Lactivism
The Health News Digest is running an informative piece this week on lactose intolerance. According to the article, an estimated 30-50 million Americans (or about 10 to 15 percent of the population) may experience the characteristic symptoms of lactose intolerance. The symptoms are caused by the lack of the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose, or milk sugar, into the more digestible simple sugars glucose and galactose. On the flip side you have Jeffrey Steingarten, "the Man Who Ate Everything
In most aged cheeses, lactose is largely absent. Most of it is carried off in the whey that is separated out during the cheesemaking process. Following removal of the whey, whatever small amount of lactose is left in the cheese is then consumed over the course of aging by active bacterial cultures and converted to the more digestible lactic acid. Therefore cheeses that are young and have a high water content such as Cottage Cheese or Ricotta will consequently have more lactose than more firm, older cheeses like Gruyère or Parmigiano-Reggiano. Yogurt is also quite digestible, since it is produced with lactic-acid producing bacteria similar to those in cheese.
Of course, lactose intolerance falls on a spectrum for many people—some people are okay with one or two glasses of milk while others feel symptoms even with hard cheeses. Where do you fall on the spectrum of intolerance?
About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, and his cheese.
Lactose molecule from sci-toys.com
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5 Comments:
Much as I enjoy Steingarten's writing, his pronouncement that lactose intolerance is a delusion really ticked me off. I LOVE milk, in all its forms, but unless it's well-aged, like parmesan, or comes with its own live bacterial cultures, like (good) yogurt, I have to take massive doses of acidophilus to be able to enjoy it without severe digestive problems (it can take me out for a day or more). Even then, I hardly dare touch a glass of plain milk or something like sour cream. And you'd be amazed at how many products there are out there that contain lactose--I'm still trying to figure out why my previous brand of multi-vitamin contained it.
msmla at 5:05PM on 07/17/07
I read Steingarten's piece and as much as I intellectually agreed with him, my body did not, and I can't tell you how cheesed off it made me that I couldn't consume anything dairy without problems. I didn't react well to the lactaid pills, and have therefore had to give up milk, cream cheese and ice cream permanently, because there is just no way. Hard cheese I can only manage in very small amounts, and I have even reacted to yogurt before. Thankfully, I can now buy lactose free/reduced milk, yogurt and sour cream. I can also tolerate goat cheese much more easily, but still only in small volumes. It's really frustrating - as Ms Mia says, lactose is in everything.
Basically, I don't want to believe in lactose intolerance for most of the reasons Steingarten mentions, but my body doesn't care what my brain thinks.
Peasantwench at 10:28AM on 07/18/07
I'm not convinced the discussing the severity of our lactose intolerance is the best conversation we could be having on a gourmand's website. Especially around lunch time.
JungMan at 12:51PM on 07/18/07
I absolutely agree with the first comment, it is a bad joke to see something as common and as old and as normal in a grown up human, as lactose intolerance, as "picky eating" or "food phobia". Of course everybody can eat everything, it is the free choice of grown up humans to have stomach cramps and other pains and symptoms. Or to buy and consume expensive supplements allowing some dairy digestion.There is no psychologist and no "shock therapy" out there to be able to "cure" something, which is present in almost all grown up mammals biologically, not only humans. And it is present since the beginning of any dairy consumption thousands of years ago. The reason why people kept eating dairy products was the good taste and the lack of other foods, and not the good digestion. People were lactose intolerant since the beginning of dairy consumption traditions. It is not any kind of "novel allergy" or "pathetic illusion".
"Eat everything" is the same possible as "do everything" (you can! just murder, and torture and abuse little children, you will see, everything is possible and will not have any consequences). Just do it. And let me in peace care about my body. I think the only pathetic guys are those, who are permanently annoying others with such articles (Slate) and such "approach", unhappy about their constant pains and health problems, caused by their silly "eat everything" philosophy, and proving how wrong their are with their Rambo theories.
There is a huge difference between "picky eating", "hypochondria" and being aware what happens around oneself and what one is really doing (in opposite to being dazed and confused or otherwise drugged). And even "picky eating" has its own right, if somebody is just deciding not to eat certain useless items, no matter how "great" others may think they are. And I am far far away myself from any picky eating habits, my family was way too poor to make such luxury ever possible.
I always loved dairy, especially cheese, but only since I am aware of lactose intolerance and the different lactose contents in dairy foods (so avoid pure milk, but can eat certain cheeses, butter and some yogurt), I can maintain something near to feeling well every day.
litsakouzina at 9:24AM on 08/05/08
This is such a non-issue...like dairy (and it likes you)? Eat it. If not, don't. I don't understand people who want everybody *or* nobody to eat something.
Doctrine at 1:38AM on 06/17/09