Non-Dairy coconut frozen treat. Comes in a pint and the strawberry is DELICIOUS and the chocolate is good (it does have undercurrent of coconut flavor, but I like it) and is $3 a pint compared to $5-6 of other brands.

How much milk bothers BJL? Like, if it's dairy in a baked good (milk or butter) does she have a problem? Those are harder, but just go for vegan things. A lot of vegan baked goods are pretty decent (but avoid vegan, gf if you can, the texture gets really affected in my experience). My cousin is allergic to milk and other things she enjoyed was this Dai-yo shredded cheese. It's made from tapioca and such, but I tasted it and it's pretty good, a good substitute for melted mozzarella for sure!

[jennlin]

she doesn't seem to be affected by butter and/or baked goods. i use butter when i cook sometimes..but not a lot. cakes, cookies, etc, so far have had no problems. but i accidentally had a cheeseburger at a bbq (forgot i couldn't have cheese until the last bite), and she reacted to that. so..one slice/serving of cheese was enough to affect her.

i had sheeps milk cheese on a pizza the other day (at serious pie) and it was delicious, and she did not have any reactions to it. i also had goat cheese on a pizza, too...she threw up that day..but it was so minimal, i'm not sure if it was normal-baby-spit-up (she doesn't spit very much, except when i was eating yougurt/milk all the time) , or if it was a reaction.

i bought some sheep cheese and goat cheese from WF, but haven't had a chance to eat it, so i'm really hoping that's okay. i'm going to start with the sheep cheese bc she didn't react to that before, and assuming no issues, i will try goat and see if that's okay, too.

[Deleted]

Oh yeah! I meant to mention that rice gelato, too! My cousin can't have dairy (or soy or gluten) and she loved that.

Hope she does ok with the other cheeses because no cheese at all kind of sucks Be sure to have a day with no cheese in between testing the sheep and goat.

[BlackCanary]

Also interjecting-

DH can't have cow's milk, but can have sheep/goat. For yogurt, he's found some good goat yogurt at Whole Foods. And he likes coconut milk ice cream. He says it's very sweet though, so he can only eat a little at a time.

[jennlin]

Growing up, in school, what did you have for lunch? Since milk is always offered with school lunches.

[Deleted]

I was ok with it back then since it was at lunch and not breakfast. I had no problem with cheese until
i did that diet elimination testing 2 years ago.