Food Allergies Part 1: The Curse of the Dairy Allergy
Author: L. A. Briggs // Category: food allergies, recipePosted March 9, 2011 at 2:46 AM
Whenever my family goes out to dinner at a restaurant, my mother usually has to ask the waiter, “Is there any dairy in this?” She, like many others, of course has dairy allergies. It seems to be a growing affliction among many adults these days.
Allergies to dairy are cause by three components of milk: the casein proteins, whey proteins, or lactose sugar. The lactose usually is involved with an intolerance while the proteins are usually the source of a true allergy.
So what is the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance?
An allergy is when something is ingested and the body recognizes it as foreign, which then causes the release of antibodies. This can cause the body to release histamines which give off the typical indicators of an allergic reaction. Intolerance on the other hand is when there is no enzyme present in the body to break down the food. In the case of milk, intolerance occurs when the body does not produce the enzyme, lactase, needed to break down the lactose sugar. This results in the presence of lactose in the intestines which can lead to gas, bloating, and stomach cramps.
Lactose intolerance is said to affect 30% of Americans, and is the most common food intolerance in the country. Unlike most allergies, lactose intolerance is something that can develop later in life. This is because the body stops making enough lactase as we get older.
My mother is one of the people that are allergic to the proteins in milk, and that trait seems to be a trait that runs in my family. While I seem to have less of an allergy than most of my family, I still try not to ingest as much dairy as I used to when I was younger. I always loved, and still do, drinking milk, but recently I have cut back on the amount of milk that I drink. However, I still partake of many other forms of dairy such as cheeses, and of course one of my favorite culinary confections is cheesecake, so I doubt I will ever be able to give up dairy entirely because it is just too delicious to resist.
So while the number of people with some sort of dairy allergy or intolerance increases each year, the food industry is attempting to accommodate the people that have these afflictions with non-dairy alternatives. How delicious an alternative these are remains to be seen because sometimes there just isn’t an alternative to dairy.
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Recipe of the Day
Dairy and Gluten-Free 'Buttermilk Pancakes'
Ingredients
1 cup sweet rice flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 ¼ cups soy yogurt
1/4 cup rice milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Directions
1. Sift the rice flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the beaten eggs, soy yogurt, rice milk, and oil, and pour into the flour mixture. Stir briefly just to combine.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium-high heat. scoop about ¼ cup of patter per pancake onto the heated griddle, and cook for 1 to 2 minute, or until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip the pancake and cook 1 to 2 minutes more, until the pancake is golden brown on both sides.
This recipe can be found here.
I like your post. It goes nicely with my got milk? post. Thanks for the extra info!!
Is the reason that some people have a more severe lactose intolerance than other due to some people still having some lactase left?
Yep, thanks for the post! Would love to hear more of the science behind these allergies. I wonder if these allergies have always been around and we're just more used to/able to diagnose them now? Or if something in our systems, as people, or our food production systems, is changing? It seems like this get us into an ideological argument, too. Are we just better at diagnosing, or are we/our food changing?