Milk-free items to put in your grocery cart

When I first started shopping for milk-free products for my then one-year-old to eat, I was overwhelmed.  We live in a small town, so our grocery stores don’t have any special allergen sections.  Since I often had my son with me at the store, I also didn’t have time to sit and read every single label as I was shopping (anyone who takes their kids to the grocery store knows you go as QUICKLY as possible!!).  So, after lots of experience and a few mistakes, here are a few things that ended up in our cart week after week (and no, I am not paid by any company to post these items!)

–  Rice Millk (enriched original flavor for us, by Rice Dream)

– Lots of veggies, fruit, applesauce, etc.

–  Back to Nature graham sticks ( a lot of these products are great- not their mac and cheese, obviously, but many are milk free!)

–  Nabisco Vegetable Thins Baked Snack Crackers

– Matt’s cookies (see previous blog)

– Peanut butter (it’s not real butter!)

– Noodles and Bertolli spaghetti sauce (read the sauce jars- many brands do contain milk, even without the word cheese in the name!)

– Tofutti Cuties- pseudo ice cream sandwiches- this company has a whole line of dairy free products, but our grocery stores are too small to have all of them

–  Uncle Bens ready rice- Garden Vegetable, Roasted Chicken

–  Bread… this one is tricky– you really have to read the labels.  The generic bread often does not have milk, but bread made in your bakery often does. 

–  instant oatmeal (of course, you need to mix it with water or rice milk!)… some kinds DO contain milk… I’ve found that the generic store brand of apple cinnamon was the biggest hit without milk

–  Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal

– Lucky Charms cereal

– Cheerios

– Kix

–  Fleishman’s Light (small yellow tub, blue lid) spread is dairy free!

–  Tortilla chips and guacamole

–  Popsicles (regular fruit ones!)

–  some pretzels

–  canned tuna, salmon, etc.

Well, at least that’s a start for you.  I plan to blog several specific recipes that you can make that are toddler friendly and milk free too.  Be sure that when you are reading labels that you aren’t just looking for the word “milk”– refer back to my blog entitled “Other Words Meaning Milk” to find hidden ingredients to look out for!!!

February 8, 2009. Tags: 2 year old, allergist, allergy, babies, baby, back to nature, buy, casein, cheerios, colic, cows milk protein, diagnose a milk allergy, feeding, fleishmans, food, foods, fussy, grocery, ingredients, kix, lactose free, list, matts cookies, milk allergies, milk allergy, milk free, oatmeal, options, products, real chocolate, recipe, Rice Dream, rice milk, sodium caseinate, toddler, tofutti, uncle bens. Eating on a Milk Free Diet, Uncategorized. Leave a comment.