3 dairy products to try if you're lactose intolerant

[00:00:00] I had pretty much given up on dairy about a decade ago, and it wasn't until I got really into weightlifting and fitness about a year or two ago, and I really needed to up my protein

[00:00:09] intake that I realized dairy is actually a really good source of whole food protein. So if you are lactose intolerant like me, or simply just don't tolerate dairy, but you want to enjoy things like milk or ice cream or cheese and all of these wonderful things,

[00:00:26] there are three types of dairy products that you should try. I'm Jane Z, and this is Farm to Future, the podcast all about eating better for the planet. Hello and welcome back to Farm to Future.

[00:00:40] I'm trying out this new solo episode format where I share some of my learnings from hosting this show and share some of my favorite recommendations of whole foods for you to try. Let me know if you enjoy this format here on Spotify or on Instagram.

[00:00:54] I might do similar episodes for gluten and other things, so let me know what you want to hear about. All right, the first recommendation I have for you is raw milk. This should come to no surprise as we've done a full episode on this with Max Kane

[00:01:07] and Mark McAfee. I will link that episode in the show notes. It's worth listening to the whole thing to get the whole context and history behind raw milk versus pasteurized milk. Long story short, most of the milk out there on grocery store shelves are pasteurized industrial products.

[00:01:26] Conventional milk comes from primarily Holstein and Jersey breed cows, which produce a mix of A1 and A2 beta casein, and I'll tell you why that's relevant later. These cows live indoors their whole lives. They're artificially inseminated.

[00:01:38] They live in confined spaces and they never get to live on pasture and graze on grass. Pasteurized milk happens to be the most allergenic food in the United States. Part of the reason for that is in the pasteurization process, which means heating up the milk to

[00:01:53] 72 degrees Celsius or 162 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds. Not that long. That process kills off all of the bacteria and pathogens in the milk, which on surface level sounds like a good thing because it kills potentially harmful pathogens, but it also kills all of the good bacteria.

[00:02:14] Tall milk contains a ton of good gut bacteria and what happens is during pasteurization is something called cell lysis. Essentially that just means the cells are being killed and what you end up with is all this dead cell material floating around in the milk, which sounds really gross.

[00:02:32] When you ingest that milk, a lot of our bodies are like, uh, we don't know what this is. We're going to reject that. A lot of times our bodies just don't tolerate pasteurized milk. On the contrary, raw milk is living food.

[00:02:47] You can compare it to human breast milk. It is the stuff of life. It sustains babies, not just sustains, but it builds the baby's immune system, supports and protects them with nutrients, makes food more bioavailable, your gut less inflamed.

[00:03:02] Raw milk contains up to 700 different kinds of bacteria in it and that supports the biodiversity of our gut microbiome, which is very, very important. It also has 2,500 different proteins in it. Many of them are anti-inflammatory enzymes like alkaline phosphatase, which is an enzyme

[00:03:20] found in all our body tissues, including the liver and bone. And it's important for functions like breaking down proteins. Now you're probably like, okay, Jane, that all sounds great, but where do I get raw milk? Okay, that's the tricky thing.

[00:03:34] In the United States, raw milk is still illegal to sell in 37 states. If you live in California, you can go to the store. A lot of times you can find raw milk there. You can probably even find milk from Raw Farm, which is Mark McAfee's farm.

[00:03:51] But if you are not in California, I would recommend these two resources. There's a website called Farm Match and Max Kane, who's the founder of Farm Match, has actually been on the show a couple of times. I'm a big advocate for them. So go to farmmatch.com.

[00:04:05] You enter your zip code, you'll see a list of small, regenerative farms that ship directly to you, and you can order products directly through Farm Match. Some of these farms offer dairy, some don't. I'm in the Northeast, and there's two farms that deliver to me prairie foods,

[00:04:21] pleasant pastures. Both of them do offer raw milk. I will say that they do sell out pretty quickly, and so you kind of have to be on the watch every week and see when it's available. But Farm Match is super convenient.

[00:04:35] If you use farmmatch.com slash Jane, you can get 10% off your first order. This is not sponsored. I just love them because their food and the quality is amazing. The other resource that I will recommend is realmilk.com, or you can Google Raw Milk Finder.

[00:04:53] They have this giant map of the United States, and you can zoom in on the map or choose your state. And they'll point you to farms that sell raw milk and dairy products. I know that Farm Match does a lot of vetting of their farms.

[00:05:09] They're typically small, regenerative, family-owned farms. And that's really important to keep in mind when you're sourcing raw milk is make sure you're sourcing from clean, reputable farms that keep their cows clean. Ideally, they can graze on pasture, and very importantly,

[00:05:26] keep their milk at a cool temperature so that it stays fresh when it gets to you. In my experience, I've now had raw milk from both pleasant pastures and prairie foods. I actually really love the taste. I was afraid that it would taste too cow-like.

[00:05:44] You know what I mean? Like, gamey. I was worried it would taste like overly gamey or beefy. And it really doesn't, at least not from these particular farms. The taste is very mild.

[00:05:56] The texture is quite creamy, close to like a 3% or whole milk that you'd get in the store. You don't get that kind of like watery feel of like a 1% or low-fat milk. Now because it is raw and you're not supposed to heat it to high temperatures,

[00:06:13] I do like having warm milk. I know I'm such a baby, but I like having warm milk, especially in the winter. And so what I will do is create a warm bath for my milk.

[00:06:25] I actually use my measuring cup, but you could use a bowl or any container really. Fill it up with warm water and then pour your milk into a glass and put that glass into the warm bath. So I'll just leave that out for five to 10 minutes.

[00:06:41] And by the time I drink it, it's kind of at a room temperature slash a little bit warm. But yeah, in my experience, I've been loving the taste, the texture of the milk.

[00:06:51] My only thing is I do find that it goes bad quicker than milk I buy from the store. I find the raw milk that I get is like good within the week. And then after the week, it's a little bit questionable.

[00:07:04] If you buy raw milk to let me know if that's the case for you as well, but that's just been my experience. The quality is amazing. Shelf life is definitely shorter. So that's my spiel on raw milk. The second type of dairy I recommend trying is A2 dairy.

[00:07:21] Now what is A2 dairy? So there are two types of proteins found in milk. There's whey and casein. Typically raw milk contains 20% whey and 80% casein. And both of these proteins are really good at helping our bodies absorb amino acids, build and repair muscle and more.

[00:07:39] So the beta casein found in typical cow's milk today is in one of two variants. Either you have A2 beta casein or A1 beta casein. Originally, cow's milk only had the A2 beta casein, which is the same primary protein found in human milk.

[00:07:56] And because of that, A2 beta casein is more easily absorbed. However, at one point there was a genetic mutation in the A2 beta casein protein that created the A1 variant. And that's resulted in most of our commercial cow's milk

[00:08:13] to be a mixture of A1 and A2 beta casein. And unfortunately, the A1 beta casein is harder for us to digest and it's linked to inflammation and gut issues. The nice thing is now in grocery stores you're starting to see A2 dairy options.

[00:08:30] Some of the brands out there that you can find at Whole Foods are... There's one called A2 milk. And then Alexander Family Farm is a great option. They are America's first certified regenerative grass-based organic A2 dairy. Check them out.

[00:08:45] Also, oh my god, I have to tell you about Alex Ice Cream. So it's A-L-E-C-S ice cream. They are also at Whole Foods and they are 100% A2 dairy ice cream. I actually found out about A2 dairy through Alex Ice Cream.

[00:09:01] They are so good and they have the best flavors. I love the matcha chocolate chip because I'm a matcha fiend. They just released this lemon flavor, but they've also got honey blueberry lavender, peanut butter fudge honeycomb, classic Tahitian vanilla bean, mint chocolate chip, salted caramel.

[00:09:21] Oh my god, it's just... It's amazing. Like if you just want really good dairy ice cream, which should be easier to digest, Alex Ice Cream, go check them out. And then the third type of dairy I recommend trying is sheep's milk or goat's milk.

[00:09:37] Both contain A2 protein, so again that should be easier to digest. So goat's milk contains oligosaccharides, which makes it similar to human milk. It also is naturally homogenized, meaning the cream remains within the milk, whereas with cow's milk they need to be processed

[00:09:53] in order for the cream and the liquid to bind together. Goat's milk also has 20% smaller fat globules compared to cow's milk and lower levels of lactose, and this all makes it easier to digest. Sheep milk is similar but less common because sheeps naturally don't produce as much milk.

[00:10:12] So typical sheep might produce less than half a gallon of milk per day, whereas a grass-fed cow or goat can produce 6 to 8 gallons a day. And that's why sheep's milk can be harder to find, but you can probably find sheep's milk yogurt or goat milk yogurt.

[00:10:29] Sheep milk is higher in milk solids, so the fat and protein, and contains roughly double the amount of fat versus a cow or goat milk. And that's why it's perfect for making cheese and yogurt. And sheep's milk is also high in A2 protein, vitamin B12 and folate.

[00:10:46] I tried sheep's milk yogurt. I forget the brand. It was more liquidy than I was expecting because I normally have Greek yogurt, although we've been trying to switch more to the raw yogurt from Prairie Foods, which is really, really good. It's basically a kefir.

[00:11:01] But the sheep milk yogurt was quite sour, I found. I mean, obviously you can flavor it with honey and add your own other things. I haven't tried a ton of goat's milk or sheep's milk,

[00:11:14] so if you have, I would love to hear your experience and whether you would recommend it. So to recap, the three types of dairy products I would recommend if you don't tolerate dairy well or your lactose intolerant are raw milk, A2 dairy, and sheep or goat's milk.

[00:11:31] If none of those options work for you or maybe you're vegan or just are not a fan of dairy, I do want to share some of my favorite plant-based dairy alternatives. I used to be an Oatly girl through and through.

[00:11:43] I thought I was so cool discovering Oatly back in 2018 in the Iceland airport. I found a bottle of this chocolate oat milk and I was like, oh my God, Iceland is so cool.

[00:11:55] Lo and behold, a couple years later, Oatly won the hearts of pretty much every single barista in the United States and they just took the world by storm. I do still have a ton of respect for their business and their brand.

[00:12:10] Like they do so much around sustainability reporting and awareness. I think they have been a big leader in the conversation around alternatives to factory farming, which I think is cool. However, if you turn the carton to the back and look at the ingredients,

[00:12:25] you will see that canola oil is one of their ingredients. And that is because if you've had oats or oatmeal, you know it's not very fatty by nature. And one of the great things about milk is that you get the fat,

[00:12:39] you get the protein, it's got some oomph to it. And so in order to add that oomph, oat milk naturally needs that oil to help it bind and taste good. And so Oatly does use canola oil, which unfortunately, as we know, is a seed oil,

[00:12:55] highly processed industrial product. You do not want to be drinking that stuff. And if you want to learn more, I did an episode with Chef Dr. Mike all about seed oils and why you should use olive oil instead for cooking. So I'll link that down below.

[00:13:09] Not to pick on Oatly, this applies to the majority of plant-based so-called milks out there. You're going to see a lot of filler ingredients like xanthan gum, vegetable oils, preservatives, things like that. Oh, and by the way, on Oatly's ingredients list, it says low urosic acid rapeseed oil.

[00:13:30] Rapeseed oil is another name for canola oil. It's vegetable oil. They're all the same thing. Really the best plant-based milks to go for should only have two to three ingredients. So Malk MLK is a brand that I'll get sometimes and their oat milk contains literally three ingredients.

[00:13:49] It's organic oats, filtered water, and Himalayan pink salt. And I love that they go for organic oats so that I know it's glyphosate free. I also appreciate that they filter their water. I don't know the details of their filtering, but probably they'll filter out chlorine

[00:14:04] and some of the heavy metals. So that's great. If I look at Malk's almond milk, their unsweetened version, it's got filtered water, organic almonds, Himalayan pink salt. Amazing. Let's look at their vanilla flavored filtered water, organic almonds, pure organic vanilla extract

[00:14:22] made from vanilla beans and Himalayan pink salt. Amazing. All ingredients that I could source put into a blender and make myself. And then the other brand that I like is Califia Farms. They're organic almond milk. You got to go for the organic one,

[00:14:36] which is the green and white bottle. Not their original, which is what most stores carry unfortunately. Their regular almond milks and oat milks do contain gums and filler ingredients, but the organic version is only three ingredients. So it's water, organic almonds, and sea salt.

[00:14:54] I do wish they used filtered water, but it is what it is. So Malk and Califia Farms are the two brands that I would buy if I was going for plant-based milks. I'm sure there's other brands out there that also only do two to three ingredients.

[00:15:10] That's what I would look for. The only thing with these options is they are on the pricier side. The Califia Farms is about $6 for a liter and a half, which is not bad, but considering it's just like almond water that you could make at home,

[00:15:26] it's definitely on the pricier side. And then the Malk, it's about $7 for a liter. So that's just something to keep in mind. Now, you could always just source these ingredients on your own, like I said. Put them in a food processor, store them in jars in your fridge.

[00:15:43] They should keep for a few days up to a week. One of my friends of the pod, Hailey, introduced me to this brand called Almond Cow. It's essentially an almond milk making kit and they're really cute and branded. So it comes with the food processor

[00:16:00] that's specifically for making almond milk and you can buy the almonds through them too. They also have oats and coconut shreds. If you are someone who's committed to making your own milks, this might be a good investment for you. It is also on the pricier side.

[00:16:16] The blender itself is $250. They also have this starter kit that comes with the blender, which they call the milk maker. Also comes with a glass jug, a brush, and bags of almonds, cashews, whole grain oats, and coconut shreds. And that starter kit is on sale now for $329.

[00:16:36] They actually are certified non-GMO, pollinator partnership, and glyphosate residue free. Super clean ingredients. It looks like a trustworthy brand. Again, I haven't tried it myself, but if I was a big almond or oat milk drinker, this would be something I'd consider getting.

[00:16:55] You can also get your own glass jug use of food processor. You don't need to be fancy, but you can do this if you want. So that about covers my recommendations for you. If you have trouble processing dairy and you don't always want to pop a lactate pill,

[00:17:11] hopefully these recommendations are helpful. Try them out. Everyone's gut is different. Everyone's body is different. You might be able to tolerate something I can't and vice versa. So the best thing to do is go slow, try something, see how your body takes it.

[00:17:28] And I shouldn't mention at the top of the episode, but obviously if you have a dairy allergy or milk allergy, please avoid milk and go ahead and try the plant alternatives. So I hope this was informative. Let me know what feedback you have.

[00:17:41] If you like this short form solo episode format, I will definitely do more of these. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will talk to you next time. Bye.