Alice Schuler, clinical nutritionist: Are you ready to have some fun?
Narrator: We asked registered dietician, Alice Schuler to find some creative ways to prepare foods that can be enjoyed by those with lactose intolerance.
Alice Schuler, clinical nutritionist: I thought we'd do to start today is to do a Jerusalem artichoke pasta with peas
Narrator: Devetress Freeman has a mild form of the digestive disorder:
Devetress Freeman: I was having bloating, cramping, after I ate certain foods and it all linked back to dairy.
Narrator: Limiting dairy has caused her to miss out on getting enough calcium and vitamin D.
But there are sensible ways for people with lactose intolerance to get enough calcium and in fact still enjoy dairy products….
Alice: It's a really nice, Greek strained yogurt
Narrator: The star ingredient in this pasta dish is yogurt. While it is dairy – and naturally high in calcium, the active cultures in yogurt neutralize the lactose.
Alice Schuler, clinical nutritionist: See how it says 25%. All you have to do is, which is really nice, is all you have to do is add a zero and what it tells you is you have 250 mg. calcium in there.
Narrator: Adults need 1,000 to 12-hundred milligrams of calcium a day.
The good news is that lactose-free milk and dairy have the same calcium and nutritional benefits of regular dairy. You can also try adding calcium from other sources…
Alice Schuler, clinical nutritionist: There's iron in your pasta
Narrator: And some are fortified with both calcium and vitamin D. Next up: a salad packed with a variety of leafy greens
Alice Schuler, clinical nutritionist: Sometimes we don't know what greens we have available and there's so much out there with the textures and flavors it's kind of fun to play around with them.
Devetress: So what's this?
Alice: This is red leaf. Red leaf. And these are watercress. And this is one cup of Bok Choy
Devetress: I always wondered about this. I've seen it. How do you pronounce it again?
Alice: Bok choy.
Devetress: Bok choy
Alice: All of these are dark green and have calcium.
Narrator: The salad's main attraction: salmon. It's one of the few foods naturally high in vitamin D. Because Alice chose canned – which contains bones – it's also high in calcium. Still..
Alice: It takes a lot of salad to get enough calcium.
Narrator: In fact it takes 4 to 5 of these salad portions to get the same amount of calcium that you'd get in a glass of milk. With the salmon you only need two. More comparisons:
it would take 2 ¼ cups of cooked broccoli; 4 ½ cups of raw broccoli
to equal the calcium in a glass of milk, a reason many turn to yogurt, cheeses low in lactose, like cheddar and Swiss, or lactose free milk products.
