Hi! I'm allergic to the stuff, so I can kinda guide you in what's good & what isn't... Sorta ^^; it's a recent (3 years) developed allergy, so I'm still working out what I can & cannot eat. Do be aware that a lot of common, regular items you may eat could contain some form of dairy too - be sure to double check all packaging labels to be sure.
For milk:
I'd suggest almond milk over soy - it's a bit sweeter & to me, personally, easier to drink down without any sort of after taste (it's also really good to use for with baking). There's one brand - Organic Valley - that has a lactose free milk. Avoiding lactose & dairy are different, but I thought I'd recommend it regardless.
For bread:
You'd be surprised by how many brands of bread contain some form of dairy in them. If you want to completely avoid dairy for a while, wheat bread tends to not contain milk (recommended brand: Nature's Own).
For mayo:
To be honest, I'd recommend staying away from mayonnaise; it's really bad for your health. I, unfortunately, haven't really found any good alternatives to this yet. Mostly because, well, I stopped eating it after I got allergic to milk.
For ice cream:
This is where people usually think it's the hardest to ignore - ice cream. Fortunately, there's tons of different substitutes that use coconut milk. The brand I get is "So Delicious" & they have all sorts of flavors - my favorite is the chocolate one for obvious reasons.
For cheese:
I know you didn't really ask for cheese, but there's a couple brands out there that I know don't use lactose / milk / both. Both Cracker Barrel brand cheese & Cabot brand cheese is really good - they're usually what I use to make my home styled pizza.
Another thing you should watch out for if you're a baker... Lots of boxed (baking) brands tend to have milk in it in some way already in the mix or require you to use milk or butter. There's a butter alternative I use that works really well (Earth Balance; I believe it was the yellow one) & you can use it for when you bake, have breakfast, etc.
There's also a store called "Whole Foods"; there's not many in my location, but they're a very healthy, very vegan-styled market. They have all kinds of things you can experiment, try, ask questions, & so forth. They bake cakes, pies, muffins - anything really - dairy free as long as you call in ahead of time & request it. There's vegan styled chocolate chip cookies I most certainly recommend.
Sorry this is so long, but I hope it helps some!
*Note that there's a huge difference between not consuming lactose & not consuming dairy. Lactose is a disaccharide sugar that's found most commonly in milk (other things too, obviously, hahah) & not being able to consume that due to lactose intolerance will likely bring about gas. An allergy to dairy itself will bring pain or an even worse allergic reaction. Avoiding lactose is a lot easier to do than avoiding dairy - with lactose, you can eat "vegan" branded items fine. |
