Child with severe lactose intolerance joining our nursery. Which dairy free products cook well?

[Bubble99]

Most of our children with LI drink rice milk, but I've never tried cooking with it.

How well do white sauces made with dairy free marge and milk alternatives work?

BTW. This child ( one year old) is so severly intolerant that even touching dairy products produces a severe reaction. He was previously with a Nanny and managed to spill a (cool, thankfully) cappucino (sp?) on his arms and ended up with blistering and swelling (from the reaction, not the heat.) His mum is understandably very anxious but wants him to have, as much as possible, similar looking meals to the other children. Not such an issue at this age, IME - but her choice of course. And we certainly do find that older toddlers and pre-schoolers don't like to have 'different' food to their friends. Although, some times I've heard pre-schoolers say..

"Oh, I can't have that." When something they just don't like the look of is served.

Any advice gratefully recieved as I would like to be able to make non-dairy sauces for fish, pasta etc.

Should maybe put this in Health or Recipes?

I use Pure spreads or suma soya spread instead of butter for baking and they work fine. I have made white sauce with soya spread and soya milk, but it tastes strange (to me, anyway) - it's probably worth trying with oat or rice milk to see if that tastes better. Dd (17 months) loves custard made with soya milk (and the ready made alpro one) and I've got used to that. I use soya yoghurt instead of milk/buttermilk to make muffins, and those come out perfect. The only way I can get dd to eat pasta is with fresh salmon and spinach .

A favourite fish recipe in this house is fillets of cod or haddock coated on top with a slice of wholemeal bread and half a red pepper mushed in the blender with a tablespoon of olive oil (the bread and a couple of chunks of red pepper preserved in oil). Cover with foil and bake in the oven on 180 degrees for 20 mins. I've also found a vegan pesto, which I plan to use the same way, but haven't tried that yet.

Thanks, Roskva.

The fish with bread/peppers sounds good.

Alpro are fab, aren't they?

The chocolate soya pud is especially good.

Alpro is a life-saver: dd would be limited to fruit, fruit and more fruit for pudding without them . I haven't discovered their chocolate pudding yet, but it sounds yummy. Dd likes their soya drinks which come in small cartons in strawberry or chocolate flavours.

Organix do nice treaty things that are dairy free, too: their fruit sticks and toddler size cereal bars are really nice.

My eldest ds was lactose intolerant when he was a baby but thankfully he grew out of it. After being in hospital for a month, we finally found a dried 'milk' called Pregestermil (sp) which was disgusting but he thrived.

He gew out of it at 6months so I didn't need to cook things for him, has his Doctor prescribed/can he prescribe anything for him?

Btw eldest ds is now 17 and a strapping lad, I do hope you find something. Good luck

i've got three dairy free Dc
have been baking for most of today when not on here!
vitalite marg, fine in baking and is DF (the soya versions go watery and split)
goats milk if they are ok with it, make pancakes/sauces/custard and anything you would normally use cows milk; we had quiche for tea
Other ladies around do cook with soya milk, I haven't managed it - it seems to split when I heat it.

we also use...
alpro yogurts
"Swedish Glace" dairy free ice cream (black hexagonal box, all maj supermarkets sell it)

i care for a boy with the same to be honest very his friends do not notice when i use rice milk to cook with use all of the previous brands mentioned a lot of the super markets have their own diary free brands. I have also found that sheeps cheese bufflo milk is just as nice how ever bufflo milk is harder to come by. This week i have made muffins and cheese biscuits all with rice milk.