Going Dairy Free

In our ice cream loving family I have been forced to make the difficult decision to go dairy free.  It appears poor little Collin may have a dairy sensitivity as the days that I eat a lot of dairy products he is much, much more fussy, congested, and gassy.  He also seems to get a diaper rash on days following a dairy binge on my part.  So, goodbye ice cream, skim milk, and cheese.  I will miss you, but at least for the next few weeks we will have to part ways.

When first presented with the prospect of going dairy free I thought it would be a challenge, but not really that hard.  I mean, just avoid milk, cheese, and ice cream, right?  Nope, not so much.  The two big shockers for me were that bread and McDonalds french fries contain dairy.  Seriously?  Yep, they sure do.  The scariest part is that dairy is listed on the ingredients for the fries as part of the "natural beef flavoring".  My questions are how does dairy go with natural beef flavor and why should my fries be beef flavored anyway!  Through my amazing moms group I have found a few options for bread that is dairy free and for now I'll just stick with the apple slices.  They're better for me anyway, right?

It does appear that a trip to Trader Joe's might be in order, though, as I'm told if you ask at customer service they will give you a brochure that lists all of their dairy-free products.  That sounds a lot easier than reading every stinking label of every stinking thing I buy, which is what I'm currently doing.  I have a list on my fridge right now of the hidden milk ingredients such as whey, casein, and sodium caseinate.  I'm hoping after a complete (or as complete as I can get) dairy elimination diet for a few weeks I'll be able to introduce a small amount back into my diet and have Collin tolerate it, but only time will tell.

Too bad I just baked all those dairy-containing cookies and stocked up on dairy-containing milk and butter!  The cookies have found a better, and less tempting, home at Farm Bureau and Brad and Sophia are on milk duty, not that that's much different than usual.  And here I sit, enjoying glass number three of water today, but this time I spiced it up with a splash of white grape juice!  Thank the Lord that Pepsi is dairy free!!!!  :-)