What does being Lactose Intolerant mean?
One is said to be lactose intolerant when one cannot ingest dairy products without suffering the effects which are gas and bloating. That means eating food containing dairy products like cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and cheese cake will result in gas and bloating much like the gas and bloating one suffers from eating onions, garlic or beans if one is sensitive to those foods.
When I was younger I drank a lot of canned powered milk like Everyday and Nespray and I did not suffer and adverse effect from it. I guess as one gets older one experience some changes in one's digestive system. My mother-in-law is also lactose intolerant and she never was when she was younger.
Last Sunday Doug and I took the kids to an ice cream and yogurt place. The kids ordered vanilla ice cream, Doug ordered a chocolate flavored yogurt and I ordered a coconut flavored yogurt. And last night I made a 3-cheese ravioli topped with Parmesan cheese and roasted garlic sauce for dinner. Mmmmmm!
Did I mention that I was lactose intolerant?!
Ahhhh. Let me tell you the secret!
I take three of these wonderful tablets before I take any food containing dairy products. This tablet contains an enzyme that helps break down the lactose so your system is able to digest the lactose and thereby helps prevent the gas and bloating that usually accompanies the eating of dairy products if one is sensitive to lactose.
I am able to enjoy my cold cereal and milk again because of the 100% lactose free milk that is available at our supermarket. When I stay up late at night, and my tummy gets hungry I always enjoy a bowl of cold cereal before bed time. That is, if I am not drinking my mug of Milo and four pieces of cream crackers.
When I was in Miri last summer, I wasn't able to enjoy my bowl of cereal because there was no lactose free milk available. If it was available, I did not know where to get it.
I am also not able to take onions, garlic and beans, but that fact does not stop me from enjoying them! There are products like Beano that you can take with your food so that you do not suffer from gas and bloating. Every time I pass gas I would ask the question of my children, "Who farted?" The response is always, "You farted, Mommy!" Of course I pretended it wasn't me!
We love to go shopping after a meal at a restaurant and when I am in the store, I will stay as far away from people as possible because I will be polluting the air with my farts! Chinese food is the worse because of all the garlic in their cooking! No, I do not want the other shoppers to gag from the "fragance" that I emit! Kekekekeke!
Hi Puteri,
ReplyDeleteI have to comment this time...I'm one of the silent reader on your blog.
I'm now lactose intolerent, but my parents and siblings are not. They are all still in M'sia/Spore. It's just me in the family is lactose intolerance. I wonder is it the food we consume in the US is changing our digestive system?
Dawn, thanks for reading! :-)
ReplyDeleteYou know what, I first noticed the rumblings and the gas when I first took full cream fresh milk. I had been taking powdered milk before that and my tummy was not bothered. I did not know back then that the gas was due to the milk! Years later, I was introduced to yogurt and that caused lots of gas too .. so embarrassing because the rumblings in the tummy were so loud! I still did not know anything about lactose intolerant back then!! Haha.
And then I moved to the US. It was my mother-in-law who told me that she was lactose intolerant .... a light bulb came on in my mind! Sooooo that was the problem with the rumblings and gas!
So I guess, for us living here in the US, the introduction of fresh milk and lots of dairy products in our diet affect our system. Our ability to digest certain foods does change with time.
For our family back in M'sia, their food does not contain all that much dairy products and the milk they drink is usually the powdered stuff. I'll bet they'll have problems digesting lactose if they came to live here and eat our kind of food too!
Thank goodness for products like Lactase Enzyme!