Cheezly and Tomato Pizza

Pizza restaurants are a complete nightmare when you are lactose intolerant. If you ask for a pizza with no cheese , you have to down quite a few glasses of juice as it's so dry. The toppings don't even sit on the pizza right, they just fall off because of the lack of cheese. Shockingly, many pizza restaurants don't offer a vegan option or dairy free option.

So basically for quite a few years I haven't eaten a cheese pizza unless I was having one of those weeks where I wasn't doing anything for a few days so I could suffer in the comfort of my own home.

Today I bought a lactose free pizza from VBites.

The look: the pizza doesn't look great in it's raw form. The sauce looks very dark.
When cooked, the pizza still doesn't look that nice. The cheese has turned from yellow to a very dark orange and brown.

The taste: looks can be deceiving. The pizza tastes good, and like any other non-vegan pizza!I think if someone had to try a vegan free pizza and this one they wouldn't be able to taste the difference. The pizza base is a little soft but it is very nice. This is from the opinion of me and someone who isn't lactose free!

The one thing I wish I could find is a large dairy free pizza, all the dairy free ones are too small for more than one person to eat!

Where to buy: VBites, Holland and Barrett.

Swedish Glace Vanilla Ice Cream

My first product review has definitely got to be my latest try.

I'd seen Swedish Glace ice cream in Tesco and hesitated about trying it just in case it wasn't as good as the dairy ice cream.  I absolutely love ice cream and when I became lactose intolerant, I was so gutted that I wouldn't be able to eat ice cream cones in the summer or eat tubs of Ben and Jerry's ice cream on lazy days.

Anyway, I finally tried it and I'm surprised to say I think it tastes better than dairy ice cream. It's not as great as the different flavours of ice cream you can get from Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's but for purely vanilla ice cream, I think it's the best.

Taste: Plain vanilla ice cream can be a little on the boring side sometimes but Swedish Glace tastes like there is a little toffee or caramel mixed through. I think that's why I like it so much, the toffee taste isn't overpowering so it's not like you are eating toffee ice cream, it still tastes like vanilla. There's lots of flavouring you can add to ice cream anyway if you're not a fan of plain vanilla ice cream.

The texture is so fluffy as well, I can't believe it's not dairy ice cream! Even my dairy friendly friends like the taste of the ice -cream.

What I don't like: I think the tub is a little too small! Maybe that's just me being greedy but I think a bigger tub would be good as I feel like I'm running out of ice cream after only a few bowls.

Where to buy: Tesco, Holland and Barrett, Ocado, Goodness Direct.

What Lactose Intolerant Means

Someone who is lactose intolerant is someone whose body can't digest lactose which is a sugar commonly found in milk and dairy products. Lactose intolerance is not an allergy.

How do you know if you're lactose intolerant? 

It's best to see a doctor to determine whether you are lactose intolerant or not. Many people experience symptoms when eating dairy foods. 

Feeling sick

Diarrhoea

Bloating

Wind
Stomach cramps

These are all symptoms that people may suffer from after eating dairy. 

Try to eliminate dairy from your diet and see if your symptoms get better. If they do, you are probably lactose intolerant (still better to get a doctor to confirm this). Once you've eliminated dairy, try and reintroduce it in small steps to find out how much lactose your body can cope with. 

Being lactose intolerant doesn't mean you can't eat any dairy at all. Some people can handle more lactose than others. For example someone who is lactose intolerant may be able to consume a chocolate bar but if they had to eat cheese they may become ill. 

Ingredients to Avoid

Being lactose intolerant means I always have to study the ingredients on the packets of nearly everything I want to buy. But sometimes the ingredients list can be misleading. Not all products clearly state that they contain milk, sometimes they list ingredients that people don't know contain milk.

So here's what you want to avoid:

1. An obvious one, but anything that says 'milk' or has 'milk' in the name. 

2. Anything with cheese in the name. 

3. Whey - this is the liquid that remains when milk has been curdled. Avoid anything with whey in the name (whey powder, whey solids etc)

4. Casein - this is a protein that is commonly found in milk. 

5. Margarine - not all but many margarines contain casein or whey. 

6. Lactose - this is a sugar that is found in milk. 

7. Galactose - commonly occurs in lactose

8. Curds

What's this all about?

Welcome to Oh Dairy Me!

We're a blog for people who live dairy free lives whether that's because they are vegan, are allergic to dairy, have a dairy or lactose intolerance or simply just want to cut dairy out of their diet. Whatever the reason, we'll help you live a happy dairy free live.

As a lactose intolerant sufferer for 5 years, I know how hard it is to cut dairy out of your diet. Restaurants never seem to have a wide selection of dishes that don't contain dairy and there is rarely a dairy free option available. And supermarkets never seem to have a wide range of dairy free alternative products.

It's our job to make it easy for you to cut dairy out of your life.

We hope you stick around!