Smoothies for the Lactose Intolerant

Smoothies are the greatest drink in the world. It’s filled with the healthiest ingredients on earth. It can have fruits and vegetables and the all-beneficial milk. However, about 70% of the world’s population have problems with drinking milk. Enjoying smoothies becomes a problem for them. They are lactose intolerant.

Lactose intolerance is genetic. Most of the people from Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean region have problems with digesting lactose. People from Scandinavian countries hardly suffer from it at all.

Lactose is a sugar found in milk. It’s a large sugar made up of two smaller sugars, glucose and galactose. In order for a person to digest lactose, the body needs to split it into the two smaller sugars through the use of the enzyme, lactase. If there isn’t enough lactase or if there isn’t any lactase at all, then the person is lactose intolerant.

People are born with the ability to produce lactase. Otherwise, babies won’t be able to drink their mother’s milk. But as people age, lactase production goes down. Some people lose it a lot faster than others. When a person is lactase deficient/lactose intolerant, he can’t drink milk or else. Drinking milk or other dairy products may result in gas, cramps, diarrhea, bloating or vomiting.

So what is a smoothie lover to do? Milk is one of the most essential ingredients in smoothies. It can provide a smoothie’s creamy texture. Not only that, milk is nutritionally complete. A person can theoretically survive on a diet of milk alone. It’s rich in calcium, phosphorus, riboflavin, protein, vitamin A, thiamin, and cobalamine.

Thankfully, while milk is an important ingredient, there are substitutes available. One substitute is yogurt. Some would argue that yogurt is not a substitute at all but it’s own ingredient, as important and as essential in every way. Yogurt has almost every benefit of milk because it can be described as fermented milk. The fermentation process broke down the lactose into the edible sugars (unfortunately it also reduces the amount of vitamin A). While the nutritional content is the same, the taste is very different. Yogurt is tangy (some say bitter) and hiding that particular taste becomes the duty of the other smoothie ingredients.

For a closer milk substitute, there is soy milk. It’s made from soybeans, which has been soaked in water and then grinded. After straining, the liquid that’s left is soy milk. Thickeners are sometimes added to copy the feel of cow’s milk. It’s filled with protein, fiber and isoflavones. Isoflavones may prevent cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis. Soy milk may not be as nutritionally complete as milk but it has benefits of its own.

But how does a substitute taste? Scroll down for a recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup frozen banana chunks
• ½ cup chocolate soy milk
• 1 tbsp maple syrup

Procedure:

Combine everything in a blender and blend it until smooth. Add more soy milk if the smoothie is too thick.

Enjoy!