To comply can be an awfully big adventure
"to die would be an awfully big adventure" so said J.M Barrie´s Peter Pan.
Peter Pan's life is full of exciting adventure but, just like his age, his life never changes.
Well recently my life changed somewhat when my doctor put me on on an aversion diet for two weeks to try and ascertain if there were certain foods that were irritating and upsetting my stomach.This particular diet was lactose free.No dairy, no butter, no cheese, no yoghurt, no milk.,no fruit, no fruit juices. I threw up my hands defeated.... where do I go from here? Apparently I could eat as much bread as I wanted, so no gluten or coeliac worry there mother. I love bread but how can I have a sandwich without using butter as an emulsion on the bread,olive oil drizzled on the bread thats the answer.Other emulsions can include tapenades,aubergine based paste,pestos,relishes, mayonnaise and chutneys.All was not lost and there was a glimmer of hope.But then if I can have toast,what can I spread on it, not butter...so, what? Peanut butter, dripping? What was I going to put in my tea and coffee? Soya milk said the doctor. I pulled a very long face and flatly refused.My dilemma was taking yet another turn for the worse.Have you ever tasted soya milk? How can it be good for anybody?
It is definitely one of the most controversial foods in the world.Depending on who you ask, it is either a wonderful superfood or a hormone disrupting poison.I would go with the latter but as with most things in nutrition, there are good arguments on both sides.My argument is that it is not good for the environment and not good for us.Over 90% of soy produced in America is genetically modified and the crops are sprayed with the herbicide Glyphosate, which may be associated with adverse effects on health and certainly on vegetation surrounding these crops.Because it’s cheap and has certain functional properties, soybean oil and soy protein have found their way into all sorts of processed foods. So many of us (unless we are avid label readers,which I have recently become), are consuming significant amounts of soy without even knowing about it.Has anyone ever seen Organic soya on packaging,I very much doubt it.
Things started to look a little more encouraging when good old doctor J informed me there were other alternative lactose free products that I could try that contained no soya.Yeahhhhh.Hurrah for rice milk and oat milk.His on course GPS landed me perfectly in front of the exact chill cabinet where these very products were being stored.I bought a sample of each including a small 250ml carton which i did not realise until I poured it all over my granola was the cream version for cooking with.Could this get any better.This was pure ambrosia.if you can imagine a bowl of hot porridge on a cold winter morning covered with a layer of thick oaty cream.I was on the side of the gods,but a spirit of control must be applied here or my weekly shopping basket was going to incur a letter from the bank manager.
The rice milk was the right consistency for putting in tea and coffee but I am not sure I would want it on my cereal for breakfast. Its slight disadvantage was that it added a certain sweetness to a hot drink and I am not one for sugar in my drinks.
The oatmeal milk was by far the superior option for hot drinks and gave a luxuriant alternative to milk or cream on my granola, in fact If it wasn´t for the expense my shopping basket could become quite addicted to it.I expect that it would be quite acceptable to use it as a substitute for milk in baking and certain savoury sauces.
Well I dont know about exciting, but the last two weeks have certainly for me, been an adventure in experimentation and thanks to lovely "Oatly" and its quirky packaging, to die and go to heaven could have been an awfully big adventure,but then I was grown up.
Find out about more products at....
http://www.oatly.com/products/international/
I had a lactose free few days (luckily it didn't verify) and tried almond milk - disgustingly sweet in coffee, but nice for puddings and porridge.
ReplyDeleteI haven´t tried the almond milk but heard from various sources your very same comments.One more post to follow with some recipes for lactose free exclusion diets....
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