Products You Can/Can't Eat

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Last update Wednesday, 16-May-2001 12:12:49 EDT

Hershey's

ALERT

I'm told that Hershey's has sold out of non-milk Special Dark bars.

Hershey's has a Kosher Products page. Kosher (but not Kosher Dairy) is one way to ensure that a food product has no milk in it.

Note that Hershey uses three designations -- OU appears to refer to Kosher Non-Dairy (Meat or Pareve) which is lactose-free. OUD refers to Kosher Dairy, which likely contains lactose. Ko does not distinguish between Dairy, Meat, or Pareve.

Looking through their pages today (30 May 00), none of the "Chocolate Confectionery Products" and only a handful of other products are identifiably lactose-free.

M&M/Mars

Warning -- Don't be fooled by Milky Way Dark. It's still milk chocolate with lactose.

Ben & Jerry's

Ben & Jerry's makes sorbet, all of which are non-dairy, including Devil's Food Chocolate flavor.

If your supermarket carries their ice cream but not their sorbet, hassle the manager.

Haagen-Dazs

Haagen-Dazs makes sorbet, which should be lactose-free, but I don't see any specific claim about lactose.

John Dole tells me that Haagen-Dazs makes chocolate sorbet that tastes like a "very rich chocolate ice-cream."

Nestle

Back in '94, Nestle (1-800-456-4117) sent me a list of products with allergy information -- milk, corn, soybean, wheat, nuts, yellow 5. It doesn't say whether the list is complete, or only lists those items with one or more allergetic foods. In June '00, I tried searching their web site for updated information, but no luck. Maybe I'll call them again.

Foods made by Nestle under the following names all contain lactose:

Nestle Chocolate and Confections
Nestle Sweet Success
Pearson
Carnation

or at least, they did in '94.

Frito-Lay

In '96, Frito-Lay sent me a list of lactose-free foods. I can't find any lactose information on their web pages. Maybe I'll call them again.

General Mills

Warning -- General Mills had added milk to Pop Secret Popcorn

In '96, General Mills sent me a list of lactose-free foods. I've been looking for an updated list, but I don't see one. Perhaps I'll call them again.

General Mills offers this web page about lactose intolerance. Probably nothing you haven't heard before, but they talk about the benefits of yogurt (specifically, Yoplait and Columbo brands :), that yogurt "provide[s] the enzymes necessary to help break down lactose." I've heard both reports about yogurt in general -- some people say yes it helps, while others say that the milk that (some) yogurt is cultrued in upsets them.

I was looking at Hamburger Helper ingredients, and I noticed that, under the ingredients list, in bold print, was a warning that the product contained milk, egg, soy, and wheat. Huzzah to GM, for expressing concern over food allergies.

Stella D'oro

I was in the supermarket, and it looks like all of the Stella D'Oro cookies were non-dairy. Don't take this as gospel. They're quite tasty, if a bit dry.

Milk Substitutes

Lactaid

Lactaid makes several products that I've seen in stores, includeing

70%-reduced-lactose milk
70%-reduced-lactose ice cream
100%-reduced-lactose milk

I recently purchased a quart of 100%-reduced non-fat milk, $1.59/qt. I found it a little sweet, with a bitter aftertaste, when I drank it straight, but it tasted OK in an egg-creme. Others have also said that Lactaid-milk is OK to use but too sweet to drink. My stomach was a bit upset afterwards -- nowhere near a full milk reaction, but enough to make me use a pill next time.

Rice Dream

I grabbed some vanilla Rice Dream in the supermarket, in the bottled- juice section. I didn't like to regular flavor too much, and (except for the occasional craving) I don't like chocolate. $1.79/qt.

The vanilla flavor was stronger than the milk flavor. The consistency was a bit thin when drinking it. The flavor added a nice kick to some instant potatoes, and my egg-creme was good with less vanilla extract and less sugar.

The date on the box says it will last for a several months before opening, and for about a week afterwards.

Rice milk is lactose-free and, sayeth Alice Goldberg, better tasting than Lactaid milk, which she finds too sweet. Rice milk can be found in flavors -- regular, vanilla, and chocolate.

Claudia Daniel recommends checking the labeling information on milk substitutes. Some have vitamins A and D added, some have calcium, some have extra protein, etc... but some don't.
Isomil brand baby formula, I'm told, does not contain lactose.

Cheese

You might want to see a link from PharmInfo, relaying a message from the National Institutes of Health.

At this link, NIH states that "most ripened cheese contain about ... (.4-1 gram [lactose] per serving) ... less even than Lactaid milk (3 grams per serving)." My response is to pay attention to the word most, and as always, watch what you eat.

Alan Healy tells me that he can digest goat's milk cheeses with no problem.

From Jim Gordon:
I have enjoyed a line of cheeses marketed under the brand Lifetime - Lactose Free, produced by Lifeline Food Co., Inc, Seaside, Calif 93955. I don't have a street address. The line includes a "mozzarella," "cheddar," "jack with jalapeno" and perhaps others. Also, Galaxy Foods, 2441 Viscount Row, Orlando, FL 32809, fax 407-855-7485,, web http://www.galaxyfoods.com makes non-lactose "cheeses" under the formagg (a with an umlaut) name.

Tofu

Tofu appears to be the wonder-food, the way penicillin was the wonder-drug. Vegetarians eat it instead of meat, and lactose-intolerants eat it instead of cheese. Most foods that are made of tofu as a base ingredient, do so on purpose -- that is, use tofu explicitly instead of something else. So, you can probably count on tofu-cheeses to be lactose-free, but I wouldn't swear to it. However, some people are allergic to soy, and shouldn't eat tofu.

Rice-a-Roni

Warning -- Some flavors of Rice-a-Roni contain lactose as a sweetner.

but they don't feel like telling us.

"Due to our extnesive product line [Rice-a-Roni, Pasta-Roni, and Golden Grain] and the number of suppliers who provide individual ingredients to us, we are unable to provide a listing..." Oh, well. You've been warned.

Campbell's

Campbell's didn't feel like telling me either. The Campbell's family includes Pepperidge Farms cookies. and Prego sauces. I misplaced the letter they sent me.

I was in the supermarket, and it looks like all of the Pepperidge Farms cookies were dairy.

Miscellaneous Food

Kosher dietary laws consider lactose to be dairy. So, food that is labeled Kosher Meat or Kosher Pareve should not contain lactose.
Pat Mc tells me that some foods labeled "sorbet" may be made with cream.

Medication

Warning

(from the NIH web page) -- lactose is used as the base for more than 20 percent of prescription drugs and about 6 percent of over-the-counter medicines. Many types of birth control pills, for example, contain lactose, as do some tablets for stomach acid and gas.

Mrs. Michael Leveille tells me that Benadryl lists lactose as an ingredient.
Mrs. Michael Leveille tells me that many vitamins contain lactose.
Ellen Halpern tells me that all types of nutritional supplements may contain lactose. Tread carefully.

Somewhere along the line, I was told that all Johnson & Johnson / Merck medications (Mylanta and Pepcid AC) are lactose-free. However, David Hinds tells me that Pepcid AC CHEWABLE contain lactose, although the non-chewable remain lactose-free.
Pepto Bismol (liquid, caplets, tablets) is lactose-free.

I'm looking for suggestions

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Hymie! (hymie@lactose.smart.net)