This is really a thing ive been wondering about USA… Dont you have lactose free products? I mean, if the tiny Nordics can and do produce lactose free versions of pretty much everything, in pretty much every possible place, why cant you?
Is it a sadism/eugenics thing (kidding but not 100% kidding)?
One interesting thing about lactose free products is, that most aren’t lactose free. They only contain the enzymes to digest the lactose. If you are lactose intolerant this is perfectly fine, but if you’re allergic to lactose it doesn’t change anything for you
I‘m not from the US (Germany) and neither have I much experience with lactose free products. I know someone who is allergic to lactose though and when I was buying stuff for him he told me the exact brand of stuff I needed to get due to the issue I mentioned.
Like most “but why US” questions, the answer starts with ‘M’ and rhymes with ‘oney’.
The dairy lobby is powerful in the US, for reasons I’ve never bothered to look into the few times one of their tantrums end up on the news.
It’s a matter of the Nexus of regulatory capture, unrestricted money in politics, and historic Inertia is my surface understanding of why ‘Dairy’ is such a bristly thing here.
We do. Vegan soy cheese is in a lot of groceries now, but usually only specialized restaurants will offer fake cheese as an option. We’re just starting to get fake meat in various eateries, and that’s still mostly limited to burgers.
A few pizzerias around here will offer a cheese -less pizza or other vegan options (fake cheese, onions paste instead, etc).
Edit: oh we also have milk and cheese but engineered to be lactose free. I’d say that’s even rarer in restaurants than vegan options though.
oh we also have milk and cheese but engineered to be lactose free. I’d say that’s even rarer in restaurants than vegan options though.
That’s really surprising. Lactose-free milk has been really common here in Finland for gods know how long, probably 20 years at least. Low lactose even longer.
Not sure I’ve ever seen low lactose or lactose free cheese though, although it’s not something I’d pay attention to. I thought many cheeses are pretty low in lactose to begin with due to the process naturally converting it to something else?
edit turns out lactose free cheeses are also extremely common, I just didn’t know because I can digest lactose without pooping
Fun fact! Practically all hard cheeses are lactose free!
You can check for yourself by checking the nutritional label for sugars. If it’s 0, you’re good!
Katsopa tarkemmin. Esimerkiksi Arkijuusto on ollut laktoositonta viimeiset 5 vuotta, vähintään. Eikä todellakaan ole ainoa. T: Juusto rakastava, laktoosia paskova.
For english speakers: we have had lactose free cheesw for a while, and it is delicious.
Fair enough, but it is also an observation based on other observations (through american culture’s past and current hegemony on global internet’s english speaking portion) about the cheesyness of america.
Edit: also I’m finnish, our humour is kind of dry and tries to be witty, like think of the brits. So read it through that lense.
The US supports a lot of food allergies and alternatives, but I’ve never seen lactose free cheese at a pizza place. People either get no cheese or take a pill to make eating cheese less of a problem.