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Q And A Clearinghouse
2nd Quarter, 1999
Updated July 2, 1999
This page answers the
questions that arrived in the second quarter of 1999.
Send your questions to me, Steve Carper, at SteveCarper@CS.com.
Remember, I personally answer all questions that you send me, no
matter what. The ones that are of sufficiently general interest
get posted here, where I hope they can do the most good.
If you don't spot your question here, be sure to check my
Q and A Quick Finder Index.
Q. a) Is goat milk lactose free?
b) My mom claims to have become lactose intolerant.
since a lot of my diet here is milk based, with lots of cheeses
naturally, will I be going wrong by substituting goat or sheep cheeses
and other milk products in my recipes?
a) Goat's milk contains almost exactly the same amount of
lactose as cow's milk. For a listing of the lactose contents of
dozens of different animal milks, go to my
Lactose Zoo page.
b) Goat's milk cheese will have about the same amount of
lactose as cow's milk cheese or sheep's milk cheese: very
little. All aged cheeses are low in lactose. Substituting one
for the other shouldn't make a bit of difference.
Q. Do you have any
information with regard to linking allergies with autism?
Go to my
LI Links page. You'll see that the last link under U.S. is
called "Understanding and Implementing a Gluten & Casein Free Diet:
An Experimental Intervention For Autism" That should point you in
the right direction for info.
Q. I noticed that I get occasionally get
LI symptoms after eating Chinese takeout, especially dishes with thick,
starchy sauces. This may
be a long shot, but is it possible that they contain lactose?
My guess is probably not. Usually in cooking, sauces are
made thick and starchy by adding corn starch rather than
milk powder. I can't guarantee this, of course, and recipes
are often adapted to local customs. Some people do have corn
allergies, by the way, so it may in fact be the corn that is
the problem. (I hate to suggest anything so obvious that you've
probably already considered it, but just to be thorough, have you
tested yourself on dishes with and without MSG?)
You might also want to simply ask the next time you're in
a restaurant in which you've had problems whether the dish
does indeed contain any milk. Most places will be
happy to check for you.
Q. Could LI over a period of time
lead to osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis does not a single cause, although inadequate
calcium intake, especially while young, is thought to be a
major factor. So LI by itself cannot cause osteoporosis.
However, since milk is leading source of calcium, someone who
does not drink milk (whether because of LI or not) must ensure
a substitute calcium source, either though other calcium-containing
foods or by taking calcium supplements. This would be true of
anyone, regardless or LI status.
Q. My mother
is severely lactose intolerant,
and she recently came across a new one that she hasn't seen before. It's a
chocolate bar ingredient: "milk fat." What part of milk is that?
Is it suitable or not for an LI
person to consume?
It's the fat that is taken out of milk when lowfat or skim milk is
made fat-free. Since fat makes things taste better, milk processers sell off
the waste fat to other manufacturers. It should have little or no
lactose, however, being pretty close to pure fat.
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