Wednesday 28 July 2010

Afternoon all!

I got back from a festival yesterday (Secret Garden Party, and yes, it was amazing!) and was relieved to find that, yet again, all food allergies, intolerances, restrictions (enforced or chosen) were well catered for by the variety of food vendors there.

I know it would make more sense to bring and cook my own food, but I'd rather enjoy the festival than spend time cooking, washing up, not to mention not having to lug 4 days worth of food around with me.

I'm really happy that festival food vendors provide for those of us with dietary restrictions as the last thing you want at a festival is an upset stomach with only portaloos (some in pretty bad states) for relief. Of course, not all the food stalls were suitable for me but I still had a pretty good choice available, and all the staff at the stalls were helpful and considerate.

I must admit, I did succumb to a couple of slices of lemon drizzle cake on the last day, which probably wasn't the smartest move, but sometimes you have to give in to those cravings!

Liz :)

Thursday 15 July 2010

Quick, tasty and healthy dinner recipe

This is a really quick and easy recipe, the amounts here serve 1 (and I usually just judge by eye on amounts!)

Ingredients:

  • Half an onion (red works well)
  • A handful of mushrooms
  • 2 tablespoons of Lactofree soft white cheese
  • A handful of fresh spinach (I picked mine from my garden just before cooking for extra freshness!)
  • Pasta (I find farfalle are a good shape for this sort of sauce, but fusilli or linguine will work just as well)
  • Olive oil
  • 1 clove of garlic (optional)
Method:

  • Roughly chop the onions and mushrooms and fry gently in a pan with some olive oil until they're just browning
  • While you're frying, put the water on to boil for the pasta
  • Add some pressed garlic to the mushrooms and onions at this stage (if you like!)
  • Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook for the required time
  • About 3 minutes before the pasta is ready, turn the heat down on the onions and mushrooms and add the Lactofree soft white cheese. Heat gently and stir until it melts
  • Roughly tear the spinach and stir it through the sauce. The heat from the sauce will wilt it naturally
  • Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce
  • Mix the pasta and sauce together well, so the pasta is coated by the sauce
  • Serve immediately (with salad and garlic bread if you like!)

Wednesday 14 July 2010

More info on my Twitter thingy

Hi everyone! I've been lactose intolerant for nearly 3 years now, and I'm also allergic to nuts and soy protein (luckily no yukky soy yoghurts for me!) so I've always had to read the labels of everything I eat.

However, I had an idea recently to make shopping easier for us LI people, so we don't have to read every label, and so we don't miss out on things which are suitable for people with LI.

The idea came when I was out shopping, and my eye was caught by lemon curd tarts, which I love, but haven't eaten for years because I assumed that I wouldn't be able to eat them. I checked the label and was surprised to find that they happened to be dairy free. I got to thinking how many other LI people would have walked past them thinking "it's a sweet bakery good, it must have some dairy ingredient" and never found out that they're dairy free.

So, I've set up a twitter account (http://twitter.com/Lacto_X) where you'll find my suggestions and tips for products that are dairy or lactose free. Simply follow the account, and when you find something which is dairy free, just write a reply to Lacto_X (start your tweet with @Lacto_X) and soon the account page will fill up with all our foodie tips. Please also use the hashtag #Lacto_X in your tweets so we can all search for that hashtag.

If enough people start to use it then I'll do some tweaking to change the set up, so that whenever you tweet a food tip with the #Lacto_X hashtag it automatically retweets it out to everyone who follows the Lacto_X account.

I really hope people find this useful, as I know I'd be really grateful if there was some easy way of spreading information about foods that happen to be dairy/lactose free but which the LI community might not know about.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Recent experiences

As I'm sure most of you know, nearly every medicine contains lactose. It's a cheap bulking/sweetening agent which is why it's used. It can be a problem though when you need to take medication and you know it's going to make you feel nauseous (or worse!).

I very recently bruised my sciatic nerve (an amusing, if slightly embarrassing story which I'll share if I get asked enough!) so I'm taking a cocktail of painkillers to cope with it, which all contain lactose. In this case, I decided that the relative discomfort of the LI was much more preferable to excruciating pain.

I'd like to hear about your experiences of dealing with LI when getting medication, and how you make the decision to either take or not take the medicine.

Welcome to my Lacto_X blog!

Hi! This is a blog about my experiences with lactose intolerance, and how I'm aiming to give the LI community something useful.

I've been LI for about 3 years now, and at first I found it really hard to live with. I could only get lactose free cheese in Europe, so my parents (who day-trip every few months) would bring back loads and freeze it for me. I've never been a tea or coffee drinker, and I prefer my cereal dry, so milk was never a problem for me. Unfortunately I'm also intolerant to soy protein, so soy milk and yoghurt/cheese wasn't an option for me.

About a year or so ago a company called Arla started producing lactose free cow's milk products and that changed my dietary restrictions completely! It was so much easier to eat what I wanted without having to live with the discomfort and, well, if you're LI I don't need to explain the rest!

I've just started up a twitter account for LI people in the UK to share information about foods that are dairy free. Because I've always had to read the labels on all my foods I've found that there are things which you wouldn't even think about buying as an LI person, but which happen to be dairy free. There's also a whole host of products aimed specifically at people with our dietary needs, and the twitter account should also be a place for us to share information about these.

You can find the account at http://twitter.com/Lacto_X. Start following the account, and posting information starting with @Lacto_X (which I'll then re-tweet so we can all share the knowledge), and use the hashtag #Lacto_X so we can all search for the hashtag as well.

I'd love it if this idea takes off, it's been rattling around my head for a couple of months now so I'd like to share it with you all!