Not validating this idea, but anecdotally ... I regularly fast for a few days at a time, usually 3-7 days ... and after I start eating again, I am generally lactose intolerant for a week or two,...
Not validating this idea, but anecdotally ... I regularly fast for a few days at a time, usually 3-7 days ... and after I start eating again, I am generally lactose intolerant for a week or two, until my intestines remember how to digest the stuff.
It's possible that you had oral allergy syndrome. It's not exactly a true allergy, more a mild cross-reactive sensitivity. Did cooked bananas ever bother you? True food allergies are very...
a mild banana allergy I fixed through eating more bananas.
It's possible that you had oral allergy syndrome. It's not exactly a true allergy, more a mild cross-reactive sensitivity. Did cooked bananas ever bother you?
True food allergies are very difficult and sometimes impossible to treat through clinical exposure therapy.
OP creates a cure* for lactose intelorance through the scientific application of straight up chugging it. And by it, I mean heavily concentrated powdered milk. *Using the term cure here with an...
OP creates a cure* for lactose intelorance through the scientific application of straight up chugging it. And by it, I mean heavily concentrated powdered milk.
*Using the term cure here with an artistic license. It may work for some, it might not for others.
I can handle small amounts of lactose in cheese and yogurt (that I make myself so I can hella strain it) but actual liquid milk still makes me vomit. The rest of dairy products just come out the...
I can handle small amounts of lactose in cheese and yogurt (that I make myself so I can hella strain it) but actual liquid milk still makes me vomit. The rest of dairy products just come out the uhh. other chute.
I've avoided clicking this video on my feed for awhile because I expected it to literally be milk chugging, like the scene in Anchorman which still makes me gag. So I'm quite relieved to hear it's just milk powder but still. Hrchhh.
That being said, I'm fine with my lactose intolerance. I'm genuinely curious why in North America is it considered a thing that needs to be cured? I know one reasoning is because some medicines contain lactose and that can be problematic for lactose intolerant patients, which is understandable. But all too often, when I tell people I'm quite heavily lactose intolerant, they start telling me about their lactose intolerant cousin who takes lactaid and how I'm missing out on so much. So I guess I get the vibe that it's a FOMO thing or a desire to not be seen as different?
I developed lactose intolerance post-adolescence, and as an American who makes a concerted effort to seed my gut biome with lactase-producers, I guess I'm qualified to explain. Cheese is...
I developed lactose intolerance post-adolescence, and as an American who makes a concerted effort to seed my gut biome with lactase-producers, I guess I'm qualified to explain.
Cheese is everywhere here. It's on every sandwich, it's added to vegetables, we put it on our fruit pies, and it's probably the only food staple that people will eat by itself. Milk is also commonly incorporated into recipes that traditionally lack it for added texture and sweetness. Living without lactase means a lot of vigilance in restaurants, not to mention home cooked meals. It's not some awful burden, and if I didn't really enjoy young cheeses I'd just deal with it, but it's a pain in the ass that every second item on a menu will include lactose without notice.
As an additional point: it's not just milk that's incorporated into so many products. In America, we directly incorporate lactose sugars into a huge range of products, from expected (baked goods)...
As an additional point: it's not just milk that's incorporated into so many products. In America, we directly incorporate lactose sugars into a huge range of products, from expected (baked goods) to the "makes sense if you think about it" (a lot of beers) to the wildly unexpected (sausages?!).
So not only is it hard to avoid milk products but you can't avoid the direct thing your body can't digest!
That's a good point, I don't eat out very often and when I do, I'm not regularly checking for lactose beyond just skipping cheese and sweet stuff. Mine isn't severe enough for small amounts to...
That's a good point, I don't eat out very often and when I do, I'm not regularly checking for lactose beyond just skipping cheese and sweet stuff. Mine isn't severe enough for small amounts to tear me up so maybe I've just always been lucky or assumed it was something else causing me some gastrointestinal distress. My wife is also lactose intolerant so we don't have problems at home either usually (except on the rare occasion we want to make ice cream, typically in the middle of winter for whatever reason).
I guess avoiding lactose stuff has just become so natural to me that I don't see why people put it in everything, other than it just being a part of the culture. I do get irrationally angry at seeing Asian cuisines recently adding cheese to everything though. I went out for Korean BBQ with friends that I was visiting in LA once and there was just a huge tray of melted bubbling cheese and corn in front of me the entire night. Was really rather disgusting to me but at least the rest was non-cheese lol
Lactaid isn’t a cure for lactose, it’s just a series of products with the lactase enzyme as a supplement. The US has a big dairy culture. If you’re heavily lactose intolerant, you’ll be unable to...
Lactaid isn’t a cure for lactose, it’s just a series of products with the lactase enzyme as a supplement.
The US has a big dairy culture. If you’re heavily lactose intolerant, you’ll be unable to eat many common foods and deserts. Many people consider drinking milk to be a serious ritual. For most cases of lactose intolerance, eating the milk product with a lactase enzyme supplement is an easy and cheap fix.
It's mostly propaganda, if we're honest, but it has worked. I grew up during the "Got milk?" advertising campaign blitz, along with the Real California Cheese campaign about Great Cheese comes...
It's mostly propaganda, if we're honest, but it has worked. I grew up during the "Got milk?" advertising campaign blitz, along with the Real California Cheese campaign about Great Cheese comes from Happy Cows, Happy Cows come from California (what a joke that is.)
I do recall the Got Milk stuff and also all the calcium stuff. Teachers would tell me I'll have brittle bones or break my arm more easily if I didn't drink my milk but I was like "but it makes me...
I do recall the Got Milk stuff and also all the calcium stuff. Teachers would tell me I'll have brittle bones or break my arm more easily if I didn't drink my milk but I was like "but it makes me feel sick... I don't want to drink it"
Meanwhile, I've gone nearly 40 years without drinking milk and have yet to break a bone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Of course, having said that, I'll likely break something shoveling snow this weekend...
I once did a slip and slide on some ground ice that looked like it had snow pack on top of it. I landed on my backside hard enough that I was sure I'd broken something, but it was just a bruised...
I once did a slip and slide on some ground ice that looked like it had snow pack on top of it. I landed on my backside hard enough that I was sure I'd broken something, but it was just a bruised butt cheek and a shattered ego. Be safe out there!
It’s actually gotten worse since then. Those advertisements were paid by a checkoff program, a voluntary program overseen by the government where a portion of profits gets taken off, kind of like...
It’s actually gotten worse since then. Those advertisements were paid by a checkoff program, a voluntary program overseen by the government where a portion of profits gets taken off, kind of like a tax. A few years ago laws were passed to make it mandatory. The reason why cheese is in everything is not just because “everyone loves cheese”, but because that checkoff money goes into influencing wholesale customers - restaurants and food processors - into including it in their products. That’s the real reason why public milk and cheese campaigns are less common today: they just decided to market directly to the people buying from the dairy industry. Putting cheese in everything helps to make people crave dairy since dairy milk’s casein is metabolized into casomorphin, which makes it mildly addictive.
I’ve never head any of that but I would be willing to entertain the notion that it’s all true. Any chance you’ve got some primary sources on what you state, or do I need to spend some time looking...
I’ve never head any of that but I would be willing to entertain the notion that it’s all true. Any chance you’ve got some primary sources on what you state, or do I need to spend some time looking it up?
Yeah, I'm realizing now reading the other comments that people can develop it post-adolescence which honestly was news to me - I thought it only went away or got worse in adolescence and was...
Yeah, I'm realizing now reading the other comments that people can develop it post-adolescence which honestly was news to me - I thought it only went away or got worse in adolescence and was unaware it could be acquired later in life. I know I would be looking for a way to fix things if I was suddenly intolerant to beans or potatoes (my two favourite foods)
Many people consider drinking milk to be a serious ritual.
My figure skating coach recently told me that she drinks half a litre of milk every night before bed which was in the back of my mind when writing my original comment. Just one of those things that is difficult for me to comprehend, I suppose.
Pretty much everyone with lactose intolerance grows into it. It would be pretty bad to be lactose intolerant as a baby when your diet is entirely milk. Some people get early enough they won’t...
Pretty much everyone with lactose intolerance grows into it. It would be pretty bad to be lactose intolerant as a baby when your diet is entirely milk.
Some people get early enough they won’t remember a time when they could consume dairy, but it’s usually ages 10-20.
Since it’s more about, uh, gastronomic discomfort whether or not you like the taste of milk/icecream/etc is fairly disconnected from the lactase intolerance even if you do develop it early.
It's not that I need it to be cured, it's that I'm going to eat dairy regardless so the less I suffer the better. I don't drink or use regular milk anymore but do drink Fairlife or equivalent...
It's not that I need it to be cured, it's that I'm going to eat dairy regardless so the less I suffer the better.
I don't drink or use regular milk anymore but do drink Fairlife or equivalent which is lactose free. (And not sweet). They got rid of my favorite plant based substitute (Silk Next Milk was a chemical wonder) and sometimes I want cereal. Plus cheese is basically my go to snack and I don't like limiting myself to lactose free options.
I've pretty successfully maintained my level of intolerance and not had it get worse like my mom's side of the family usually does (they're Sardinian mostly) but I may have just gotten the milder version of it handed down.
Like the others say, it's largely just how prevalent milk is in American cooking. Along with cheese, it's also found in a lot of desserts like cakes, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, creams in...
Like the others say, it's largely just how prevalent milk is in American cooking. Along with cheese, it's also found in a lot of desserts like cakes, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, creams in general... Then there's yogurt, mashed potatoes recipes, some breads, some sauces (Alfredo is particularly common for pasta), pancakes, pastries, some soups ("cream of" anything), chowder...
Yeah, it can be surprisingly hard to avoid. And a lot of people develop it later in life, so it's less FOMO and more not wanting to give up long-time favorite foods. I'd be devastated to lose the ability to eat mac and cheese or chocolate.
Ah you hit an interesting point. I developed a fairly severe distaste for sugar at a very young age to the point I became fairly repulsed by most candy and cake things (I also have autism related...
Ah you hit an interesting point. I developed a fairly severe distaste for sugar at a very young age to the point I became fairly repulsed by most candy and cake things (I also have autism related sensory issues, especially around anything sticky so that might be part of it too?). So I naturally avoid almost everything you listed or I opt for less sweeter varieties if they're available.
Almost sounds like big dairy and big sugar have been hanging out together...
But to the credit of everybody else, I guess I just sometimes forget other people like other things lol. If I suddenly developed a bean intolerance (one of my favourite foods), I'd probably also want to fix it or at least make them tolerable again.
I'm actually thinking about that right now. 3 days ago I made a big pot of beans and I've been eating them since then. I've been blowing ass nonstop and my bowels have been evacuating a tad faster...
If I suddenly developed a bean intolerance (one of my favourite foods), I'd probably also want to fix it or at least make them tolerable again.
I'm actually thinking about that right now. 3 days ago I made a big pot of beans and I've been eating them since then. I've been blowing ass nonstop and my bowels have been evacuating a tad faster than I'd enjoy, so naturally I've been wondering: what if instead of giving my ass a break I made another big pot of beans, and then another, and kept eating them for two weeks? I have a chance to suffer shortly and then possibly be fine for a long time.
If you need a bean break make sure you keep the amount of fiber in your diet up. Most of the time people's reaction is going from very low amounts to ALL the fiber with a beany dish and then back...
If you need a bean break make sure you keep the amount of fiber in your diet up. Most of the time people's reaction is going from very low amounts to ALL the fiber with a beany dish and then back to low numbers
For me, besides really enjoying all types of dairy, what really bugs me is that it's difficult to tell just how much dairy (and what kind) is bad enough that I should be taking a pill. Liquid milk...
For me, besides really enjoying all types of dairy, what really bugs me is that it's difficult to tell just how much dairy (and what kind) is bad enough that I should be taking a pill. Liquid milk doesn't seem too bad for me outside of a bit of gas, but cheese sometimes - not all the time, sometimes! - fucks me up hard, like "curled up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor for 10 minutes trying not to pass out" hard. I liberally take lactaid pills but it's annoying when I need to take multiple a day because my meals and drinks are spread out in the day. Spontaneous latte? Thanksgiving mashed potatoes? Lassi from the Indian place (I didn't know it contained dairy the first time I had it...)? Sometimes I have to take two at a time and it just isn't clear to me when I need to do that; it's just vibes, and I dislike that.
And yeah, people who have serious allergies to certain foods have it much worse than I, but it'd be nice if we could all consume whatever the heck we wanted where the only consequence is calories/nutrients/heavens forbid, bacteria and mold and other such...
For me, the more pure or concentrated the lactose is, the more trouble it gives me. Consuming dairy on an empty stomach (e.g., first thing in the morning) is far worse than on a full stomach...
For me, the more pure or concentrated the lactose is, the more trouble it gives me. Consuming dairy on an empty stomach (e.g., first thing in the morning) is far worse than on a full stomach (e.g., for dessert after dinner). And skim milk is worse than whole milk, which is worse than cheese, and so on.
All that being said, really fatty/oily foods can give me digestive issues with similar symptoms to lactose intolerance. Even before I became lactose intolerant, dishes with too much cheese or butter could give me stomach cramps. But this also applies to dairy-free oils and fats (too much greasy fried food, salad dressing, etc).
This might be a sign of troubles with your gall bladder. I developed hellacious gall stones about five years ago that began as simple gut cramps after fatty meals but eventually progressed to...
All that being said, really fatty/oily foods can give me digestive issues with similar symptoms to lactose intolerance. Even before I became lactose intolerant, dishes with too much cheese or butter could give me stomach cramps. But this also applies to dairy-free oils and fats (too much greasy fried food, salad dressing, etc).
This might be a sign of troubles with your gall bladder.
I developed hellacious gall stones about five years ago that began as simple gut cramps after fatty meals but eventually progressed to white-hot agony at random times that would lay me out for an hour, then two, then more as the stones were passed through my bile duct. My dumbass GP (an overworked NP who probably doesn't deserve being called a dumbass, honestly) was utterly convinced it was constipation, until one attack lasted so long and was so horrific that I ended up in the ER being pumped full of opiates and anti-inflammatories (bless whoever developed Toradol) until the fucker finally passed. Imaging revealed I was carrying a sack full of rocks right up next to my pancreas, so I was scheduled for a removal.
This was bang in the middle of the pandemic, too, so I got on a non-fat diet for nearly a month to deal with it. Then, as if that weren't enough, after I had the bladder out my bile duct was still full of rocks, so I ended up going back to the ER twice. They finally admitted me and did an endoscopy to flush out the remaining stones. I ended up losing something like 50 pounds through the whole ordeal, and the massive doses of Toradol I needed to not die of agony left ulcers throughout my upper GI tract that took months to heal up.
The short of it is: you DON'T WANT severe issues with your bile salts if you can possibly avoid it. Pancreatitis is a vicious bitch. I'm not sure what can be done about it aside from abstention from fats, which is not really practicable long-term. It got so I couldn't even butter toast towards the end without it feeling like I'd been shot. I'm just thankful I had pretty good insurance at the time, or I'd still be paying that off.
I also hate that there isn't really a good way to tell how much I need for specific things. Instead my mantra has become "you cannot overdose on lactaid". So when having some pizza or whatever,...
Sometimes I have to take two at a time and it just isn't clear to me when I need to do that; it's just vibes, and I dislike that.
I also hate that there isn't really a good way to tell how much I need for specific things. Instead my mantra has become "you cannot overdose on lactaid". So when having some pizza or whatever, every time I think of it, I just take another one.
I did something similar here but what I did was seemingly cure a suspected (but never confirmed) A1 beta-casein intolerance, not a lactose intolerance. I did this by specifically chugging an...
I did something similar here but what I did was seemingly cure a suspected (but never confirmed) A1 beta-casein intolerance, not a lactose intolerance. I did this by specifically chugging an entire 12 ounce glass of A2 beta-casein only milk, and for some reason I seem to have only needed to do it the one time. I don't pretend to understand what's happening, I just know that suddenly in my mid-40's I can drink an entire glass of milk and I'm fine, whereas in my 30's that would've been as disastrous as she implied her experiment started off.
The most fascinating thing about this is that it's a piece of evidence for a broader observation about the gut microbiome: you need really strong interventions if you want to change it, but if you...
The most fascinating thing about this is that it's a piece of evidence for a broader observation about the gut microbiome: you need really strong interventions if you want to change it, but if you do it right, the results come very quickly.
Slow gradual introduction of lactose without too much suffering doesn't seem to work. Neither does supplementation of bifidobacteria on its own. But tell your gut "you will digest lactose and you will enjoy it!" and you're done in two weeks.
There are more and more pieces of evidence like this. Recently the preindustrialized tribe-inspired NiMe Diet, which changed multiple blood markers significantly for the better (on top of changing the microbiome itself) in just a 3 week study, but the subjects ate nothing but foods from the diet. Or probiotics: finding probiotics that work for a specific ailment is an incredibly difficult task because there are hundreds of possible bacteria available, at the same time most pharmacies just have a couple most common multi-strain probiotics of questionable quality at best and getting anything else is expensive and complicated, and there's a good chance that you need one out of just a couple very specific strains. However anecdotally when people do find what works for them (whether based on microbiome sequencing or just randomly), it tends to work in just a couple days.
I saw a video recently trying to explain why people in Taiwan and China drink so much bubble tea despite being mostly lactose intolerant. About 60% of the global population is lactose intolerant....
I saw a video recently trying to explain why people in Taiwan and China drink so much bubble tea despite being mostly lactose intolerant. About 60% of the global population is lactose intolerant. Most human bodies stop making enzymes for lactose after infant hood. Some scientist in the video stated that it is possible for a person's microbiome to adapt to digest the lactose that person's body can not.
What they didn't mention was gas.
My understanding is that while gut bacteria will break many things down, their waste product is gas.
Actually no, the gas often happens when shifts in your gut microbiome happen, and as you adapt and the bacteria stabilize it usually reduces to normal. 3 days ago I made a big pot of beans and...
Actually no, the gas often happens when shifts in your gut microbiome happen, and as you adapt and the bacteria stabilize it usually reduces to normal. 3 days ago I made a big pot of beans and I've been like a baloon since, but people from countries where beans create the foundation of their diets are not constantly walking around blowing ass.
This is confirmed by the girl in the video, the gas significantly reduced after those two weeks of suffering.
While I'm not sure about the GI tract recruiting lactose-digesting bacteria without an active effort beyond drinking milk, I will contend that the bacteria from yogurts and certain cheeses, once...
While I'm not sure about the GI tract recruiting lactose-digesting bacteria without an active effort beyond drinking milk, I will contend that the bacteria from yogurts and certain cheeses, once established, seem to break down lactose without gas.
It would be really great if there were greater access to actual tests for lactose intolerance (or more correctly, lack of lactase persistence). It would also be great if there were more...
It would be really great if there were greater access to actual tests for lactose intolerance (or more correctly, lack of lactase persistence). It would also be great if there were more standardized methods of testing foods for lactose content. It would also be great if there were more research done on lactase persistence in humans and the actual effects in the body. I feel though that since most people experience it (and talk about it as) just being gassy and bloated, it is regularly treated as a "just live with it" or "just take the lactaid" problem.
I say this because there's also very real milk allergies that are ignored because lactose intolerance is so prevalent and a lot of people in discussions when the topic of lactose intolerance comes up really sound like they are describing milk allergies.
I was lactose intolerant from my teenage years through early 20s. Usual pain, gas, and diarrhea. I went with Lactaid during most of this time and it worked okay, but never perfect. In my mid 20s,...
I was lactose intolerant from my teenage years through early 20s. Usual pain, gas, and diarrhea. I went with Lactaid during most of this time and it worked okay, but never perfect.
In my mid 20s, I started taking probiotics for unrelated reasons, as well as eating more European plain yogurt. I was taking the probiotics for maybe 4-6 months. (Florastor brand name)
It took me a while to really notice, but I seem to be totally fine with lactose now. I’ve stopped the probiotic, eat less yogurt, and don’t take lactase.
According to a nurse in my family, I’ve seeded my gut biome with the right lactobacilis cultures. Would recommend since it seems like a pretty harmless test besides the cost of supplements.
As one of the lucky people who didn't lose lactase production in adulthood, I learned the hard way that you can mess up your gut biome enough to be lactose-intolerant anyway. Shortly after...
As one of the lucky people who didn't lose lactase production in adulthood, I learned the hard way that you can mess up your gut biome enough to be lactose-intolerant anyway. Shortly after starting a modestly antibiotic medication, I got the full panoply of symptoms from even tiny amounts of lactose or sugar alcohols. Not adequately fixed with Lactaid. I went off dairy completely, switched to an expensive ultrapurified whey protein supplement for weightlifting, eliminated sugar alcohol sweeteners, and still got unwanted lactose events if I ever ate out or tried a new food (who knew some prepped sauces, vegan milk substitutes or protein powders have lactose or sorbitol, mannitol, etc. added...).
After some experimenting (because I love cheeses), I found a daily multi-organism probiotic supplement that let me go back to tolerating lactose again, though sugar alcohols are still off the menu. No "sugar-free" breath mints or gum, which I kind of miss.
I somehow saw this when it came out and didn't watch it fully but she describes the problem I had with dairy, except I would vomit. One night after milk and some Oreos I was violently ill even and...
I somehow saw this when it came out and didn't watch it fully but she describes the problem I had with dairy, except I would vomit. One night after milk and some Oreos I was violently ill even and just began reincorporating dairy slowly. I still get bubble gut, but can have a latte with no problem at least.
The methodology is... Interesting, not too fond of drinking milk slurry for seven days, but if if somebody wants their milk tea that bad then I won't blame them if I don't have to share a room with them.
The wilder variant: the person who did some genetic engineering (and a follow up).
Not validating this idea, but anecdotally ... I regularly fast for a few days at a time, usually 3-7 days ... and after I start eating again, I am generally lactose intolerant for a week or two, until my intestines remember how to digest the stuff.
Why? I'm not being critical genuinely curious why you fast for so long.
I also had a mild lactose intolerance that I fixed through drinking more milk, and a mild banana allergy I fixed through eating more bananas.
It's possible that you had oral allergy syndrome. It's not exactly a true allergy, more a mild cross-reactive sensitivity. Did cooked bananas ever bother you?
True food allergies are very difficult and sometimes impossible to treat through clinical exposure therapy.
I've almost never had a cook banana, so I can't say. I'd say that my tongue would get slightly irritated after eating a banana.
Sounds like a classic oral allergy then. If you can safely eat banana bread, it's probably not a true allergy.
OP creates a cure* for lactose intelorance through the scientific application of straight up chugging it. And by it, I mean heavily concentrated powdered milk.
*Using the term cure here with an artistic license. It may work for some, it might not for others.
I can handle small amounts of lactose in cheese and yogurt (that I make myself so I can hella strain it) but actual liquid milk still makes me vomit. The rest of dairy products just come out the uhh. other chute.
I've avoided clicking this video on my feed for awhile because I expected it to literally be milk chugging, like the scene in Anchorman which still makes me gag. So I'm quite relieved to hear it's just milk powder but still. Hrchhh.
That being said, I'm fine with my lactose intolerance. I'm genuinely curious why in North America is it considered a thing that needs to be cured? I know one reasoning is because some medicines contain lactose and that can be problematic for lactose intolerant patients, which is understandable. But all too often, when I tell people I'm quite heavily lactose intolerant, they start telling me about their lactose intolerant cousin who takes lactaid and how I'm missing out on so much. So I guess I get the vibe that it's a FOMO thing or a desire to not be seen as different?
I developed lactose intolerance post-adolescence, and as an American who makes a concerted effort to seed my gut biome with lactase-producers, I guess I'm qualified to explain.
Cheese is everywhere here. It's on every sandwich, it's added to vegetables, we put it on our fruit pies, and it's probably the only food staple that people will eat by itself. Milk is also commonly incorporated into recipes that traditionally lack it for added texture and sweetness. Living without lactase means a lot of vigilance in restaurants, not to mention home cooked meals. It's not some awful burden, and if I didn't really enjoy young cheeses I'd just deal with it, but it's a pain in the ass that every second item on a menu will include lactose without notice.
As an additional point: it's not just milk that's incorporated into so many products. In America, we directly incorporate lactose sugars into a huge range of products, from expected (baked goods) to the "makes sense if you think about it" (a lot of beers) to the wildly unexpected (sausages?!).
So not only is it hard to avoid milk products but you can't avoid the direct thing your body can't digest!
That's a good point, I don't eat out very often and when I do, I'm not regularly checking for lactose beyond just skipping cheese and sweet stuff. Mine isn't severe enough for small amounts to tear me up so maybe I've just always been lucky or assumed it was something else causing me some gastrointestinal distress. My wife is also lactose intolerant so we don't have problems at home either usually (except on the rare occasion we want to make ice cream, typically in the middle of winter for whatever reason).
I guess avoiding lactose stuff has just become so natural to me that I don't see why people put it in everything, other than it just being a part of the culture. I do get irrationally angry at seeing Asian cuisines recently adding cheese to everything though. I went out for Korean BBQ with friends that I was visiting in LA once and there was just a huge tray of melted bubbling cheese and corn in front of me the entire night. Was really rather disgusting to me but at least the rest was non-cheese lol
Yeah, it definitely comes down to who you're living with.
Lactaid isn’t a cure for lactose, it’s just a series of products with the lactase enzyme as a supplement.
The US has a big dairy culture. If you’re heavily lactose intolerant, you’ll be unable to eat many common foods and deserts. Many people consider drinking milk to be a serious ritual. For most cases of lactose intolerance, eating the milk product with a lactase enzyme supplement is an easy and cheap fix.
It's mostly propaganda, if we're honest, but it has worked. I grew up during the "Got milk?" advertising campaign blitz, along with the Real California Cheese campaign about Great Cheese comes from Happy Cows, Happy Cows come from California (what a joke that is.)
I do recall the Got Milk stuff and also all the calcium stuff. Teachers would tell me I'll have brittle bones or break my arm more easily if I didn't drink my milk but I was like "but it makes me feel sick... I don't want to drink it"
Meanwhile, I've gone nearly 40 years without drinking milk and have yet to break a bone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Of course, having said that, I'll likely break something shoveling snow this weekend...
I once did a slip and slide on some ground ice that looked like it had snow pack on top of it. I landed on my backside hard enough that I was sure I'd broken something, but it was just a bruised butt cheek and a shattered ego. Be safe out there!
It’s actually gotten worse since then. Those advertisements were paid by a checkoff program, a voluntary program overseen by the government where a portion of profits gets taken off, kind of like a tax. A few years ago laws were passed to make it mandatory. The reason why cheese is in everything is not just because “everyone loves cheese”, but because that checkoff money goes into influencing wholesale customers - restaurants and food processors - into including it in their products. That’s the real reason why public milk and cheese campaigns are less common today: they just decided to market directly to the people buying from the dairy industry. Putting cheese in everything helps to make people crave dairy since dairy milk’s casein is metabolized into casomorphin, which makes it mildly addictive.
I’ve never head any of that but I would be willing to entertain the notion that it’s all true. Any chance you’ve got some primary sources on what you state, or do I need to spend some time looking it up?
I’m out and about for the whole day, so I can’t find sources right now but they can be found fairly easily.
Yeah, I'm realizing now reading the other comments that people can develop it post-adolescence which honestly was news to me - I thought it only went away or got worse in adolescence and was unaware it could be acquired later in life. I know I would be looking for a way to fix things if I was suddenly intolerant to beans or potatoes (my two favourite foods)
My figure skating coach recently told me that she drinks half a litre of milk every night before bed which was in the back of my mind when writing my original comment. Just one of those things that is difficult for me to comprehend, I suppose.
Pretty much everyone with lactose intolerance grows into it. It would be pretty bad to be lactose intolerant as a baby when your diet is entirely milk.
Some people get early enough they won’t remember a time when they could consume dairy, but it’s usually ages 10-20.
Since it’s more about, uh, gastronomic discomfort whether or not you like the taste of milk/icecream/etc is fairly disconnected from the lactase intolerance even if you do develop it early.
It's not that I need it to be cured, it's that I'm going to eat dairy regardless so the less I suffer the better.
I don't drink or use regular milk anymore but do drink Fairlife or equivalent which is lactose free. (And not sweet). They got rid of my favorite plant based substitute (Silk Next Milk was a chemical wonder) and sometimes I want cereal. Plus cheese is basically my go to snack and I don't like limiting myself to lactose free options.
I've pretty successfully maintained my level of intolerance and not had it get worse like my mom's side of the family usually does (they're Sardinian mostly) but I may have just gotten the milder version of it handed down.
Like the others say, it's largely just how prevalent milk is in American cooking. Along with cheese, it's also found in a lot of desserts like cakes, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, creams in general... Then there's yogurt, mashed potatoes recipes, some breads, some sauces (Alfredo is particularly common for pasta), pancakes, pastries, some soups ("cream of" anything), chowder...
Yeah, it can be surprisingly hard to avoid. And a lot of people develop it later in life, so it's less FOMO and more not wanting to give up long-time favorite foods. I'd be devastated to lose the ability to eat mac and cheese or chocolate.
Ah you hit an interesting point. I developed a fairly severe distaste for sugar at a very young age to the point I became fairly repulsed by most candy and cake things (I also have autism related sensory issues, especially around anything sticky so that might be part of it too?). So I naturally avoid almost everything you listed or I opt for less sweeter varieties if they're available.
Almost sounds like big dairy and big sugar have been hanging out together...
But to the credit of everybody else, I guess I just sometimes forget other people like other things lol. If I suddenly developed a bean intolerance (one of my favourite foods), I'd probably also want to fix it or at least make them tolerable again.
I'm actually thinking about that right now. 3 days ago I made a big pot of beans and I've been eating them since then. I've been blowing ass nonstop and my bowels have been evacuating a tad faster than I'd enjoy, so naturally I've been wondering: what if instead of giving my ass a break I made another big pot of beans, and then another, and kept eating them for two weeks? I have a chance to suffer shortly and then possibly be fine for a long time.
If you need a bean break make sure you keep the amount of fiber in your diet up. Most of the time people's reaction is going from very low amounts to ALL the fiber with a beany dish and then back to low numbers
For me, besides really enjoying all types of dairy, what really bugs me is that it's difficult to tell just how much dairy (and what kind) is bad enough that I should be taking a pill. Liquid milk doesn't seem too bad for me outside of a bit of gas, but cheese sometimes - not all the time, sometimes! - fucks me up hard, like "curled up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor for 10 minutes trying not to pass out" hard. I liberally take lactaid pills but it's annoying when I need to take multiple a day because my meals and drinks are spread out in the day. Spontaneous latte? Thanksgiving mashed potatoes? Lassi from the Indian place (I didn't know it contained dairy the first time I had it...)? Sometimes I have to take two at a time and it just isn't clear to me when I need to do that; it's just vibes, and I dislike that.
And yeah, people who have serious allergies to certain foods have it much worse than I, but it'd be nice if we could all consume whatever the heck we wanted where the only consequence is calories/nutrients/heavens forbid, bacteria and mold and other such...
For me, the more pure or concentrated the lactose is, the more trouble it gives me. Consuming dairy on an empty stomach (e.g., first thing in the morning) is far worse than on a full stomach (e.g., for dessert after dinner). And skim milk is worse than whole milk, which is worse than cheese, and so on.
All that being said, really fatty/oily foods can give me digestive issues with similar symptoms to lactose intolerance. Even before I became lactose intolerant, dishes with too much cheese or butter could give me stomach cramps. But this also applies to dairy-free oils and fats (too much greasy fried food, salad dressing, etc).
This might be a sign of troubles with your gall bladder.
I developed hellacious gall stones about five years ago that began as simple gut cramps after fatty meals but eventually progressed to white-hot agony at random times that would lay me out for an hour, then two, then more as the stones were passed through my bile duct. My dumbass GP (an overworked NP who probably doesn't deserve being called a dumbass, honestly) was utterly convinced it was constipation, until one attack lasted so long and was so horrific that I ended up in the ER being pumped full of opiates and anti-inflammatories (bless whoever developed Toradol) until the fucker finally passed. Imaging revealed I was carrying a sack full of rocks right up next to my pancreas, so I was scheduled for a removal.
This was bang in the middle of the pandemic, too, so I got on a non-fat diet for nearly a month to deal with it. Then, as if that weren't enough, after I had the bladder out my bile duct was still full of rocks, so I ended up going back to the ER twice. They finally admitted me and did an endoscopy to flush out the remaining stones. I ended up losing something like 50 pounds through the whole ordeal, and the massive doses of Toradol I needed to not die of agony left ulcers throughout my upper GI tract that took months to heal up.
The short of it is: you DON'T WANT severe issues with your bile salts if you can possibly avoid it. Pancreatitis is a vicious bitch. I'm not sure what can be done about it aside from abstention from fats, which is not really practicable long-term. It got so I couldn't even butter toast towards the end without it feeling like I'd been shot. I'm just thankful I had pretty good insurance at the time, or I'd still be paying that off.
I also hate that there isn't really a good way to tell how much I need for specific things. Instead my mantra has become "you cannot overdose on lactaid". So when having some pizza or whatever, every time I think of it, I just take another one.
I did something similar here but what I did was seemingly cure a suspected (but never confirmed) A1 beta-casein intolerance, not a lactose intolerance. I did this by specifically chugging an entire 12 ounce glass of A2 beta-casein only milk, and for some reason I seem to have only needed to do it the one time. I don't pretend to understand what's happening, I just know that suddenly in my mid-40's I can drink an entire glass of milk and I'm fine, whereas in my 30's that would've been as disastrous as she implied her experiment started off.
Has she been tested for Celiac?
This has been my case as well, although I still get an acne outbreak if I consume any high fat dairy.
The most fascinating thing about this is that it's a piece of evidence for a broader observation about the gut microbiome: you need really strong interventions if you want to change it, but if you do it right, the results come very quickly.
Slow gradual introduction of lactose without too much suffering doesn't seem to work. Neither does supplementation of bifidobacteria on its own. But tell your gut "you will digest lactose and you will enjoy it!" and you're done in two weeks.
There are more and more pieces of evidence like this. Recently the preindustrialized tribe-inspired NiMe Diet, which changed multiple blood markers significantly for the better (on top of changing the microbiome itself) in just a 3 week study, but the subjects ate nothing but foods from the diet. Or probiotics: finding probiotics that work for a specific ailment is an incredibly difficult task because there are hundreds of possible bacteria available, at the same time most pharmacies just have a couple most common multi-strain probiotics of questionable quality at best and getting anything else is expensive and complicated, and there's a good chance that you need one out of just a couple very specific strains. However anecdotally when people do find what works for them (whether based on microbiome sequencing or just randomly), it tends to work in just a couple days.
I saw a video recently trying to explain why people in Taiwan and China drink so much bubble tea despite being mostly lactose intolerant. About 60% of the global population is lactose intolerant. Most human bodies stop making enzymes for lactose after infant hood. Some scientist in the video stated that it is possible for a person's microbiome to adapt to digest the lactose that person's body can not.
What they didn't mention was gas.
My understanding is that while gut bacteria will break many things down, their waste product is gas.
Actually no, the gas often happens when shifts in your gut microbiome happen, and as you adapt and the bacteria stabilize it usually reduces to normal. 3 days ago I made a big pot of beans and I've been like a baloon since, but people from countries where beans create the foundation of their diets are not constantly walking around blowing ass.
This is confirmed by the girl in the video, the gas significantly reduced after those two weeks of suffering.
While I'm not sure about the GI tract recruiting lactose-digesting bacteria without an active effort beyond drinking milk, I will contend that the bacteria from yogurts and certain cheeses, once established, seem to break down lactose without gas.
It would be really great if there were greater access to actual tests for lactose intolerance (or more correctly, lack of lactase persistence). It would also be great if there were more standardized methods of testing foods for lactose content. It would also be great if there were more research done on lactase persistence in humans and the actual effects in the body. I feel though that since most people experience it (and talk about it as) just being gassy and bloated, it is regularly treated as a "just live with it" or "just take the lactaid" problem.
I say this because there's also very real milk allergies that are ignored because lactose intolerance is so prevalent and a lot of people in discussions when the topic of lactose intolerance comes up really sound like they are describing milk allergies.
I was lactose intolerant from my teenage years through early 20s. Usual pain, gas, and diarrhea. I went with Lactaid during most of this time and it worked okay, but never perfect.
In my mid 20s, I started taking probiotics for unrelated reasons, as well as eating more European plain yogurt. I was taking the probiotics for maybe 4-6 months. (Florastor brand name)
It took me a while to really notice, but I seem to be totally fine with lactose now. I’ve stopped the probiotic, eat less yogurt, and don’t take lactase.
According to a nurse in my family, I’ve seeded my gut biome with the right lactobacilis cultures. Would recommend since it seems like a pretty harmless test besides the cost of supplements.
As one of the lucky people who didn't lose lactase production in adulthood, I learned the hard way that you can mess up your gut biome enough to be lactose-intolerant anyway. Shortly after starting a modestly antibiotic medication, I got the full panoply of symptoms from even tiny amounts of lactose or sugar alcohols. Not adequately fixed with Lactaid. I went off dairy completely, switched to an expensive ultrapurified whey protein supplement for weightlifting, eliminated sugar alcohol sweeteners, and still got unwanted lactose events if I ever ate out or tried a new food (who knew some prepped sauces, vegan milk substitutes or protein powders have lactose or sorbitol, mannitol, etc. added...).
After some experimenting (because I love cheeses), I found a daily multi-organism probiotic supplement that let me go back to tolerating lactose again, though sugar alcohols are still off the menu. No "sugar-free" breath mints or gum, which I kind of miss.
I somehow saw this when it came out and didn't watch it fully but she describes the problem I had with dairy, except I would vomit. One night after milk and some Oreos I was violently ill even and just began reincorporating dairy slowly. I still get bubble gut, but can have a latte with no problem at least.
The methodology is... Interesting, not too fond of drinking milk slurry for seven days, but if if somebody wants their milk tea that bad then I won't blame them if I don't have to share a room with them.
Oh jesus fuck, fuck no, I'd rather kill myself
As an enjoyer of milk, I'd rather do this than have to think about having lactase pills on me for the rest of my life.