Tips for Eating Dairy and Soy Free

A number of friends who are also trying to eat dairy or soy-free have asked me for ideas on what to eat, and I hope this post is helpful to anyone else who is trying to maintain the same challenging diet. First, however, I must say that neither eating nor cooking are among my strengths. I just hope this might give a few ideas of things you can eat that you might not have thought of, but it is by no means an exhaustive list!

Remind me again why we bother to put ourselves through this? Milk allergies are most common among infants and can be the cause of many colic-like symptoms, as well as eczema. For infants who are allergic to dairy, 40% are also allergic to soy. In short, we do it out of love!

Some Basic tips for dairy-free:

• Personally, I really like rice milk. Almond milk is also a good alternative (I think the taste is stronger, however). There is always soy milk if you are still able to have soy.
• Read labels! Some packaged food makes it easy for you by calling out allergy information. You will be surprised where milk turns up. Most canned soups contain milk in some form (even chicken noodle soup does.) When reading labels, note that "natural flavors" often means a milk component

Basic Tips for Soy-Free:

• Read labels! However, if a food item contains "soy lechithin" this is generally NOT an allergen, so it might say "contains soy" but only contain this elmusifier, which you can safely consume.
• Vegetable oil normally equates to soybean oil, although in some cases it can be a blend of oils. It almost always includes at least SOME soybean oil. That means that McDonald's french fries, fried in vegetable oil, contain soy, and any pre-packed food that was fried before frozen (e.g. chicken nuggets) contains soy.
• "Smart Balance" makes a spread (margarine-like) that is "vegan" and thus contains no dairy. It does, however, contain soy.
• For baking you can almost always substitute canola oil for vegetable (soybean) oil.
• Some things say "vegetable oil which may include one or more of the following..." and then lists off a number of types of oils, one of which may be soy, so you can't really be certain what oil was used. It may contain soy, or it may not! Personally, I find this most challenging - I wish they would just commit to a type of oil! But they are probably just buying whatever is cheapest, based on the market. I stay away from these types of items, instead of gambling with my baby's health.

In general, I just want to say that TRADER JOES is "da bomb." I have often found very yummy cookies and other snacks there that are dairy AND soy free, and very affordable. Just take the time to read the labels!

Dairy Free Foods (and suggestions of things to eat)
Items with a * are NOT soy-free
Please read the labels to just make sure the brand you are choosing follows the diet rules (don't just take my word for it!)

Snacks/Sweets:

• Pretzels
• Utz original potato chips (I found I needed to get some fat somehow)
• Oreo cookies*
• Wafer cookies*
• Lots of cereals are dairy/soy free, but I liked Frosted Mini-Wheats and Honey Nut Cherrios (with rice milk)
• Oatmeal (also helpful for increasing milk supply) - most flavored oatmeal is dairy and soy free. I had a bowl of oatmeal every day, usually around 3 or 4pm when I was struggling to maintain my milk supply and needed a snack before dinner
• Hummus (with carrots, or Stacy's pita chips which are dairy/soy free)
• Smoothies (frozen strawberries or other fruit and orange juice)
• Dark chocolate (dark enough to NOT contain milk - check labels)
• licorice (I am a huge red vines fan!)
• Soft Pretzels
• Almonds
• Peanut butter on bananas or apples
• fruit popsicles
• applesauce
• Home-popped popcorn (kernels popped in olive oil with salt only - no butter)
• Coconut ice cream (I LOVED this; it is not cheap, however)
• Soy ice cream* (not my fav, but I liked it in a milk-shake with rice milk)
• RiceDream ice cream and Almond ice cream are, in my opinion, not very good at all, but you might want to try them any way. Neither are very creamy.
• Homemade chocolate cake - look for a recipe that uses oil instead of butter and substitute canola oil for vegetable oil and rice milk for regular milk
• "Restaurant Style" tortilla chips (made with canola oil, no soybean oil)

Meals/Lunch:

• Chicken with coconut curry and sticky rice
• Meat and potato meals (steak with baked potato, roast with carrots and potato, etc)
• Rotisserie chicken with stove top stuffing* (stuffing contains soy)
• Chicken pesto pasta - make your own pesto without parm cheese
• Pulled pork in the crock pot (choose bread/rolls without soy)
• Taco salad - make your own seasoning to avoid milk (which is in packaged taco mix); obviously no cheese or sour cream on your salad!
• It is pretty easy to make your own ranch dressing, using canola oil mayo and seasoning
• Corn bread - Jiffy can easily be made with rice milk instead of regular milk
• PB & J sandwiches (Kirkland multi-grain bread does NOT contain soy; otherwise check labels)
• Tuna salad - made with Canola oil mayo to avoid soybean oil (Canola mayo is also cholesterol-free!)
• Turkey sandwiches with mustard, canola mayo and tomatoes (use soy-free bread)
• Pancakes can easily be made with rice milk instead of regular milk
• Spaghetti and meat sauce (Praise God for spaghetti and meat sauce - I tried to always have some in the fridge)
• Five Guys burgers and fries - the rolls may contain traces of soy, but the fries are made with peanut oil (not soybean oil) so they are soy-free!
• Most Asian restaurants (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) cook without dairy, but food will likely contain soy
• Eggs (careful, eggs can also be an allergen)

I hope that is a little helpful. If you want specific recipes for any of the "make yourself" things I've listed above, please let me know (post a comment or email me). If you have any other ideas please post them in a comment, or send links to other blogs that might have helpful food ideas.