No Dairy - Meal Ideas...

[bworthey]

I feel like my poor daughter is eating the same things over and over. She has not been diagnosed as lactose intolerant or with any sort of allergy or anything - we just know that she is extremely fussy when eating cheese or drinking regular milk and it totally messes up her sleep. So, we think there is some sort of gassy/stomach problems it causes her - but that's all. Our ped told us to try her on soy milk and wait on adding other dairy things back in. She's almost 19 months old now and she had a tiny amount of cheese one night and was extremely fussy and didn't sleep well - so we cut it all back out. The odd thing is - is she seems to tolerate things that have milk in it better, etc. - she eats cheese nips and goldfish with no problems, etc. So we're not sure what the problem is.

We struggle with trying to come up with meal ideas for her because it seems like cutting out cheese and milk cuts out a lot. We don't do grilled cheese or mashed potatoes because of the milk, etc. so she ends up eating a lot of the say things. Anyone else have this issue and have some meal ideas??

Much appreciated!

 

[yunihara]

We have always been a dairy-free, pescatarian family. The production of dairy, whether its from a huge milking facility or from free-range cows, has a lot of hormones in it (it is the cow equivalent of breast milk, after all lol). A lot of those sorts of things can cause irritation and discomfort. I think the crackers themselves have a small amount of dairy powder, so it probably isn't enough to cause severe irritation. It can be hard to find foods and recipes that don't require dairy products, but you can search a lot of vegan recipes and suggestions for meals and snacks. That way they'll be dairy free and generally healthy. We frequent a few vegan websites for recipe ideas!

We do a lot of different beans, some grains (like corn), a variety of leafy greens and try all sort of different peas, onions, and some more interesting but delicious vegetables, depending on what's in season. We're Asian, so soy based products are also used frequently (you'd be surprised at all the things you can do with tofu ;D) There's also alot you can do with fruits and berries, so much variety in those regards. But many of these things have very little prep time, too! You just have to buy a variety and see what she's enjoys

 

[bworthey]

Thanks for the reply! I'll check out some of those ideas!

 

[cybele]

You can do mashed potatoes without milk. I used olive oil spread in ours.

Once you get used to the substitutions I imagine it would be quite easy. Have you tried soy cheese for the sandwiches?

 

[Supermom4]

There's also delicious dairy-free almond milk fruit flavored yogurt. I myself am dairy free and I live on this stuff. The brand is called amande and I buy it from Whole Foods

 

[Happymother]

freeze bananas, put them in a food processor with some stevia and peanut butter, and you're left with peanut butter ice cream!