Dairy-free. It’s not so bad. But that depends on the day.

We’ve been dairy-free going on 5 months now.

If you’re new to the blog, we found out my son has a dairy allergy, and since I’m breastfeeding that means no dairy for this mama. Thankfully, we found out fairly early and fingers crossed, he will outgrow this.

I was seriously depressed at the thought of taking dairy out of my diet, but it’s getting easier every day. What I didn’t expect was this to be such an emotional issue. Some days, I get so frustrated; it can completely put me in a funk for the day. Some days, I make mistakes then worry I’ve hurt my little guy.

Dining out is especially difficult. You have to ask a million questions. Is the bun buttered? Does the bread have milk or butter baked in or brushed on top? No croutons or cheese on my salad, please! Waiters tend to not know all the ingredients included in each item and honestly, many don’t seem to care to find out. Guess I can’t blame them. Unfortunately, it’s easiest to find options I can eat at chains as their menus are standard and ingredients can be found online. Eating out just isn’t as fun as it used to be.

The benefit of dairy-free? If you’re needing help losing baby weight or weight in general, cut out dairy!!! Unfortunately for me, it’s also causing some health concerns. For the first time in my life, I’m having trouble keeping weight on. Between breastfeeding and no dairy, it’s taking a toll on my body. (Yeah, I’ll hate myself for complaining about this one day.)

One of the initial struggles was knowing what to buy at the grocery store. It was overwhelming to start reading every single label for hidden dairy items. I still read a lot of labels but know some of the tricks.

• Most labels list potential allergens such as “This product contains: soy, wheat, milk”. Check this before reading through the list of ingredients.
• “May contain traces of milk” – this is a vague term and basically a CYA for companies. Food with this notation could have been made on equipment that had a milk product but was sanitized before the dairy-free product was made. It can also mean that workers at the factory where it was made are allowed to eat dairy items in their lunches. We disregard this warning and have had no issues.
• Whey is dairy and is a common ingredient. Check chips and vinaigrettes for this one!
• Dairy-free whipped topping and creamer? Yeah, they’re not dairy-free. Go figure!
• Anything noted “Vegan” is dairy-free.
• Casein/caseinate is a dairy product.
• Butter – many people (especially restaurant) tend to forget this is a dairy item.
• Margarine – most include dairy, but not all
• Mayonnaise – most are not dairy, but lots of people think it is.

Dairy Substitutes

For anyone else on this journey, here are my favorite grocery items. Many of them are chocolate 🙂 Disclaimer – I eat items that “may contain trace amounts of dairy.”

Blue Diamond Almond Milk – my go-to substitute for recipes. I tend to buy the unsweetened but the vanilla is an extra special treat with cereal.

Silk Dark Chocolate Almond Milk – excellent cold or warmed up for hot chocolate

Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread – my go-to for a spreadable butter replacement

Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks – works well for cooking but I’m not sold on using it as a baking replacement. I’ll keep trying.

Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownies – my, oh my…delicious! Try this with pumpkin.

Trader Joe’s Light Coconut Milk – I haven’t really used this as a substitute but am making more recipes that would typically use coconut milk.

Attune Dark Chocolate Probiotic Bars – great nutritional substitute and oh, so yummy. Look for them in  the yogurt section.

Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips – good for baking and snacking

Tofutti Sour Cream and Cream Cheese – certainly not the real thing but does the trick

So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Milk Ice Cream Sandwiches – taste and texture are spot on

Justin’s Peanut Butter Cups – gosh darn, these are awesome!

Dining Out

Papa John’s Pizza – no cheese of course! The garlic dipping sauce is dairy-free too!

Chik-Fil-A – Grilled Chicken Sandwich, waffle fries, Roasted Honey BBQ sauce, Chik-Fil-A sauce, Polynesian, and I think a few others are dairy-free

Dairy-free Treats

There are a few items that I never would have thought were dairy-free. Unfortunately, they are totally processed snacks and for some reason, I eat more of these items since going dairy-free. Maybe because they are easy to grab and now that I know they’re safe for me to eat, I don’t have to check a gazillion labels??

Yeah, yeah…don’t judge.

Oreos – now a permanent staple in my pantry

Ritz Crackers

Pillsbury Crescent Rolls

Dairy-free Sources

A GREAT reference is Go Dairy Free. Alisa has tons of information and has an exhaustive list of restaurant options.

KellyMom – well, really it’s just a great source for everything about breastfeeding

Where are we now?

So, the doc said to try dairy again at 6 months. We’re there. I’m totally scared. I had a tiny piece of chocolate one night with no repercussions. Last night, I made cookies with dairy-free butter but milk chocolate chips. Between the dough and the cookies, it was probably somewhere around six cookies (oops!). Today? No issues.

Are we over it? Only time will tell. I’m not ready to go order a cheeseburger.

We’ve also just started solids. This means really spacing things out so we can find the culprit of any potential issues.

Dairy-free. It’s not so bad, but certainly not easy.

This guy makes it worth it!

I miss blogging.

Last week I started my second round of Best Body Bootcamp. One of my goals for this week is to write a blog post every day. They can be saved to actually post at a later time, but they have to get written. Yes, I’m already behind as it’s after 11 on the first night.

So, this is the first of hopefully many (we’ll see how that goes) dairy-free recipes.

We’re still adapting to the dairy-free lifestyle but it’s becoming easier and easier. In fact, a dairy-free update is one of the posts I hope to get up this week.

Anyway, back to the recipe.

It took many, many years for me to like chili. Stewed tomatoes and mushy kidney beans. That’s all I ever knew…until I grew up and realized there are many other delicious options. Turkey, Texas, white, vegetarian; all so much better than what I remember. I should probably try my parent’s recipe again. It probably tastes much better 20 years later!

This one? It’s almost vegetarian (sub the chicken broth with vegetable), quick, healthy and best of all, tasty!

INGREDIENTS

3 15 oz cans black beans
1 C cooked corn
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 Tbls olive oil
1 tsp Mexican chili powder*
2 tsp chipotle chili powder*
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp pepper
¼ tsp salt
1 14 oz can low-sodium chicken broth
2 14.5 oz cans petite diced tomatoes with jalapeños
½ C quinoa

DIRECTIONS

1. Rinse and drain 2 cans black beans. Do not drain third can of beans.
2. Sauté sweet onion in olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium until translucent.
3. Stir in chili powders, cumin, pepper and salt. Sauté 1 minute.
4. Stir in beans, corn, chicken broth and diced tomatoes.
5. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 min.
6. Stir in quinoa. Simmer for 5 min.
7. Serve chili with desired toppings.

NOTES
Slightly adapted from Black Bean Chili on MyRecipes.com

*Chili powder – If you don’t have hot mexican or chipotle chili powder, the original recipe calls for 4 tsp chili powder.

A very happy 2nd anniversary to my favorite hubby, Andy!

It’s been an awesome year and we’re celebrating in style. A trip to London and Paris. Woohoo! (Okay, so the trip just happened to coincide with our anniversary.)

A few highlights from the year:

Radio City Music Hall in NYC

Exciting News!

Getting Ready for baby (Andy may not agree this was fun since he was the one that had to refinished it!)Our first real gardenTrip to California

EasterBabymoon in Austin

And, I haven’t asked him, but I’m fairly certain he would agree; this was the best thing of the year.

photo by Melissa Manzione

I love you, Andy. I can’t wait for many, many more years together.

In case you missed it, here’s Callan’s Birth Story — Part 1.

And now for Part 2.

They wheeled me back to triage and told me to get onto the bed so they could check me. I could only manage to crawl on all fours onto the bed. I do remember the nurse saying “I’m going to need you to lie down. It’s very hard to check you in this position.” For some reason, she left the room (maybe to get the midwife?) While she was gone, Andy said “Emily, do you want to get an epidural? You can. It’s okay. Do you want one?” I shrugged my shoulders and said “I think so.” I assumed I was only going to be 2 or 3 cm dilated. Little did I know…

The nurse returned a minute later and I told her “I just have to go to the bathroom.” She asked “number one or number two?” My response? “Number two!” She sternly said, “I need you to turn over. I need to check you now!” During this time, they had paged the midwife to let her know we’d arrived. By the time I made it to my back, the midwife had arrived!

The midwife said she was going to check me and I’d feel a lot of pressure. OMG! At that point, it was the worst pain I’d could ever remember. That was the first time I yelped and tears started. Calmly she said “Are you ready to push? You’re 10 cm.” In the chaos of it all, Andy says they almost had me start pushing in triage instead of moving to me a room. They ended up moving me to a room and thankfully it was only a few doors down.

I wasn’t mentally prepared for the pushing part. It just happened so fast. All I could focus on was the pain and trying to get comfortable (yeah right!).

They offered a mirror which I accepted. My first few pushes were on my back and it was just uncomfortable. I wanted back on all fours so I climbed up the incline on the bed, hunched over the top the bed, then almost hurled. Just as I was getting on all fours, my parents arrived. I heard them and yelled “NO!!!” I didn’t want anyone else in the room but especially not in that position! They had no idea how quickly I’d progressed and just wanted to let me know they were there.

I turned back over onto my left side. Andy held my right leg, my left was on the bed and I was using the left foot stirrup as a handle. My right hand was holding my right thigh. I was all curled up, diagonally across the bottom half of the bed. Andy said I looked so uncomfortable but for some reason, it just worked.

In between contractions, they had me sign three forms. I have no idea what I signed! Andy jokes they would never stand up in court as I signed them under duress. Also in between contractions, Andy texted my parents “pushing.”

I pushed three to four times with each contraction. Sometimes with my eyes closed and other times, looking at the mirror. I highly recommend using a mirror. It gave me motivation when I could actually see his head. I thought the midwife and nurses were mocking me when they said I was doing a good job or encouraging me. Turns out, things were actually progressing and I could see it myself.

One time I looked in the mirror and asked the midwife what ‘that’ was. It was the head and not at all what I thought it would look like. I thought I was seeing a foot, knee or elbow. Definitely not a head.

Pushing hurts. Like, really, really hurts. There’s no way to describe the pain so I won’t even try. You know it hurts when you can’t even feel a tear (I had a first degree tear). With the pain and the pressure, the only motivation to push is to get the pain to stop and knowing what arrives at the end. And it’s true–pushing is the same pushing out a poo (but a lot more painful). Because the day had been a little bit chaotic, we still aren’t sure exactly how long i pushed but it was somewhere around 30 min.

I do remember the feeling of the last push. I could tell this one was different and gave it everything I could. At 8:22 pm, little man popped out, they put him on my chest and Andy and I blubbered. It was pure joy.

If you’re wondering what happened to the car, my dad rescued it. In between contractions, Andy gave the keys to my dad and he parked the car.

The nurses said once I was ready, they’d take him and do his measurements. Well, I wasn’t ever ready but figured they should check him out. He was 6 pounds 15 ounces and 19.5 inches long. He came out rooting and wanting to eat immediately. He latched right on!

The whole day is still a bit surreal to me. One, it just happened so fast, I wasn’t mentally prepared that he was actually coming. Two, I just birthed our child!!!!

Our child. Our perfect little Callan.

That night, he met us, Grandma and Grandpa, Mom Mom and Pop Pop, Uncle Eric and Aunt Carly, and Uncle Adam and Aunt Sarah. The next day he met Amy, Jess (and soon to be Baby Harper), Amy, Uncle Steve and Aunt Angie.

He’s one loved little guy!

Welcome, Little Dude!

I’m working on Part 3 with the details. Ya know, things like water breaking, contractions, what really goes on while you’re pushing, and recovery. The nitty gritty details that are very personal and a bit gross. But…these are the details I wanted to know and read about as I was preparing for pregnancy so I want to share. I’ll post it as soon as I find the balance between informative and way TMI. 🙂