A vegan who eats meat

We recently learned through a little google searching and talking with our pediatrician that Felix is intolerant to cows milk proteins. What does this mean you ask? Well it means that mama can't eat ANY dairy or it will pass to Felix and make him crabby, spit up, sleep less etc. At first I thought this wouldn't be too hard because frankly I don't even like to drink milk. I have since realized it's nearly impossible and that there is dairy in just about everything! So I thought it would be best to blog a little about this so I'll always remember this time in our lives. After going grocery shopping a few times and reading the labels on everything I buy I'm trying to see this as a blessing in disguise. Going dairy free really just means that aside from avoiding the obvious foods (oh cheese how I miss you!) all you have to do is avoid processed foods with a million ingredients!

So our dinners are back to the basics; meat, veggies, breads and pastas. Snacking is a totally different problem though because most chips, cookies, crackers etc all contain some sort of dairy (see above, processed foods). Did you know that salt and vinegar potato chips contain dairy? Neither did I. Dining out is less appealing because I have to ask if there is dairy hiding in everything (is there butter in this? do you use milk in your bread?) but there are other things keeping us from dining out so that is less of a problem ;)

Foods I can't eat:
chocolate
caffeinated beverages
dairy
eggs (seems to be OK if they're baked into something but he gets hives if I eat a whole egg so I avoid baked-in eggs whenever I can just to be safe)
soy

So what am I eating? A lot of rice based foods. (Rice milk has replaced regular and soy milk.) A lot of meat and veggies. For snacks I like this brand because their foods do not contain any of the top 8 allergens. Our co-op carries vegan baked goods which are delicious (dairy and egg free). So far he seems OK with the other 5 top allergens, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, fish and shellfish.

Take one day and look at everything you eat, I bet there is dairy in almost all of it. (most packaging lists allergens in bold print at the end of the ingredient list e.g. "Contains Milk, Egg, Soy" but for a full list of hidden dairy click here or here) Needless to say I have a whole new respect for people living with food allergies. Let's hope Felix grows out of this!

Why do I do it? This is why: