7 tips for going dairy-free
These days, more and more of us are becoming disillusioned with the dairy industry. Study after study shows that dairy does more harm than good to our bodies[1], the environment[2], and the welfare of billions of cows[3].
If you’re also considering ditching dairy, this post offers seven tips to make the transition easy and lasting.
1. Know your nutrition
As you start to eliminate dairy from your diet, it’s helpful to remember that dairy is for newborns. Once you stop drinking your mom’s milk, you’re not meant to switch to the milk of another person or species, as that milk is for their own babies. Instead, you’re supposed to start eating and getting your nutrients from whole foods.
While you do need calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, and potassium, you don’t need dairy. You can find all of these nutrients in dairy-free sources, like fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and soy. This is where cows, goats, and buffalo get their nutrients too.
2. Look at labels
While you probably already know to expect dairy in milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, and yogurt, dairy is also in lots of other products, like some breads, chips, salad dressings, cereal bars, chocolates, and cookies.
The best way to know if a product contains dairy is to read its ingredient list. In the list, look for words like “milk,” “milk powder,” “butter,” “casein,” “ghee,” “lactose,” and “whey”; all of these words indicate that the product contains dairy. To simplify things, you can skip to the end of an ingredient list and look for phrasing like “Contains milk” or “May contain milk.”
Initially, it takes more effort to go grocery shopping, but you quickly learn which products to buy and which products to avoid.
3. Find new favorites
It’s an exciting time to go dairy-free! Today, there are so many dairy-free options to choose from, and there’s a dairy-free version of nearly every dairy product. (Even Ben & Jerry’s has non-dairy ice cream!) Depending on your recipe and taste preferences, you can replace:
Milk with almond milk, cashew milk, oat milk, soy milk, or water
Butter with avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, or a plant-based butter
Cheese with avocado, nuts, or a plant-based cheese
As you begin trying dairy-free products, enjoy the time of exploration. Know that you won’t like everything and that’s okay (personally, I don’t like almond milk, but other people love it). Like everything else, you’ll eventually find the products and brands that you like best and can stick with those.
Also, as much as possible, avoid making comparisons. If you’re eating a dairy-free “cheddar cheese,” for example, don’t ask yourself if it tastes like cheddar cheese or if it’s “as good” as cheddar cheese. Instead, just ask yourself if it tastes good. If it does, you’re on the right track.
4. Make modifications
Happily, when you go dairy-free, you can still enjoy most or all of your favorite foods. You just need to make some minor modifications. For example, when a recipe includes milk, you can use plant-based milk instead. And when you go out to eat, you can ask restaurants to make your favorite menu items without the dairy (for example, you can order lattes with oat milk and order enchiladas without the cheese and sour cream)!
5. Train your tastebuds
Did you know that you can change your tastes? The reason that you enjoy certain foods today is because you have taught yourself to like those foods by repeatedly eating them. If you grew up in India, you’d probably prefer spicier foods. If you grew up in Colombia, you’d be happy to snack on ants. If you grew up in Bangladesh, you’d think that goat milk tastes better than cow milk.
Here’s the point: your tastes are acquired, not inherited. You can change your preferences by eating more or less of something. So while you might not enjoy a dairy-free product the first time you try it, you may surprise yourself by finding that you really enjoy it after having it a few more times. Eventually, you may even prefer it to its dairy alternative.
6. Practice patience
Admittedly, some dairy-free products still have room for improvement. For example, the texture of plant-based cheese isn’t awesome when it melts. But as you now know, you have the ability to change your preferences, so you may come to like and prefer it. If not, take heart knowing that new products are being developed all the time, and as more and more people adopt a dairy-free lifestyle and create demand for these products, companies are financially motivated to continue improving them.
7. Meditate on your motives
More than anything, the best way to guarantee a successful transition to dairy-free living is to remember why you’re going dairy-free in the first place.
Here’s one example: Before going dairy-free, I ate pizza every week, usually buying a slice at the grocery store. When I went dairy-free, initially, every time I went to the grocery store, I thought about getting a slice of pizza. But then I remembered the cows and that by buying a slice of pizza I would be funding something that I’m morally against. Each time, my desire to care for cows’ well-being outweighed my desire to eat pizza, and so I’d buy fries or some other non-dairy treat instead. Now I rarely think about pizza (and know of several good pizzerias that have tasty plant-based options).
If you have spent your entire life eating dairy products, switching to a dairy-free lifestyle requires some conscious effort, especially in the beginning, and especially because your culture actively tries to convince you that consuming another species’ milk is normal, fun, and harmless.
You can make it much easier on yourself by giving yourself regular reminders of why you’re choosing to go dairy-free. For example, regularly watching documentaries or reading books about the impact of dairy (like The Milk System or Eating Animals) or following social media accounts that cover animal welfare (like Surge Activism’s Facebook or Instagram).
By keeping your motivation in mind, and following the other tips in this post, you’re sure to have a successful and happy transition to a dairy-free and more compassionate life. You got this!
