The Enlightened Gourmet

Another entry in the lactose-free ice cream industry is The Enlightened Gourmet.

The Enlightened Gourmet, Inc. www.TheEnlightenedGourmet.com, is the
creator of Absolutely Free® Gourmet Ice Cream; an ice cream novelty with the taste and texture of Premium Ice Cream and Free of Fat, Cholesterol, Lactose and with No Added Sugar. Unlike other products marketed as "healthy" alternatives that trade fat for calories, calories for taste, and taste for texture, Absolutely Free® Gourmet Ice Cream is presently the only frozen ice cream novelty that has great taste and texture, and is free of fat, cholesterol, and has no added sugar. Absolutely Free® is also free of lactose and the Company calculated it to be only "1 Point" based on information published by Weight Watchers International.

Although they badly need to hire a copywriter with basic proficiently in English (hey, guys, I'm available), apparently the company is thriving. Yes, they've put out a press release.

The Enlightened Gourmet, Inc.
(OTC Bulletin Board: ENLG) ... is pleased to announce the successful implementation of its program to increase the public's awareness and sales of its flagship products in the New York City market, as a result of a distribution agreement that the Company entered into earlier this year with one of the largest ice cream distributors in the New York Metro market. This distributor presently distributes various national and regional ice cream brands to over 6,000 retail locations throughout the New York Metro area.

They make ice cream sandwiches, bars, and cups in single-serve and in supermarket packs.

The products contain both skim milk and whey so they are absolutely not dairy-free. They are aimed at the lactose-intolerant market, although I didn't see anywhere on the web site exactly how they remove the lactose from their products.

Preliminary Study on Cooked Proteins Cutting Allergies

I often get asked whether cooking food will reduce the symptoms of lactose intolerance. The answer to that is a flat "no." Cooked lactose is still lactose.

For the most part cooked proteins are still cooked proteins and are just as allergenic. However, a new study out has some very preliminary evidence that some children with allergies can outgrow their allergies by exposure to cooked foods with milk. This is so preliminary that the study authors are warning parents "not to try this at home" until more research is done.

"My first impulse is that I don't think this information is ready for prime time," said Donald Perlman, a West Orange allergist affiliated with Saint Barnabas Medical Center. "Food allergies can be a fatal problem. It's a serious business, so if people try to do this on their own, it could spell disaster."

Angela Stewart has an article in the Newark Star-Ledger:

In the milk study, conducted at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine, researchers hypothesized that some children with milk allergy would be able to tolerate extensively heated (baked) milk products, such as muffins or waffles.

Of the 100 children studied -- the average age was 7 -- about 75 percent were able to tolerate heated milk and were still free of allergic reactions when re-evaluated three months later. But because a quarter of the children in the study had some reaction, the study's authors stressed that avoidance should remain the accepted standard.

"The bottom line is that currently, the only way to find out if a child can tolerate baked milk is to do a feeding test," said Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, the assistant professor of pediatrics who led the study.

A second study found similar results with children who had egg allergies.

Both studies will appear in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Non-BST Milk Same as Any Other Milk

Last year, I posted Another Victory for Ignorance, which started:

Is there any actual evidence that the growth hormone rBST (recombinant Bovine SomatoTropin -- also known as rBGH: recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) causes harm to anyone? No.

Can milk be made that is hormone free? No. All milk, including mother's milk, has natural hormones. All cow's milk naturally includes BST. (rBST is a synthetic hormone that is added to increase milk production.)

I tried to break the creepy spell that fear - aided and abetted by the anti-milk forces - has put on America.

More evidence has emerged for the anti-fear, anti-ignorance forces. It comes from science, of course, which itself is a target of the fearmongers, but which is also our only real avenue for improving our understanding of our world.

Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D., Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com), wrote Milk Is Milk Is Milk on the asch.org site.

In the July 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetics Association (Vol. 108, p. 1198), Dr. J. Vicini and colleagues from Monsanto and the Pennsylvania State University present the results of analyses they performed on conventional milk, organic milk (which by definition may not come from rBST-treated cows), and non-organic milk labeled as coming from cows "not treated with rBST."

The researchers analyzed samples of each type of milk (all were pasteurized) purchased from stores in the forty-eight contiguous United States. In brief, they found that none of the milks contained antibiotic residue and that there were slightly fewer bacteria in the conventional milk than in either of the other two types (the difference was not great enough to have an impact on human health).

All three types had similar levels of BST, and the conventional and "rBST-free" milk had higher levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF) than the organic milk --but again the differences were so small as to make no practical difference to humans consuming the milk. Indeed, as the authors pointed out, IGF is a protein that would be broken down in the course of digestion by humans and therefore could not affect humans' metabolism. Further, the differences they observed would be only 0.003% of the amount of IGF produced by humans each day.

In the real world, the differences between "organic" milk and regular milk are too slight to be noticed by the body. They're not too slight to be noticed by your pocketbooks, though. Organic milk is usually far more expensive than regular milk.

"All milk is wholesome," the study authors say. Of course it is.

Beware the propagandists. They're not looking out for your interests, but their own.

Seriously Now, Is Lactose a Problem in Medications?

Yesterday I mentioned that seemingly every pill you can put in your mouth, even karaoke pills (no, not pills to cure karaoke, but pills to make you sing better for karaoke) contains lactose as a filler.

A frivolous frippery, to be sure, but a fun way to approach a serious subject. Just how much of a risk does someone with lactose intolerance face when taking pills containing lactose?

A bunch of serious-sounding doctors, Joseph P. Nathan, M.S., Pharm.D.; Sara Schilit, Pharm.D.; and Jack M. Rosenberg, Pharm.D., Ph.D. Drug Topics, of the International Drug Information Center of the Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Long Island University, Brooklyn, N.Y., took a look at the medical literature on this subject.

They reported back to a physician audience on Drug Topics.

Case reports describing lactose-intolerant patients experiencing adverse reactions to the lactose content of medications have been published over the past 30 years. The symptoms experienced were ameliorated to some degree with supplemental lactase enzymes and resolved when the patients discontinued the offending medications. Notably, the majority of patients in these cases were extremely sensitive to lactose-containing products.

While it has been reported that the amount of ingested lactose necessary to produce adverse effects varies, it generally ranges between 12 and 18 gm of lactose (approximately 8 to 12 oz of milk). Considering the fact that most oral medications contain quantities of lactose that are far less than 12 to 18 gm, one would theoretically not expect such small quantities to result in gastrointestinal symptoms. Nonetheless, the cases reported in the literature suggest that certain individuals may react to very small quantities of lactose.

In summary, it appears that most patients who are lactose intolerant can probably tolerate the quantities of lactose that are incorporated into oral drug products. However, one must keep in mind that certain highly sensitive patients may present with gastrointestinal complaints even after ingesting the small quantities of lactose found in oral medications. Furthermore, patients ingesting multiple lactose-containing medications may experience symptoms of lactose intolerance due to the cumulative lactose intake from these medications. Patients who experience adverse gastrointestinal effects after ingesting lactose-containing drug products may opt to use lactase enzyme supplementation.

I feel good in that this is exactly what I've been saying on the subject.

If taking lactase with the pills doesn't alleviate the symptoms, then the choices are fewer. You can try requesting an alternate medication or form of the original medication that does not contain lactose. This isn't always possible, though. Some medications don't have good alternatives, or the alternatives might be considerably more expensive.

Or you could try finding a Compounding Pharmacy that will make up personalized versions of the medications just for you. That link will give you contact information to help you find a compounding pharmacist in a location near you.

Lactose in Karaoke Pills. Karaoke Pills?

Lactose is a slightly sweet sugar. It's imparts just a hint of pleasant taste to counteract the bitterness of most medications. And it's cheap because it's a waste product of cheesemaking. It's inert in most ways as well. It can be packed down and retain a shape or heated to form a smooth outer coating. All in all, lactose is close to the best and most versatile filler that can be used for pills.

It's not even that big a deal for the vast majority of us who are lactose intolerant, because there's just too little lactose in any one pill to create symptoms. Medical grade lactose should be completely free of contamination by whey or casein proteins, so it would have very low reactivity for those with dairy allergies who are not anaphylactic to dairy. Those of you who are should avoid any lactose, in pill form or in foods.

So I wasn't terribly surprised to see lactose as an "inactive" ingredient in a pill. I was terribly surprised to see the pill.

The karaoke pill.

Serkan Toto, on Crunchgear.com, found The Fushigi na Karaoke Taburetto (Mysterious Karaoke Pills) at the Japanese site Rakuten.

According to the manufacturer, they treat bad breath, expand your singing range by softening the vocal cords and relieve stress. As a result, you are supposed to sing better. They promise your next performance at Karaoke will be brilliant if you take 3 pills 10 minutes before.

Take them just before you sing. Isn't that the equivalent of taking lactase pills just before you eat?

They come in packs of five pills. Since you need three at a time, one pack doesn't get you two karaokes. You only come out even if you buy three packs. Devious marketing indeed. Of course, any mind that could dream up karaoke pills has as high a level of deviousness as Donald Trump on Deal or No Deal. Why expect the ordinary?

Make Dole Whip At Home

Dole Whip is a lactose-free soft serve ice cream substitute that many people associate with vacations. Although it is available at a few other outlets, for years the main outlets on the mainland were at Disneyland and Disney World. Or you could make the trek all the way to Hawaii to find it, Hawaii being the home of Dole Foods and their pineapple-y ingenuity.

Photo by Lucky 6.9 from Wikipedia.

Today Dole Whip comes in Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Raspberry, Mango, and Orange flavors in addition to Pineapple. But it's still hard to find.

Unless you make it at home.

Unifed Enterprises Corporation in now selling 4.4 lb bags of Dole Whip soft serve dry mix for $21.95. You can get them in only four of the flavors, though: Pineapple, Raspberry, Chocolate and Vanilla. Shipping is via USPS Priority Mail only, and so adds a good deal to the final price.

The soft serve requires the use of an ice cream maker, and can be finicky. A video on that page gives a simple 20-step process, although since some of the steps include "turn the machine off" it's nowhere near as hard as 20 steps makes it sound.

Additional contact info:
Unified Enterprises Corporation
45-550 Koolau View Drive
Kaneohe, Hawaii 96744

www.uec-hawaii.com
808-235-5923
webmaster@unifiedenterprisescorp.com

Note: The soft serve mix is lactose free but not dairy free. It contains sodium caseinate.

Allergies Ban You From UK Army

How seriously is Britain taking the rise in food allergies? In Britain, as James Kirkup and Lucy Pawle reported on The Telegraph website, the Ministry of Defence has let slip the news that:

anyone with allergies to nuts, wheat, eggs and other foods is at too great a risk of coming to harm and is therefore "automatically graded as unfit for service".

Bob Ainsworth, a defence minister, said that because of the possibility of a medical emergency, it would be "highly irresponsible" of the Army to employ someone with a food allergy.

He said: "All Army personnel, regardless of their chosen trade, must be fit to serve anywhere in the world, in all environments and in all locations, where medical care may be limited or remote and medical re-supply uncertain or impossible."

He added:

"Any recruit with a past history of food allergy is automatically graded as unfit for service unless there is irrefutable evidence that they are no longer sensitive."

Lactose Intolerance Sabotages Olympics!

Or at least it did for Becky Lyne.

Becky was competing for the Olympics for Britain's track team in the 800 meter event. She came in last.

Why?

According to South Yorkshire's The Star:

"The race did not go to plan," said the former Tapton School student. "I am not happy with my performance; it was not good.

"I have struggled all season with lactose intolerance and it affected my performance - I am not sure what to do next."

Don't you just hate it when lactose intolerance keeps you out of the Olympics?

Detox Your Brain, Not Your Diet

Detox diets are the latest food fad quackery, mystic nonsense that play on consumers' fears and ignorance. Oprah is partly to blame, as she so often is. She embarked on a much-publicized 21-day vegan detox diet. Then she ate her way through Italy, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Now MSNBC.com has given ultra-huckster Mark Hyman, author of the UltraMetabolism series of cookbooks, space to spread his detox mishmash.

The bottom line is that quality is MUCH more important than quantity. Eating only whole, fresh, real food completely eliminates the need for calorie counting, or measuring fat grams or counting carbs.

This works for one simple reason — you eat not only calories but also information. Eat the wrong information and you give your genes instructions to make you fat. Eat the right information and you give your genes instructions to lose weight. This is based on an exciting new understanding of how food talks to your genes called nutrigenomics.

And it doesn’t work slowly over years, but literally in minutes.

Most doctors who aren't trying to huckster their books think that detox diets are phony. They say that the body simply doesn't work like this.

The BBC did a non-scientific test of a detox diet:

We took ten party animals to a country cottage retreat for ten days to see if a detox diet could recharge their internal batteries. The group was split into two and half the girls were put on a balanced diet, including red meat, alcohol, coffee and tea, pasta, bread, chocolate and crisps (in moderation), with the remainder following a strict vice-free diet.

Can a short, sharp shock really change the levels of toxicity in your body in just a week?

After testing the kidney and liver functions and measuring the antioxidant and aluminium levels in their blood we found there were no differences between the groups.

Of course, such a stunt test has no scientific value. But it is just as sound as the non-science that's used by the detox gurus to plug their books.

One thing most of the detox diets have in common is the magnification of dairy allergy as a problem. Very few adults have dairy allergies without knowing it, but claiming that it's a common problem that the detox diet can fix will cause the unaware to assume that any improvement they feel is the result of the elimination of that allergy.

Now it's certainly true that whole fresh food is usually good for you. And it's certainly true that most Americans eat too much of the wrong foods, dine at restaurants that pile too much fat and sugar onto plates, and snack unhealthily. You don't have to give up all food with a label to improve your diet over this. Most people who aren't food faddists can't afford to spend multiple times the money they spend today for exclusively fresh and unprocessed food, or spend the hours needed to cook these foods immediately before they spoil. Hyman and his ilk appeal to the idiot affluent, rather than the people with the documented health problems.

Don't fall for detoxing. Don't - and I know this is heresy - listen to Oprah for food advice. (You guessed it, her pet doctor Mehmet Oz is another food faddist.) Buy good foods that you can afford. Eat less, and exercise more. Don't expect your food to talk to your genes. Let your brain do its work.

Sometimes More Epinephrine Needed

Most parents of children who have truly serious, anaphylactic, food allergy reactions know to either have an epinephrine injector on them or to teach their children to always carry one when they're old enough to go off on their own.

The news service Reuters is reporting that an upcoming journal article warns that in almost 20% of cases, a single shot isn't enough. Two or even three injections are necessary.

As reported in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Dr. Kirsi M. Järvinen, from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and colleagues evaluated epinephrine use in children with food allergies by surveying the families of 413 patients.

Overall, 78 children, who were an average of 4.5 years old, were given epinephrine to treat a total of 95 reactions, the report indicates. Over 75 percent of these reactions involved peanut, tree nut, or cow's milk allergies.

Twelve (13 percent) of the reactions required two doses of epinephrine and an additional 6 (6 percent) required three doses, the researchers found.

Children who also had asthma were more likely to need multiple doses of epinephrine, whereas the amount of food eaten and delay of epinephrine treatment seemed to have no effect.

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Volume 122, Issue 1, Pages 133-138 (July 2008), "Use of multiple doses of epinephrine in food-induced anaphylaxis in children," Kirsi M. Järvinen, MD, PhD, Scott H. Sicherer, MD, Hugh A. Sampson, MD, Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, MD
abstract.

The Government Still Wants Your Vegan Recipes!

I still don't know whether it's a warning or a sign of progressive thinking, because the link gave me no information, but seeing "The Government still wants your Vegan Recipes!" on a site sure opens my eyes.

The UK's Vegan Society has a big, active, and recently redesigned website. I guess they're still getting the kinks out because some of the front page links don't do much of anything useful.

Some of the content looks good, though.

For example, the Vegan Catering for All link takes you to a 36-page color .pdf brochure that gives guidance for the beginning vegan and those who want to prepare vegan foods.

If you don' have a color printer, you can order copies from the Society via the contact information on their fron page.

They're also doing a Vegan Catering Challenge 2008, though you wouldn't know it by the website, which has no information on it.

A work in progress.

How Lactose Free Is Lactose-Free Milk?

I'm not absolutely sure why New York's Examiner.com website needs a "Seattle Parenting Examiner" but Kristy (2buzy) is filling that role for them.

She needs to examine her posts a bit more.

In Why Soy Milk Is Healthier Than Cows Milk she wrote:

Many people are lactose intolerant and will switch over to lactose-free cows milk. Trouble is it really isn't lactose-free. It actually contains an ingredient which breaks down the natural sugar leaving the milk (depending on the brand) only 70 to 99% lactose free. Soy milk on the other hand is 100% lactose free.

Soy milk is certainly 100% lactose free. But what about lactose free milk? Is it really only "70 to 99% lactose free"?

No. It really is 100% lactose free.

In the early days, we used to see lactose reduced milk, and this was indeed only 70 to 99% lactose free. Those days are long gone. I haven't seen lactose-reduced milk on the market for years.

Besides, the government has some rules companies must obey. One of them is that if a product advertises itself as lactose free, it must indeed be lactose free (within the limitations of the sensitivity of their measuring devices).

Major companies like Lactaid and Dairy Ease sell 100% lactose free milk. It really is lactose free. Kristy is wrong.

[Update. I posted this information as a comment on her page. The false information is no longer given, so apparently Kristy actually made the correction. She is the first person of all the ones that I've asked for corrections to acknowledge the error and make the change. That's admirable and much appreciated.]

More Coconut "Ice Cream"

When I did my roundup of local lactose-free foods, I mentioned Sig Wiggy's Coconut Creations.

Now I have even better news. Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss, which their website proclaims "can now be shipped direct to your door anywhere in the United States!"

As rich and creamy as premium ice cream, Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss is a satisfying, delicious, and healthy alternative to dairy and soy-based frozen desserts. Made from a base of naturally rich coconut milk and sweetened with agave syrup, Coconut Bliss is certified organic and 100% vegan.

Coconut Bliss is available in a wide variety of exciting flavors and is available in pints throughout the West and by mail order anywhere in the United States.

Coconut Bliss is dairy-free, soy-free, and gluten-free.

Grab Your Own Frozen Kefir Boutique Franchise

Back in April, I posted a press release from Lifeway Foods about, of all things, a frozen kefir boutique.

Lifeway Foods, Inc. (Nasdaq: LWAY), the country's leading manufacturer of kefir and a provider of other natural and organic dairy products, is opening its first "kefir boutique" café with the April launch of Starfruit in Chicago. The shop will offer several flavors of frozen kefir with over 20 toppings as well as customized kefir parfaits, and smoothie-style kefir drinks.

Amazingly, it must have gone over big. Lifeway announced today that it would be franchising the boutiques in response to overwhelming demand.

"Since announcing the initial opening of Starfruit, we have been bombarded with requests for franchise opportunities from all over the country," said Julie Smolyansky, President and CEO of Lifeway Foods, Inc. "Starfruit will capitalize on the renewed popularity of frozen yogurt shops while offering a healthier alternative with all the probiotic benefits of kefir and franchising the concept can help us grow the brand quickly."

If running your very own frozen kefir boutique franchise has always been your life's dream, email franchising@starfruitcafe.com or call 847-967-1010.

Lactose On Labels - And Not

Here's an email I just received.

I read labels carefully since I am very sensitive to lactose. Is it possible that contents may be changed before the label is changed? Several times I've had the typical symptoms of L.I. in products that do not indicate the presence of any lactose-containing substances.

A whole pile of issues are compressed into this short email. Let me try to sort them out.

First, to answer the direct question about change: over the years I've seen documented reports of recipes being changed but the labels lagging behind. It happens but so seldom and sporadically that it's unlikely you've encountered it personally several times.

What does happen more frequently is that a batch of food accidentally gets cross-contaminated by exposure to potential allergens during processing or that a label is incorrectly rendered. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) compile these notices and make them available to the public. Their format is not the easiest, and I'd recommend that you look at the Kids with Food Allergies Alert page for an up-to-date and readable compilation.

Of course, those notices cover all eight of the most serious allergens: milk, peanuts, nuts, eggs, soy, wheat, fish, and shellfish. Milk alerts occur only about once a month. Again, it would be rare for any one individual to consume a number of these very random products.

So that brings up the final issue. Digestive upsets have numerous causes. Even if you're lactose intolerant, other foods may cause problems for any number of reasons. If you notice a pattern in foods that normally don't contain lactose, try to determine what other food or ingredient or circumstance may be the real cause of your distress.

MetaHIT Promises Answers for the Gut

The Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT) project comes from the European Commission. It's goals are almost as lofty of that of the human genome project.

A detailed understanding of human biology will require not only knowledge of the human genome but also of the human metagenome, defined here as the ensemble of the genomes of human-associated microorganisms. Our proposal focuses on the microorganisms of the gut, which are particularly abundant and complex and have an important role for human health and well-being.

A page on their currently ongoing work by Julia Karow of In-Sequence.com shows a multi-million dollar effort with involvement from more than a dozen countries, including the U.S.

A shorter and easier to read article from The Economist summarizes some of the work, including that on Inflammatory Bowel Disease, always a concern to those of us with known intestinal issues.

Meanwhile, a $30m European Union project—the Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT)—is concentrating on the links between gut bacteria and obesity and inflammation. Research has already found a big difference between the bacteria population in the guts of fat and thin people. Moreover, when obese people went on a diet and lost up to a quarter of their body weight, their gut flora changed too, becoming more like those of the lean group. So, could giving more of the lean type of gut bacteria to fat people help them lose weight? That is one of the questions the project hopes to answer. There is evidence it may. Certain probiotics can affect the production of bile acids, which in turn affect how much fat people absorb.

MetaHIT is also looking at how metabolites in the gut influence the efficacy of drugs in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Certainly gut bacteria and inflammation are intimately entwined. Marika Kullberg of the University of York described last month how a molecule produced by one type of bacteria can calm the inflamed guts of mice.

Milk in Meats. More Than Just Non-Kosher

Recently I received this email.

I have a question. My daughter is lactose intolerant, and it seems like it is getting worse. Any little bit of something with milk products will cause abdominal bloating /diarrhea around an hour or 2 after eating.

The other day she had a hot dog (Zwiegles brand) and she had severe abdominal pain and diarrhea after that we looked at the label and were shocked to see that it contained nonfat milk in it! Have you ever heard of this? Milk in meats? How much is in there? Do you have any insight into this?

I've been writing about this problem for a long time. It gets a page of its own in my book Milk Is Not for Every Body: Living with Lactose Intolerance.

Hot dogs and many cold cuts are not made directly from hunks of beef. Butchers save end products and scraps, grind them up, pack them into cylinders, and then mix in fillers to add extra protein, texture, or taste or just to make sure that the whole mass sticks together properly. You can take these fat cylinders and slice them piece by piece to make cold cuts for sandwiches. You can take the thin cylinders, add a casing of some sort, and package them as hot dogs or wurst.

The question that concerns us is what the fillers consist of. The answer is complicated, because each brand probably uses a slightly different recipe and a slightly different set of fillers.

Milk, especially non-fat dry milk, makes an excellent filler. It's full of protein and nutrients. It's low-fat. The powder becomes sticky when wet and helps to bind the scraps together.

Any commercial cold cut might contain dry milk powder or any of a number of milk products, dry or liquid, to fill specialized needs. Turkey, pork, ham-based cold cuts suffer the same fate. The amount of milk powder needed is probably not high. The flip side is that any dry milk product contain large percentages of lactose. All dry milk consists of is protein and lactose. So even small amounts can create reactions in some extremely sensitive individuals.

This practice was much more common twenty years ago than it is today, with knowledge of lactose intolerance and dairy allergies at an all-time high. Manufacturers have been removing milk from meat for years. Apparently they still haven't gone far enough.

The answer, where practical, is to use kosher meats, hot dogs, wursts, and cold cuts. Meals that contain milk and meat don't follow the Kosher dietary laws. You can be almost completely assured that any kosher equivalent will be as completely milk-free as they can possibly guarantee. (In the real world, mistakes are occasionally made, and cross-contamination occurs because manufacturing plants may not have adequate separation between different lines of food. These happen rarely.) You just need to look for a kosher symbol or the word kosher on the package, not for the word parve. Parve foods are neutral. They can contain neither milk nor meat. Obviously cold cuts and hot dogs can't be parve. Parve's a useful guarantor of non-milk status in other kosher foods though.

Kefir Contains Lactose. Somebody Tell the Pentagon

Without going into political territory, it's no secret that the military excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq have been plagued with countless errors, of judgment, application, intelligence, and logistics.

But saying kefir doesn't contain lactose? C'mon, people, get a grip.

This isn't some politically-connected fatcat under a no-bid contract bilking our soldiers, either. It's the lofty Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), who darn well should know better.

I suppose I could blame it on their publicists. You're ahead of me: you knew a press release was behind all this.

The goal is lofty as well: giving healthier foods to soldiers in the Middle East, who have been overwhelmed with stomach ailments.

With today’s scientific advancements in nutrition, soldiers will soon be plied with candy, cookies and cakes, except these will contain probiotics, the beneficial bacteria already found in the human gut. Because they suffer from high incidences of diarrhea, U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will soon receive ice cream sandwiches, peanut butter bars and vanilla pudding desserts filled with probiotics, with the hope that good bacteria will help curb intestinal illness.

The U.S. Army Research Development Engineering Command (REDCOM) a military research and development center in Natick, MA, is developing these miracle foods. Mainly because - and this is another snafu that will boggle your mind - the military is barred from giving out vitamin pills.

Going from bad to worse, the release then descends into the bizarro world of lactose-free kefir.

They've also been experimenting with Kefir granules, the cultures used to make Kefir, a fermented dairy drink that also promotes intestinal health as well as longevity. The granules, which consist of probiotic bacteria and yeast, are shaped like a shell, making them a good delivery vehicle for nutritional supplements. Kefir is also a good source of dairy and is lactose-free.

Kefir, like yogurt, is low in lactose. The probiotic bacteria it contains should help to make it well-tolerated, even by the lactose intolerant. But kefir is simply not lactose-free, any more than yogurt is.

And the release contains a line even more depressing than what came before. None of these probiotics foods are going to the troops. They haven't even begun human trials yet. Only then - if the foods pass - will they be given to soldiers.

I can think of a better way of supporting our troops. Home cooking.

When Is a Billion Not So Many?

Ellen Kanner of the McClatchy Newspapers writes a column called The Edgy Veggie. This week's is about foods with added probiotics.

There's even a probiotic cereal, Kashi Vive ($4.49, 12 ounces). It's whole grain (wheat, rye, triticale, brown rice, barley, buckwheat, oats plus freeze-dried broccoli sprouts) with a masterly 12 fiber grams per 1-\ cup serving.

Vive's probiotics come from cultured nonfat dry milk and yogurt, appearing as little white puffballs among the flakes. It's crunchy-munchy and mildly sweet, with 170 calories, 2.5 fat grams and a billion probiotics.

A billion's nothing, babe. Lifeway, your kefir king, has developed SoyTreat ($3.40, 32 ounces), an organic soy kefir with up to 10 billion probiotics per 8-ounce serving.

Kanner is clearly impressed by big numbers, and at first glance 10 billion sounds like a mighty big number.

It isn't. It's probably nowhere big enough.

The bacteria in cultures are incredibly tiny. Ten billion of them is less than a pinpoint. Spreading those ten billion out over eight ounces means that the number per gram - the more usual scientific measure - gives you a number too small to be impressive. I'll do the math. One ounce equals 28.375 grams. Eight ounces is 227 grams. That puts the count at about 44 million per gram.

For comparison I looked up some random yogurts and probiotic capsules to see what their counts were.

Dr. Thomas E. Radecki gave the results of tests on his Modern Psychiatry site:

Astro BioBest yogurt - 794 million live bacterial cultures per gram (175 grams per container or 139 billion per container

Organic Meadow yogurt - 100 million per gram

Danone yogurt 180 million per gram or 32 billion per container

These counts were for the freshest possible yogurt. You can assume that a minimum of two-thirds of the cultures will die off by the end of the shelf life printed on the carton.

Probiotics capsules have far higher concentrations. Of course they have to: you're only going to take one capsule, not eat a whole container.

A site called Custom Probiotics came up first in a Google search. These are merely their claims on their site, which I am using for comparison, not as an endorsement in any way.

1. L. Acidophilus, 150 billion per gram.
2. L. Rhamnosus 200 billion per gram.
3. L. Salivarius, 100 billion per gram.
4. L. Plantarum, 400 billion per gram.
5. B. Lactis, B. Bifidum or B. Infantis, 400 billion per gram.

44 million a gram? Piffle. These contain almost a thousand times as many.

So don't get taken in by mere large numbers. If you're not getting your probiotics by the multiple billions, you're probably not getting enough to do you any good.

A Quiz About Eating Dairy Products

Gwen Schoen of the McClatchy Newspapers has a quiz on dairy products, taken from the eatright.org site of the American Dietetic Association.

It's too short to excerpt and too long to copy in full, so I'm just going to point you to the original and let you take the quiz there.