Dairy Products - General running

Xerxes

10/09/2002 at 10:45

Do any of you restrict your dairy product intake?

Personally I use olive oil based marge for sarnies and use skimmed milk for cereal, but toast and homemade cakes do not taste the same without butter!!!

Velociraptor

10/09/2002 at 11:15

What would life be without chalky Camembert and stinky Stilton? Must admit, I'm glad I grew up without being fed upon cream - still find it unpleasant to eat! But you can't make pastry or shortbread with margarine. You just can't. It's bogging.

I eat as much dairy as I fancy, having established long ago that my lactose tolerance is about equivalent to the amount of milk it takes to moisten three Shredded Wheat.

Parky

10/09/2002 at 11:16

Semi skimmed milk, butter on toast and in mashed potatoes (with some milk - lovely) and I love a nice thick yoghurt after the end of a long run.

neilruns .

10/09/2002 at 11:19

As of about 6 weeks ago I am as near to zero dairy as I can get without becoming a health Nazi. It sorted my long-term tummy rumbles and I weigh over a stone less.

V-rap: should I worry about calcium?

Xerxes

10/09/2002 at 11:22

Neil. I have permission from wife for Hove. Have you?

neilruns .

10/09/2002 at 11:25

I'm still biding my time.... I've also just noticed that there is a hilly, off-road 10miler in Tunbridge Wells this weekend. Might be good Lewes preperation?

Xerxes

10/09/2002 at 11:30

Would be, but my permission was more easily obtained than expected owing to son being invited to party in Brighton....

Velociraptor

10/09/2002 at 11:55

Yes, Neil, you should worry about calcium unless you're notching up at least 800mg daily from other sources (leafy green veg, nuts, ground-up sesame seeds as in tahini and hummus, tinned fish with the crunchy bones in, soya products with added calcium).

Most people who have trouble with lactose (the usual culprit when dairy food gives you the rumbleguts) can cope with yogurt (in which the lactose is pre-digested by bacteria) and cheese (which has the fat and protein from milk but almost no lactose). And cream and butter, since they're essentialy just fat and a bit of water. Cheese and yogurt are both brilliant sources of calcium.

If you eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg, your body wastes less of the calcium you take in. You waste a lot more on a high-protein diet.

Enjoy your race!

Hildegard

10/09/2002 at 13:05

I've never really been a fan of dairy. I used to drink lots of skimmed milk, but after switching to fortified soya milk, I can't stand the stuff. I still use milk in my tea though - there's no substitute for that! I have also never liked butter, so never use it, except in baking, when it is vital. But actually, I have a soya substitute thingy - brand name Pure - which is just like the real stuff, but no saturated fat, just the unsaturated. Yoghurt and ice cream are nice milky things, but I hardly ever buy them, due to a lack of fridge/freezer space.

I also take a multivitamin with 200mg of calcium which, along with my soya milk and other foods, I think should cover my calcium intake for each day.

Scar Runner

10/09/2002 at 13:09

If you're restricting your dairy intake, try the Provamel range of youghurts and, especially, the Chocolate/Vanilla desserts. Soya based and low fat into the bargain.

whizzy

10/09/2002 at 13:26

V-rap

Due to suffering from the dreaded runners trots I am eliminating dairy products, still not sure if this is the answer, but are you saying that the main diary product to avoid is milk and that cheese and yoghurts are OK.

Mind you, I have got to like the taste of sweetened soya milk and by cutting back on cheese, yoghurts and chocolate on the days I run I have lost weight.

Whizzy

Nana

10/09/2002 at 14:21

i developed a rash all over my body which was so itchy it was unbeleiveable. i couldn't sleep at night and i couldn't drive my car because i was a danger because i was always scratching. the doctor didn't have a clue and actually tried to tell me i had scabies!!! after letting him try out about 6 different creams on me i was finally at the end of my tether. a colleague said that i should go to his homeopath. now ordinarily i don't hold with nonsense like that - but i now firmly beleive it's not nonsense! the homeopath said that i had allergys/intollerances to the following: beef, dairy from cows, colourings, preservatives, petrol fumes, cigarette smoke. so i had to avoid all of the above for a month and lo and behold the rash went away!!

i don't react to the food immediately, it takes a certain amount before the level is up to where i react. this means that i can have these foods in small doses. i also don't drink tea/coffee or eat cereal so i don't have any milk in my diet (apart from small amounts in packaged food - which i pretty much try to stay away from due to the preservatives). i do take calcium tablets (along with my vitamin C) every morning because i pretty much don't eat any of the other things that have calcium in then (don't like nuts or green stuff!)i also use the 'Pure' soya spread since i do eat toast every morning (with a very thick layer of marmite over - my mum says this is what keeps me alive!) i now don't mind pizza either without cheese or with goats cheese.

Chaos

10/09/2002 at 14:29

Do any of you find the concept of eating/drinking something another animal produces for it's offspring a little odd?

Every other animal (incl. humans) stop the natural lactation thing pretty early on in the development cycle which implies we don't really need dairy products. Also your average carnivore doesn't have to compensate for the calcium with soya/spinach/etc. That said however we do live longer than we appear to be designed for (thanks to v-rap and chums) so maybe we do end up having to return to infant-nutrition!

Fluffa

10/09/2002 at 14:38

i haven't eaten dairy (ethical reasons) for quite a few years, and have had absolutely no problems...i think the thing to remember is you can't just take a normal diet and cut out dairy, you have to have a _different_ diet....other animals have no problem nourishing themselves without dairy (unless they're babies!) and there's no reason why we can't too...it's just that the western diet has come to be highly dependent on dairy...
calcium is fine if you have a decent vegetable intake, and all the nicest soya milks have added calcium anyway....just shake the carton before use ;)
my real problem was giving up ice cream, but there's some really gorgeous non dairy stuff out there (swedish glace chocolate mocha ripple....mmm...i've got the folk at work getting it instead of ice cream just 'cause they prefer it...haha)...oh, and provamel do a really yummy strawberry 'yogurt'...(and the stuff in the big pots is loads nicer than the stuff in the little ones....thought it might just be a greed thing on my part, but i think there's actually a difference...)

Velociraptor

10/09/2002 at 15:24

Soya milk products fortified with calcium come way higher up my list of "unnatural things that humans eat" than milk produced to feed the offspring of another species.

Omnivores throughout the centuries haven't always done well in terms of calcium, but have been at an advantage over us 21st century dwellers for two reasons:
1. They gnawed meat off the calcium-rich bones rather than eating burgers.
2. They died before they were old enough to get osteoporosis.

But there's no doubt a lot of us do have problems coping with an unlimited milk diet, and in evolutionary terms that's not surprising. Milk production is also NOT a good example of ethical farming, and I have great respect for people who give up dairy foods for compassionate reasons.

Susannah's problem sounds more like cow's milk protein intolerance, which is an immune type reaction and is completely different from the lactose intolerance which causes collywobbles. Be not duped, though - the person who can find a scientific basis for homoeopathy will scoop the Nobel prizes for both medicine and physics that year. It's nonsense with bells and whistles on and only survives because we're such a scientifically clueless population.

Nor is a diagnosis of scabies - which is prevalent just now and tends to present as a very itchy rash, worse at night - intended as a personal affront and deserving of lots of exclamation marks. No stigma intended, you can be sure - I've had it and it's no fun.

Xerxes

10/09/2002 at 15:27

What is scabies. Maybe I have that?

Nana

10/09/2002 at 15:32

v-rap
i guess the only reason i doubted his diagnosis of scabies is that my mum works in a school where she sees scabies alot and said she was positive it wasn't it. (i also guess it was more an exclamation on going through the required treatment with my husband which caused the exclamation marks - no-one wants to do that if they don't have to!)
i'm interested in your explanation on my problem and would love to hear more - do you have anything i can read? my doctor was so unhelpful and didn't have a clue i compeltely lost faith i'm afraid (and i'm afraid to say it puts me off going to the doctor for anything now - i'm more afraid of him than the dentist). and i now have lot of respect for the homeopath because he did cure me. being a civil engineer i'm very science based and that's why i was so sceptical on homeopathy before - but they proved they could cure me where the doctor couldn't so i'm a bit of a convert, although i agree that i would love to have an explanation of why it works that makes sense to my science based brain!

Hildegard

10/09/2002 at 15:38

I love the Provamel range of soya goodies!

Actually, I used to be practically vegan (by laziness not design), but wasn't looking after my nutrition. B12 and iron anemia came my way - luckily, picked up on a blood test. So now, until I can trust myself to really eat well, I do try to incorporate more dairy (and sometimes even eggs, although I hardly ever eat them) than I used to.

Velociraptor

10/09/2002 at 15:54

Hi Susannah

Homoeopathy doesn't work, alas. I wish it did - I would love to be able to offer people something so SAFE as a viable alternative to some of the nasty chemicals I have at my disposal. Where it appears to do good, it's either an example of the great God Co-Incidence in action (it's more likely, statistically, that the final scabies cream did the job - it can take up to a month for the itch and rash to settle, and the scabies mite is resistant to many of the creams in use), the personal charisma of the practitioner, or, as in your case, making one of their blunderbuss "allergic to everything you might have eaten or touched in the past year" diagnoses and hitting the mark with at least one bullet. Nothing to do with the little white pellets containing infinite dilutions of things with Latin names.

I must add quickly that I think a lot of conventional Western medicine, especially that practised in the community by the likes of me, is as much a consumer lifestyle product as alternative therapies are, and it's not a situation I am proud of.

I shall try to rake up some info on the different forms of milk intolerance and send them to you. Could you e-mail me a fax number? I suspect most of the good stuff I have isn't online.

Plodding Hippo

10/09/2002 at 20:00

Agree with the homeopathy thing
BUT--- am half converted to aromatherapy and reiki, as an adjunct to convenyional stuff
Aching mucsles resopnd fantastically to black pepper oil and rosemary, and Reiki is wonderful, acoording to those I do it on
The power of touch,eh!!