Yogurt?

I have been dairy-free for a long time now. And when I mean dairy-free I mean strict-no-dairy-whatsoever. I haven’t had any packaged food with any milk products on the label, no cheese, no butter, no cream cheese, no milk chocolate, no ice cream, and certainly no milk. I have tried many ‘milk alternatives’ like soy milk, almond milk, rice cheese etc but they all weren’t that great. Almond milk is great if you want something to drink, but I don’t really use it very often.

One big part of the SCD is to have homemade yogurt. I have to say I think I’m looking forward to this diet mostly because of this part. I really hope I do well with it. Basically homemade yogurt is very different from commercial yogurts. The yogurt you buy in the store has probably been fermented about 4-6 hours, had sugar and other stuff added to it, and is basically flavoured milk with a bit of ‘probiotics’ in it. Some actually don’t have any good bacteria because the company chooses to heat the product to pasteurize it right before sending it off to sell. Heat kills bacteria (good and bad).

Homemade SCD yogurt is made with milk and yogurt starter. It is fermented for 24+ hours. This changes the composition of the milk quite a lot. Sugars and proteins transform in the process and the food as a whole can be a lot easier to digest. Any type of milk can be used, whole milk, skim milk, cow’s milk, and even almond milk. At this point I’m debating whether to start with almond milk yogurt (since I already tolerate almond milk) or to try goat’s milk yogurt. I probably won’t bother with cow’s milk just yet since I have had so many problems with cows milk in the past.

So I went ahead and ordered a yogurt maker from my local health food store. I really hope to at least enjoy the almond yogurt. I’m in desperate need of a new, yummy and portable snack! (Plus something else to add delicious berries to..)