Without lactose. All you need to know

Lactose free, but with everything else  . Fashion or reality?

It is true that more and more those who have a food intolerance such as gluten , the fructose and of course , the lactose . But there are also many others who have jumped on the bandwagon of removing lactose from their diet without being intolerant.

So far it may not seem harmful to anyone, but the question we must ask ourselves is, if they take away the lactose, what is it carrying?

You have to know that milk contains 5% lactose . And that lactose is only the amount of sugar that milk contains.

During our first years of life we ​​produce an enzyme called lactase that breaks lactose into two parts so that we can digest it. Over time we stop producing lactase, but despite this, we are the only mammal that continues to consume milk in adult life.

If you wonder what lactase has to do with all this or why we have put it in the middle if what we are talking about is lactose, I clarify that without lactase, milk would feel very, very bad .

If the milk we consume did not contain lactase, we would have severe stomach pain, colic or absorption problems with calcium and other vitamins.

To help you understand me a little better: The lower the amount of lactase produced by your body, the greater the chance that you will have a genetic lactose intolerance.

So some people feel bad about drinking too much milk, cheese or yogurt even if they are not intolerant as such. In the blog we have started to keep this intolerance in mind, we even have some lactose-free recipes like these French toast .

Also for this reason, it is true that lactose-free milk is more digestive , since we avoid that our intestine has to divide it during the digestive process.

When we are three years old, more or less, our body begins to have trouble digesting milk. He directly rejects it. Formerly even, due to this problem, people stopped consuming it permanently, but thanks to its fermentation, the amount of lactose was reduced and, therefore, suitable for consumption after this age.

They say that, in reality, we began to ferment milk and create derivatives such as yogurt and cheese to combat hunger even though it felt fatal, and that today, only 35% of the world population consumes lactose without any digestive problem .

I like it better because it tastes less like milk

This will depend on the product or the brand. By adding lactase, the milk may taste sweeter, but the truth is that the difference is less and less.

The same thing happens when we talk about calories. There are those who have switched to lactose-free milk thinking that it is lighter.

That feeling of lightness is due to what I mentioned above, that your intestine saves the trouble of producing lactase, but in no case is it because it has fewer calories . Except when explicitly specified by the product, the amount of sugars and nutrients in both milks is exactly the same.

But, on the brick it says that it has lactose

Evidently. Because lactose-free milk is nothing more than normal milk to which lactase has been added . As I was saying, this one breaks the lactose and so our body can absorb it easily. You will also find “low lactose” products (0.1 gram to 1.8 gram per 100 ml). Those that are literally lactose-free never exceed 0.1 gram.

Therefore, lactose-free milk is suitable for lactose intolerant but not for those who are allergic to milk.

Fortunately, today there is a great offer of lactose-free products on the market and finding lactose-free options in bars and restaurants is less and less complicated. Which is perfect, because these products make it possible for those of us who cook to continue making practically all kinds of recipes , and for allergy sufferers, to continue enjoying food without fear.

I will return to the question with which I started this post, fashion or reality?

There are those who think that stopping taking lactose, despite not being intolerant, can lead us to create a real intolerance, since our body would get used to not ingesting lactose and would react against it. This is still only a hypothesis, but it would make sense, since our body, not needing lactase, would stop producing it progressively.

In my opinion…

If you have decided to stop drinking lactose milk in a radical way without being intolerant, do not be scared if other products with lactose that you drink (such as cheese or yogurt) suddenly start to feel bad.

I personally think that, with everything in general and with food in particular, we should be more tolerant than intolerant. Quitting lactose can definitely create a problem for you, so why? In the variety is the spice!