Lactose-Free Milk Is Real Milk

This is a blog about lactose intolerance. I need to say that upfront because I take so many detours to talk about dairy-free products and lifestyles. The problem for those of us who are LI isn't dairy, of course: it's lactose. You can have all the dairy you want if you watch your lactose content, or use lactase to break down the lactose.

So here I am again, talking about real milk. Not only that, promoting the National Dairy Council. They're not our enemy.

For the National Dairy Council, lactose-free milk - milk whose lactose has been broken down by added lactase - is as much milk as any other variety. They got Deion Branch - a New England Patriots football player - milk a cow as a promotion. Branch, who's about as expert on milking as I would be, obviously would rather be facing 300 pounds of beef across a line of scrimmage, but comes through in the end.

You can see the video at this page. And if all goes well, I've embedded the video below.

If all doesn't go well, then try going directly to YouTube.

Valio Terminates Real Goodness Lactose Free Milk in U.SL

Back in 2009 I had a very exciting announcement to make. Valio, the huge Finnish manufacturer of lactose-free milk products, was entering the American market at last. They contacted me about getting the word out and I was happy to do so, in Valio's Lactose-Free Milk Is a Hit!

I just got a comment on that page complaining that the milk could no longer be found. So I did a search and came up with this undated message that is all that's left on the realgoodness.com website.

Dear Friends of Real Goodness:

Thank you for your loyalty to our brand over the past two years. In the limited time we have been in market in the United States, Real Goodness has helped thousands of people overcome the symptoms of lactose intolerance and enjoy a healthier and tastier lactose-free milk.

We regretfully announce that our company has made the decision to terminate production at this time. Our final shipment to retailers occurred last week. This product has enjoyed widespread success in Europe. However, the product did not achieve its sales targets set out in our strategy despite the fact that the product was unparalleled in its ability to deliver great taste and superior nutrition.

On behalf of Valio USA, I want to thank each of you for supporting Real Goodness.

What can I say? While a small percentage of people with lactose intolerance cherish each and every lactose free product on the market, the greater number ignore them. They either avoid real milk products, opting for artificial substitutes or no milk-like substances at all, or just have real milk in smaller quantities. The lactose free market has always been small and chancy. I've watched dozens of products come into the market and suddenly disappear over the years.

I'm very sorry about this one, because I thought Valio had the money and marketing clout and savvy to pull it off whereas small companies can't compete nationally. It's a shame.

Smart Balance Adds Another Lactose-Free Milk

Late last year I told you about the line of Smart Balance lactose-free products.

Their lactose-free fat-free milk with omega-3s was just rolling out at that point. I guess it was a success. Not only is it now available nationwide, but they've introduced a companion lactose-free milk. Here's the press release.

Smart Balance, Inc. is launching Smart Balance™ Lactose-Free Fat Free and Calcium milk, the latest addition to its popular line of enhanced milks and innovative heart healthier products. ...

Like all of the fat free milks in the Smart Balance line of enhanced milks, the lactose-free milks have the rich, creamy taste of 2% without the saturated fat. Our new Smart Balance™ Lactose-Free Fat Free and Calcium milk has 75% more calcium and 20% more protein than whole milk. The added calcium is great for those who avoid dairy and have a hard time getting enough calcium for healthy bones.

Also available nationwide is Smart Balance™ Lactose-Free Fat Free and Omega-3s milk, which has the added benefits of Omega-3s as well as 20% more protein and 20% more calcium than regular milk. It provides an excellent source of heart-healthy EPA/DHA Omega-3s (32 mg per serving, 20% of the 160 mg daily value).

Lactose-Free Milk in Denmark

Dairy Markets has a short squib up on its site that should be good news for my Danish readers.

Arla Foods has launched a lactose-free milk in Denmark, the first in a new line of lactose-free dairy products.

Official estimates suggest that between 3% and 6% of Danes suffer from lactose intolerance. But the product will also be aimed at those who think they have a problem and have therefore opted for non-dairy alternatives.

Arla is the huge UK manufacturer of Lactofree milk.

I can't find any additional information on this new Danish product. But let's face it. When you market a product who think they need it but don't really, the state of information about lactose intolerance is beyond nuts into surreal.

Lactaid Changing Its Look

Lactaid sent me an email to announce that the design of its milk carton is about to change. Or may already have changed, if the tense in the announcement is to be trusted.

We've put our old look out to pasture, but the milk you love remains unchanged. It's still 100% lactose-free and 100% delicious, with all of the calcium and vitamin D of regular milk.

Check all the Lactaid products on their site.

MooTopia: Designer Lactose-Free Milk

Whenever you think of members of Congress taking exotic junkets to some tropical resort or luxury hotel, think upon this. Work has already begun on the 2012 Farm Bill. And members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee went to Lubbock, TX last month to attend the seventh in a series of field hearings on the Texas Tech University campus. That's not glamorous, not sexy, and not calculated to get their names on cable news.

A story by Jerry Lackey covering the hearings for the San Angelo, TX Standard-Times featured Brad Bouma, a fifth-generation dairy farmer from Plainview in the Texas Panhandle. Bouma has another distinction. He "also serves as president of Select Milk Producers Inc., a marketing cooperative owned by dairy farmers who have dairies in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas."

And what milk does Select Milk make? Bouma said:

"Through patented technology, Select has developed the means to create 'designer milks.' High quality milk fresh from the farm goes through several filtration processes separating the fat from the protein, from the sugars, from the calcium and other solids from the water. These then are recombined in different ratios to provide a different profile of milk."

The lactose, is also removed, converted to two simple sugars, glucose and galactose.

"For six years, H-E-B has been marketing one such milk in Texas," Bouma said. "This milk is produced by Select Milk and bottled by H-E-B at its plants in Texas. This designer milk, called 'Mootopia,' has more protein and more calcium (all fresh from cow’s milk) but with fewer carbohydrates. This lactose-free milk still tastes the same sweetness as regular milk."

I don't understand this, since glucose and galactose are still carbohydrates and are sweeter than regular milk, but Lackey may have left a step out of the process.

But the answer is surely at the Select Milk website, right?

Wrong. If you drill in several levels, you come to a .pdf labeled designer milk for women.

It's not immediately obvious that this is the same milk as MooTopia, but it sure seems close. A story on the DairyFoods.com website by David Phillips lists the attributes of MooTopia:

In 2005, H.E. Butt Grocery Co. (H-E-B), based here on the Texas Gulf Coast introduced MooTopia, milk that features 60% less sugar, 35% more calcium, 75% more protein and 4g carbohydrates, per serving.

MooTopia is also lactose free, and it is substantially creamier and more flavorful than traditional milk, according to H-E-B. The company says taste tests show that MooTopia skim milk is creamier than traditional 2% milk, while MooTopia 2% is creamier than traditional whole milk.

H-E-B, along with partner Select Milk Producers Inc., Artesia, N.M., patented the process.

Designer milk for Women claims 175% More Protein; 60% Less Sugar; 160% More Calcium; and 100% Lactose Free. What happens when you match them up? Claims are made for the same nutrients. Both have 60% less sugar. MooTopia has 75% more protein which would be the same if what Designer Milk meant was that its protein is 175% of the protein in standard milk. The calcium percentages are harder to reconcile. 35% more is not quite the same as saying 160% of the original calcium. 4g of carbohydrate may be 100 lactose free, however. Otherwise, why two separate lactose-free designer milks? That's not as big a question as asking why MooTopia never appears by name at the Select Milk website, though. That one baffles me. MooTopia goes back five or six years. You should be able to find out more about it much more easily. People still write about it. Dairy Business News had a major article on it and another designer milk, Athlete's Honey Milk, made by the same people, as recently as January 2010.

Where is it marketed? Who buys it? What does it taste like? All seems steeped in mystery.

And that's not the only Mootopia mystery. More next time.

Shelf-Stable Lactose-Free Milk

You want lactose-free milk? My big local supermarket has six full shelves of different brands, types, and varieties of lactose-free milk. And that's separate from the lactose-free coffee creamer section. I remember the days when there weren't six containers of lactose-free milk lined up next to one another. (Just for comparison I went over and counted the shelves of regular milk. 30. One-sixth of all the milk in the store is lactose-free. You might also just stop a second and think about a single store having 36 shelves - more than seven head-high cases - of milk. Wen I grew up I lived down the street from a dairy and I don't think their working capacity could fill 36 shelves. We're a rich, rich country.)

But can I still complain? (Answer: yes. We're a rich, rich country.)

I received this cheery plea for help in an email.

Hi! My baby (16 months) is lactose intolerant. Is there such a thing as shelf-stable / single serve lactose free milk, or powdered lactose free milk in the United States (or Canada, so that I can order). It is impossible to travel without such a product, because he does not like soy milk nor infant formula. I appreciate any help. Thank you!

My huge, big, wonderful, easy-to-get-to supermarket is of absolutely no help to this mother. No lactose-free powdered milk. No shelf-stable lactose-free milk. All those choices and a basic product that would be of great use to ordinary people is missing.

And it's not the store's fault. There's none for them to sell.

As far as I can tell, nobody in North America sells lactose-free powdered milk. I ran an item about the Finnish giant Valio and the lactose-free milk powder it introduced in an European trade show, but that's a wholesale product aimed at bakeries and the like.

Shelf-stable milk is also extremely hard to find in the U.S. Lactose-free shelf stable milk?

I can find one company that makes any. Borden. A giant milk producer in it's own right, Borden sells lactose-free milk in a shelf-stable package. But only a swath of southern states from Florida to New Mexico. Apparently the cows on based on oil rigs floating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Internet sales? No. What I found was a phone number to call on this web order page.

The good news. It comes in whole, 2% low-fat, and fat-free varieties.

The bad news. The containers are 32 ounces each. And sold in pallets of twelve containers. That's a lot of milk, even for something that's shelf-stable and so will last until the next Y2K. (That's a joke. It'll stay fresh for months, however.)

You can try contacting Borden to see if you as a consumer can buy smaller quantities. There is additional contact information on this Borden page.

To contact us:

email: borden@shelfstablemilk.com

Borden Shelf Stable Milk Products are distributed by:

Diversified Foods, Inc
3115 6th Street
Metairie, LA 70002 U.S.A.

Phone: 504-831-6651
Fax: 504-831-8288
www.diversifiedfoods.com

Milk companies. Get cracking. We need a few more lactose-free milk products.

Travelers. You can thank me for lowering the number of fussy babies on trips. The tip jar is on the right.

The "Lactose Intolerant Lady" and the "Milk Guy"

The press release was titled Lactofree mends broken relationships in new campaign. Aaaaarrrggghhh! No, no, not the earworm! There it was, shrieking in my brain, a blast from a blissfully forgotten past now alive and kicking like a fast zombie movie villain.

The only way to kill it is to pass it along. Here goes.

How do you mend a broken relationship? You mean, "How Do You Mend A Broken Heart?" That bit of treacle was the Bee Gees' first number one hit in America (out of nine!), which I still hate even though the tune pops instant and unbidden into my mind. If there is any music worse than Bee Gees' disco, it's Bee Gees' sad ballads.

So how could Lactofree make such a horrible mistake in an advertising campaign? Because the song never made the charts at all in the UK! Ah, the Brits. Sometimes they show such good taste.

So if not broken hearts, Lactofree will attempt to mend the gulf between we the lactose intolerant and them the regular milk drinkers in a campaign that show the two sides trying to get into one another's' pants. Er, life.

Lactofree, the UK's only range of lactose free dairy products, is launching its new 2010 campaign with a theme focused on mending broken relationships with dairy.

Through above and below the line activity, "Dump the lactose, not the dairy", aims to reassure those with lactose intolerance that they can enjoy real dairy again with Lactofree.

In a series of advertisements breaking this month, Lactofree will be using an emotional tone to deliver its brand strategy. Facilitated through relationship interplay between the "Lactose Intolerant Lady" and the "Milk Guy" characters, Lactofree exposes a relationship breakdown that has occurred and shows the Milk Guy trying to get back into the Lactose Intolerant Lady's life.

The ads will inform lactose intolerant consumers that they can enjoy dairy favourites and benefits from dairy again without the side effects.