Thursday, January 15, 2009

Dairy-free..ME?

We have recently discovered that 4 out of 6 of us have some sort of milk intolerance. It happened slowly, first my husband, then the baby, now DS11 and myself. At first, I was in denial; so I started with a one week total abstinence plan - surely this would show that my suspicions were wrong and I could go directly to the nearest grocery store and buy an entire cart-load of milk, cheese and yogurt ... At the end of the time we were all feeling better -our clothes were fitting better, I didn't feel so sluggish and heavy, and the constant tummy ache was gone. However, to prove this was only coincidence we had pizza , and ice cream for a treat ...oh, so yummy... oh, so painful. There was no denying the rapid onset of pain, bloating, and nausea! Since then I keep finding myself drawn to the occasional bite of this or serving of that and the results are conclusive. No more milk for us.

Thus, we have been experimenting with all sorts of dairy-free products. Westsoy rice and soy milks seem to be most popular with my kids. And the new dairy-free cheeses are much better than I remember from when DH first tried them years ago. Eliminating dairy has made me more conscience of providing a balanced diet and so we have been eating more fruits and veggies, too. Since this will have to be a permanent change, I ordered a soy milk maker and have been experimenting with various combinations to make a decent, drinkable milk. After several batches that were rated "for baking only" I seem to be getting the hang of it now.
My best attempt so far has been to mix two batches: the first a combination of 3/4 brown rice, 1/4 oats, which I toasted in the oven first. I added about 1/8+ cup sugar to the milk. The second batch was soy beans that had soaked 24 hours. I rubbed off the hulls that were easy to separate, and added 1/4 cup sugar to this milk. The combination of the two made a decent tasting drink which DD1 and I could drink straight from a glass, and DD4 will pour on cereal. The two older ones still won't drink it plain though. I will continue trying different combinations until I find something we can all be happy with. I think the next batch will have slightly less oats since the main criticism of this batch was that is tasted to thick. I will update once I have a better recipe that everyone likes.