If you happened to read my post about taking the EverlyWell food sensitivity test, you would know that I apparently have a moderate to high sensitivity to almonds, gluten, and dairy. It still comes as a shock to me because I’ve eaten these foods my entire life without realizing its impact on how I feel. But now that I’ve monitored what I’ve been eating and how I feel afterwards, I’ve come to realize that my body does not like to digest a lot of gluten or dairy. And while switching over to dairy-free options does sound simple, it took a little extra research to find some dairy-free substitutes for my everyday needs. One would think that to find an alternative for milk I could simply just switch over to almond milk or oat milk or the many other nut milk options, but I have a high sensitivity to almonds 🙁 . I haven’t eaten almonds since my results came back, and honestly it’s because I’m kind of afraid to. Out of a range from 0 to 160, 160 being a high reaction, almonds were a 151 for me. Even though I used almond milk for over a year, I’m just experimenting cutting it out for the time being.
So, if I can’t have almond milk or oat milk or any of the other nut options, what kind of milk can I use then? It has to be something that is dairy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free, and to me, there wasn’t a lot of well known options, so I took to Google. There was this really great article I found by Danielle Centoni from The Kitchn that ranked the top 10 milks that were dairy-free and not made from nuts, and the number one option was Bolthouse Farms milk. It’s plant based and contains just as much calcium as cow’s milk, as well as 10 grams of protein. So I went to my local Kroger, and low and behold, on the very bottom shelf completely out of eye sight, was the Bolthouse Farms. I only saw it in the sweetened version (which only has 5 grams of sugar) and I was eager to go home and try it out!
When I tried it I knew that I wouldn’t have to turn anywhere else for my calcium and protein needs. It was great in my protein shake and it didn’t have an overpowering taste. Although I enjoyed the sweetened version, I also wanted to try the other products that they had which included an unsweetened version, as well as chocolate milk!!!! I feel like my two-year-old nephew getting excited over chocolate milk, but what can I say, I love the stuff. Growing up, my brothers ran cross country and I would run with them sometimes and I won’t forget the coach saying that drinking chocolate milk was great for you after a run. I can’t really remember the reasoning, but it always gave us an excuse to beg our Mom to buy us chocolate milk all the time because coach said it was good for us. I’ve always remembered that, and throughout college when I would workout, instead of spending money on protein powder, I always tried to drink chocolate milk as my recovery. I still do so on occasion, especially on cardio days, so I was happy to see that I don’t have to completely get rid of my chocolate milk obsession and that there was a dairy-free substitute out there.
On another side of the dairy-free train, let’s talk about coffee creamers real quick. So, before my EverlyWell test, I got in the habit of putting almond milk in my coffee every morning. Now that I’m not doing that anymore, I found another great dairy-free substitute for half and half. 
The brand is Ripple, and while they also have chocolate milk and unsweetened milk, I just prefer Bolthouse and it’s taste a little bit more. Although their dairy-free milk isn’t the first thing I reach for, their half and half is another story! You can’t really taste a difference which is what I like about it. My only complaint is that I wish it came in a bigger container because the only size they have now is 16 ounces and that can go by pretty quickly!
And that concludes my milk conversation! I hope if you are in the same boat as me, that this post helped you out and that it leads you in the right direction. It’s encouraging to know that if you do a little research, you can find great alternatives where you thought there wouldn’t be any at all, and that there are stores that carry what you need. If you end up trying these products, let me know! Thank you for spending the time to read this post, I hope you have a great one!
Here’s the link to the article I mentioned above: