"lactose" news and stories

In her A Good Appetite column, New York Times food writer Melissa Clark describes her quest to create a perfect cup of Valentine's Day hot chocolate for her husband. The catch? Her husband can't eat cream, or milk, or soy milk, or rice milk or nut milk. So Clark turned to Maricel Presilla's "The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao With Recipes," for some pre-Columbian secrets to dairy-free hot chocolate, then, on the advice of a French chocolatier, tries a simple dark chocolate-and-water concoction. Finally, she combines the two concepts, mixing coconut milk with the pure dark chocolate, and comes up with a creamy, rich, deeply chocolatey yet lactose-free winner. She even figures out a merengue topping to mimic the fluffy goodness of whipped cream.

Check out this recent Slashfood post for eight more remarkable hot chocolate recipes.

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I have had good luck when I have tried my hand at making dairy-free ice creams in the past, so the idea of a whole cookbook devoted to them is appealing, if for no other reason than it would expand my dessert horizons. Vice Cream: Over 70 Sinfully Delicious Dairy-Free Delights is full of wonderfully creamy and creative desserts that are all vegan and suitable for anyone with lactose/dairy intolerance. There is even a selection of completely raw recipes, which you probably won't find anywhere else.

Many cookbooks that focus on specific dietary requirements also cast an eye towards health conscious recipes, which is not the priority in this book. The recipes here are intended to be at least as rich as "real" ice cream and just as satisfying by using ingredients like maple syrup, agave nectar, peanut butter, raw cashews and fresh fruits. The Vice Cream lineup features Chocolate Chip, Mint Carob Chip, Strawberry, Blueberry, Black Forest, Peanut Butter and Apple Strudel. The majority of the recipes are easy to prepare and have short ingredient lists, but you will definitely need an ice cream maker and something to blend all the vice cream bases together, like a food processor or blender. Top each serving of the finished product off with one of the topping recipes at the back of the book and you will have a dessert worthy of the description "sinfully delicious"

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Breyers is known for its all natural ice creams, but they are now branching out into the organic market, joining in on a trend that has largely been followed by specialty or premium brands until now. The flavors they will offer include Vanilla Bean, Chocolate, Coffee and Vanilla Fudge Swirl, with more flavors to be added depending upon consumer response. The organic ice cream market is facing ever greater demand from consumers, increasing by 50% since 1997. Production has been able to increase due in large part to the fact that more dairy farmers are changing to organic because of the demand for organic milk. The ice creams should be on store shelves this fall.

Along with their organic offerings, Breyers will also be debuting Lactose-Free Vanilla for consumers who are lactose intolerant, which is good news to the millions of people who prefer the taste of dairy ice cream to rice or soy-based frozen desserts but were unable to enjoy it for medical reasons.

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In Washington DC, a group of 10 consumers have filed a lawsuit on behalf of all the citizens in the district who are lactose intolerant and don't know it. They are demanding that the defendants in the case, which include supermarkets like Safeway, put warning labels on milk cartons, stating that milk could cause health problems in people who are lactose intolerant.

This seems fairly obvious, but the plaintiffs insist that most people don't know that they are lactose intolerant - the onset is gradual and can occur any time in life - and continue to experience negative side effects from the ingestion of dairy.

Fortunately for dairy producers, sellers and even milk drinkers, their case brought an unfavorable ruling by the US District Court that heard it, though the group plans to appeal. Dairy producers seem to think that labels would hurt sales, but if people are not put off by experiencing negative side effects such as abdominal pain and other gastrointestinal disturbances, it doesn't seem all that likely that most consumers would alter their buying habits when it comes to milk.

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