Help on Cutting Dairy Out of My Diet

I would actually avoid soy...try for nut milks or rice. Try larry and luna's coconut ice cream for a dessert and coconut oil for baking.

Hi M.,

I too am a non milk drinker. In fact I am so allergic to it that it gives me type 1 diabetes! It actually makes my pancreas stop working! So I have lots of information to you. Milk is a very large protein, designed for an animal with 3 stomachs, not one, and it takes about a week to get it all out of your and their systems, so be prepared for that. But rice milk is a yummy substitute for milk in most things. I like the taste of coconut milk (make sure it is preservative free, Trader Joes sells a great one) and think it is closer to milk than rice milk in flavor if you add a little bit of sea salt to it. But I think rice milk is a little cheaper (organic if you can) .

Despite clever marketing, you get a lot more calcium from leafy green vegetables than from dairy products. So get a good variety of those, and make a yummy salad every night and eat on it all the next day as well. My family likes it when I put a chopped up orange or apple or grapes in with the greens, especially with some nuts and dried cranberries sprinkled on top. All vegetables are the most nutritious in their raw state, so instead of serving a steamed vegetable with dinner, I started chopping it up and putting it in the salad too. So I have broccoli and carrots and celery, spinach, asparagus, anything in season in the salad as well. So along with your romaine or red leaf lettuce, our favorites are chopped kale and cilantro. But you can experiment with the different leafies and see which ones your family prefers. And you can always use different veggies, fruits, and nuts, so the salad never is the same, so we never tire of it.

I love butter, but try to avoid it as much as I can. When I am cooking, I use a good qualit coconut oil. I order it online and you can get it really inexpensively from www.brambleberry.com under fixed oils. It is sold by weight not volume, but the 2 sizes are 1 gallon and 5 gallon, they are just listed by weight. If you are in the Bellingham area you can buy it directly from their store called Otions. I use coconut oil in all my recipes in place of any oil called for. It is very stable and doesn't turn into a trans fat like most other oils do. Then for any cold recipe, I use olive oil.

You should actually avoid eating too much soy milk because it is so high in estrogen it isn't good for you or your baby to be getting too much of it. Soy formula for a baby is equivalent to giving your baby a birth control pill every day! I know you are breast feeding, but I like to give out that info too, just FYI. Soy is also the biggest crop in the world that is genetically modified, which is something all of us should avoid like the plague. Processed foods almost all have GM ingredients, and they don't have to list it as such. So it is best to avoid anything in a package. Just look at the recent peanut scare. That was almost all in processed foods, just another good reason to avoid them. It is much better to make you own snacks from local and or organic sources.

Well I applaud you for making the connection between your daughters symptoms and the dairy. I have read that as many as 75% of all babies are allergic to milk, and the connection is just never made. Then many of them, myself included, end up with devastating diseases as adults as a result. I have even read that milk and wheat allergies are the leading cause of type 1 diabetes, but doctors just don't know it. Which is very sad because it is a horrible disease that kills them young. A guy I went to school with just died from it last year. very sad. But I hope something that I told you helps. Removing dairy from all of your diet will be a good thing because pasteurized dairy is not that good for ANY of us. Raw milk is very healthy because it still has all the enzymes and vitamins necessary for digesting it, but pasteurization kills all of that. And increasing your leafy greens and all vegetables is something we all should do anyway. Good luck and good health to you.

Hello M.,
I'm Vegan so I eat no dairy and no meat and I breastfeed. I get my calcium from greens, kale, spinach etc., tofu, almonds, and chia seed. Last 3 also provide protein. I eat nuts and legumes as an added source of protein. Hope this helps.

A.

oh, i feel for you!!! when my daughter was 2-3 mos. old, she began having blood and mucous in her stool. it ended up being a sensitivity to the dairy i ate (she was breastfed until she was 2). in her case, it was a sensitivity to casein (the protein in dairy products). i had to read all labels and at one point actually had to cut out soy (that's in almost everything) too. when she was 6 or 8 mos. old, i was able to re-introduce the dairy and she was just fine. there's quite a bit of info. out there, online etc. i am a sweet fiend and was able to find duncan hines brownies that don't have dairy and also making rice crispie treats with olive oil instead of margarine... there are lots of options out there. hang in there... if you have specific questions, feel free to message me.

Curdled b.m's are normal with breast fed babies as they get older, at least it was that way with my three. Cutting dairy completely out of your diet is not a good thing, as you need your calcium and other vital nutrients to keep your bones and teeth strong. So make sure that you're eating calcium rich foods. Cooking with milk is not the issue. It's usually milk. Yougurt may not be an issue as it has a culture in it, same with butter milk and cheeses. Take it a step at a time. Watch the other foods you are eating. You don't need to see an allergist to find out if she has a lactose intolerance. At her next well baby check (or sooner if you're having problems) ask her pediatrician about this. You can take a stool sample with you. Your care providers should be able to give you sound advice.

As for your diet, taking a vitamin supplement will help you out a lot, continuing your pre-natal vitamins as long as you're nursing. There are some vegetables that are very high calcium, but at the same time they're the ones that can cause gas.. such as broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower. Protein can be obtained through eggs, meat and dried beans (not green ones) and lentils. Talk with your doctor and her pediatrician.

I wish you all well!!

Relax, the bm's sound relatively normal for a breast fed baby. With my first child I nick named her Pumpkin Poop because her diapers looked like pumpkin pie filling and then we went thru a stage of curds and whey. It's all about developing digestive tracks.

I love Rice Dream milk. They also make Rice Dream Ice Cream. They are really good. I have given up yogurt and cheese. (sigh) I have used the rice milk in baking successfully. Try the rice milk and see if it makes a difference.

Milk protein intolerance (casein is the problem) is very different from milk sugar intolerance (lactose is the problem). Protein intolerance actually causes lesions in the intestine--ouch. If your little one is feeling better since you cut dairy and suffers when you resume, it sounds like casein is the culprit. Watch for casein and caseinates in ingredients. Margarines are made with whey, so same problem.

Most kids sensitive to casein are also sensitive to soy, so don't go that direction--try rice milk. Beware of soy ingredients in everything from pot stickers to salad dressing.

Goat's milk does not help if it's a casein intolerance.

Keep taking your pre-natal vitamins and remember, fiber interferes with calcium uptake, so take your calcium between meals or in low-fiber meals.

You might try rice milk. There is cheese that is dairy free also. Different kinds - rice, soy, etc. You also might try goat's milk???? I don't know if you have a store that sells these items because you stated you were remotely located. Occasionally soy will bother but rice milk seems to work best if you can find it. Butter is mostly fat and if it is dairy it is usually the protein the kids are allergic too so stay away from anything that has the protein molecule.

I would take a calcium supplement but make sure it is a good one. Several on the market do not dissolve in the body ask any waste treatment plant. A really good one is Shaklee. I personally know that is bioavailable (body can use) Go to www.shaklee.com/a_leading_edge if you are interested in trying that out.

N.
wife, mom, grandma, and wellness coach

My son was excusively breastfed and had a sensitivity to dairy. He would also get mucusy poos. But he began having blood in his stool so that's when I took him to the pediatrician. The ped said that it is the milk protein that causes these issues. Babies' bodies just can't digest it very well and some babies have a reaction to that. I had to completely eliminate it from my diet. At first I just eliminated the obvious-milk, butter, yogurt, cheese. But when the problem continued I had to do some research and found that milk protein is in most things you buy in a box, a package, or a bottle. Even butter subsitutes and coffee creamer that says dairy free can have milk protein in the list of ingredients! If your little one is as sensitive as mine was you'll want to avoid anything that has caseinates, whey, and lactalbumin to name a few. You can check out the website wholesomebabyfoods.com for a more complete list. You can find an even better list here: http://www.godairyfree.org/Food-to-Eat/Food-Label-Info/Da...

It took a few weeks for my body to be free of dairy. The blood in my son's stool finally went away after about two weeks. And he almost completely stopped spitting up.

The change in my diet was difficult at first, but once I got some staple meals to eat it was fine. Oh, and I found some dark chocolate that was completely diary free! That was a must! He is now 18 months old and is able to drink cows milk just fine.

Good luck!

Hi M.,

I haven't been through this with a baby but just did with my kids. If you can get yourself to an allergist (eventually) it might give you some answers. The test I found helpful was the Ig/G food panel blood test. The worth of this test is still debated by doctors but it has made a huge difference in my quality of life. The reason I'm suggesting this is that I found out I wasn't only allergic to all dairy but to eggs as well. If I'd tried to cut out dairy and still not felt better, I would have had to do a lot of experimentation to find out that it's dairy AND eggs.

Finding out what I am allergic to made me have my kids tested. They aren't allergic to all the same things I am. Max is allergic to wheat and garlic. I never would have thought to keep garlic out of his diet.

Your pediatrician might suggest getting a scratch test done. This was great for identifying my son's dust mite allergies but only shows an anaphalactic response (a raised blister on the skin). Your baby's response may not be that severe and is only affecting her quality of life (I know - isn't that enough!).

Good luck M.,

S.

I cut out dairy out of my diet a long time ago. I can still eat butter, and sometimes yogurt, but not anything else. I substitute soy milk or rice or almond milk when I need to cook with milk. Also, I recommend taking a good calcium supplement with magnesium and Vitamin D in it.

I did this for a while when my daughter was a newborn. It was hard, you can use non-dairy creamers. Try Viactiv chews for calcium replacement and also vitamin D3 pills. You can get protien from nuts or meat. Cook with a butter substitute if you can.

Hi, broccoli has tons of calcium but if you don't like broccoli, I would get some supplements ( you can also order them online) like calcium with magnesium and probably something with vitamin d in it too. My daughter was totally gassy like that and I couldn't even eat pot stickers! It was rough for a long time figuring out what I could or couldn't eat. I tried not to eat any dairy for a long time but when I would have occasional cheese, we would all suffer. :) Ah those sleepless nights.
C. M.