Favorite Non-Dairy Brands

My family and I have been non-dairy now for about 3 months and at first I thought it was going to be very difficult to make the change and to find enough substitute brands, but thankfully it has not been that bad or that hard!

Why did we go non-dairy? My daughter had been complaining of stomach pains for a couple of months and we took her to see a GI doctor and had some tests done. One of the tests was to determine if she was lactose intolerant, low and behold she is severely lactose intolerant and that was causing the stomach pains. The GI suggested we go dairy free for a month and see how she does. Well, it worked! Her stomach pains were gone unless dealing with some constipation, but that’s another issue.

I researched all the different options for non-dairy bread, cheese, ice cream, butter, and cream cheese as these are some of the foods we love to eat. After I read articles and lists containing the best of the best non-dairy items, I looked at some of the foods we were currently eating to see if they contained dairy and I was surprised as to how many foods did!

I've come up with a list of our favorite Non-Dairy brands and am sharing it with you below. I hope this helps if you are lactose intolerant or are considering a lifestyle change.

Non-Dairy Milk

My family and I had already been on almond milk for over a year since my son has a milk sensitivity, so we didn’t change that. We use Almond Breeze, Original Almond milk. I use it when cooking, baking, for everything. There are thankfully tons of options for non-dairy milk!

Butter

We needed to find a substitute for our butter, because we were using Land O’ Lakes olive oil spread, which is delicious if you have no issue with dairy. In my research the brand of butter that kept coming up was Earth Balance. Luckily, this brand is sold just about anywhere! We’ve been using Earth Balance Olive Oil. I honestly think it tastes better than some of the options with dairy. My kids and husband don’t have a problem with it either, which is a win! If you’re not familiar with Earth Balance, they are also vegan and soy free. I highly recommend it!

Cream Cheese

Now, my daughter loves cream cheese with a bagel for breakfast every now and then. I mean, who doesn’t! In my research I went with the name that kept popping up the most, Tofutti better than cream cheese. It tastes so much like cream cheese, my daughter didn’t realize we were using a different cream cheese! She is the stamp of approval in the house with trying new dairy free products because she is more on the picky side when it comes to eating, plus my son is still young and eats just about everything!

Another thing we have really enjoyed from Tofutti are there Cuties, mini Ice Cream Sandwiches. This was a huge find for us because we love ice cream sandwiches!! Anytime you come to our house you can find some in the freezer, doesn’t matter what season it is.

Bread

Now in our house we love bread!!! My kids would eat peanut butter sandwiches every day if I let them, or even a plain roll. We use to get the frozen rolls by Rhodes and when I realized they had dairy I literally wanted to cry 😢. But then I picked up a few other of the frozen rolls and checked the ingredients and came across Pepperidge Farm Stone Baked Artisan Rolls. We love these new rolls just as much as we did the old ones!

Staying with the bread theme, we switched to Nature’s Own Whole Wheat because it was another brand that kept showing up in my research. We didn’t need to switch from the brand we were using before, but I felt since Nature’s Own kept showing up in my research we’d give it a try. And it’s all we eat now!

Cheese

My kids love to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and we love making our own pizza’s, so I had to find cheese we could use to keep making these. We have been using daiya mozzarella style shreds for making pizzas, tacos and quesadillas. For grilled cheese sandwiches we use daiya american style slices. My kids love them and it’s great that we can continue making food together.

I hope this post helps you if you or a loved one suffer from lactose intolerance or are considering a lifestyle change. Going dairy free has helped my daughter tremendously! I’m thankful that when she complained of her belly aches we listened to her and didn’t think she was making it up. It’s hard when your kids are young to know if they really understand how their body works and if they are telling the truth about aches and pains or if they even know what it feels like. Taking her to see the GI and finding out she was lactose intolerant was a reminder that we shouldn’t brush off our kids complaints.