Lactose free life

If you have a chronic pain condition you’re probably already looking for easy food options but factor in not being able to eat particular things and it gets tricky…

Because I’m lactose intolerant, the chronic pain cookbook is made up of lactose free meals. And for me, this does include a number of substitute products which I thought would be helpful to go through.

Milk

I use oatly oat milk. I don’t have milk in tea or coffee so I’m not sure how well that works but it’s great for cooking and the chocolate flavoured one heated up makes an easy but yum hot chocolate. I also use oatly cream if I ever want cream but haven’t tried cooking with it.

The alternative milk market is growing and as well as oats, you can get soya, almond, coconut and Lactofree.

Yoghurt 

I have just discovered the amazingness which is coconut collaborative yoghurt. I love it so much. Add fruit. Add crushed meringues.  And I’m not even a yoghurt fan!

I tried the m&s coconut yoghurt yesterday and it’s almost as good…

Butter

Pure sunflower spread (pure is the brand, not a description!)  has always been my preferred option but again the market is expanding quickly so there are now lots of options.

Cheese

(these are milk products with lactose removed and may not be suitable for all intolerances/allergies)

Lactofree cheese – they sell two kinds of hard cheese and one soft cheese. For some reason the soft cheese makes me ill despite containing the same levels of (very low) residual lactose. Hard cheese wise I strongly recommend the mature over the other one. It’s got a much better flavour, texture and melting ability. Think of the mature one more like a cheddar and the other like an edam.

Marks and Spencer lactose free mozzarella – I tried this for the first time this week! And it is good on pizza! I don’t know how it compares to normal mozzarella though as I only ever had it in mozzarella sticks…

Ice cream

Swedish glace vanilla was my go to in terms of ice cream for a long time. It’s fairly cheap and reasonably easy to find. Obviously one of the difficulties with fresh/frozen food is that it’s harder to buy online (if your online supermarket doesn’t sell it).

Booja Booja (also do chocolates) make a very nice chocolate ice cream. I’ve not had their other flavours but, based on the chocolates I’ve had from them, I suspect they don’t make a bad thing!

Miscellaneous

Also there are a lot of things you expect to contain dairy which don’t. For example…

• Jus roll croissants, pain an chocolate, cinnamon rolls, pastry
• Bourbon biscuits, oreos, party rings
• Mr kiplings jam tarts, Sainsburys jaffa cakes (only the regular sized ones, the mini ones contain milk),doughnuts are often dairy free

There are a lot of ‘accidental’ dairy free/vegan foods, try some of these links for more:

• Peta
• Veganuary
• Vegan Society

None of these products are giving me anything in return for this post and do check labels as there may be regional variations across the world and also things change…

Save

Recipe: Swede Gratin

I would include a photo but it’s not the most photographic of foods.  That said it is incredibly yummy and perfect for this time of year.  Me and my carer had an afternoon in cooking and made 7 of these, that’s how much I like it.  It freezes well but I find it needs defrosting before cooking.

Serve with veggie sausages.

Swede Gratin

Per serving:

100g swede

30g grated cheese (I use lactofree cheese and cheese could easily be left out)

3 tablespoons flour

50ml milk (I use oatmilk)

Salt and pepper

Instructions

Use your food processor to slice the swede thinly (about 3-5mm thick roughly)  then boil for 15-20 minutes until they start to soften. Leave to cool. Once cooled, add a layer to your baking dish. Sprinkle on salt, pepper and flour then half the cheese. Add another layer of swede, pour milk over it and sprinkle on the rest of the cheese. Freeze at this stage if required.  Bake for about 40 minutes. You might need to put some foil over it if the top starts to burn.

Equipment

At the risk of sounding like an unhealthy fan, I’d like to mention a blog post by the lovely MermaidInDisguise about equipment to help with cooking.

Everyone will differ and obviously so will everyone’s finances, but here is a list of the equipment that I have or want and would recommend to others:

• Electric knife
• Food processor with lots of options – mine has a whisk setting, grater setting, slicing setting, mixing setting, kneading setting and also turns into a blender
• Slow cooker
• Microwave
• Large handled implements
• Light pots and pans (if you’re up to using them) and/or a bamboo steamer
• Plastic plates and bowls (if carrying food is an issue these are very helpful and there are some nice melamine ones out there!)
• Dishwasher (you can get table top dishwashers if you don’t have much space. Mine was from a friend who found it second hand for £25 so they don’t have to be a fortune)
• Where possible, get equipment that can go in a dishwasher! It means you’ll be much more likely to use it if you know you can clean up easily.
• Adapted cutlery (I can only eat from a spoon now and I use the one raved about by StickmanCommunications)
• Keep your knives sharp. A blunt knife will just make your life harder and more painful

What is your must have kitchen gadget?

Too ill to cook?

Flicking through twitter this week I found a link to Natasha Lipman’s blog post “Too ill to cook?” which resonated strongly with me and feels like it would be useful information for many others as well.

With her permission I have quoted some of her post but do go and read the article over on her site.  And don’t forget about the useful tips section in the chronic pain cookbook!

“…cooking, mannnnnn.  That involves getting out of bed and standing around and like, chopping and doing things. Exhausting! I’ve stopped being fancy in the kitchen and am getting on with more quick and easy simple things to make sure I feed myself well with the minimum amount of effort. And trust me, when you don’t/can’t just bung a ready meal in the oven it makes things a lot harder. Whether I want to or not, I don’t have a choice about spending my energy on this.”

I know many of us with chronic pain are also limited in terms of what we eat and on the whole home cooked meals are better for us nutritionally so I hope the top tips she shares can help keep you cooking.  Please share your own as well.

Chronic pain cookbook

I have a chronic pain condition called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.  My hands are the most affected part of my body and this makes everyday things like cooking very difficult.  As they were worsening, I found that there were fewer and fewer things I could manage to cook.  So I did what I always do, I looked online for advice.  But there didn’t seem to be much… there was a lot about using food to make yourself well again but not much on food that you can prepare when you have chronic pain.  So instead I put together my own advice and recipes.

It’s based entirely on me, my likes and dislikes, my pain and my situation so it won’t be entirely spot on for other people.

Unfortunately, since having the idea of the chronic pain cookbook, my pain has deteriorated too much and I now need carers to cook for me but I hope it is of help to someone.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback and recipe suggestions.

Chronic Pain Cookbook Version 1