Dairy Free Cheese
This is a collaborative post
If you look through my social media posts you’ll see lots of lovely smiley pictures of our adorable three-year-old, Austin. As they always say, social media doesn’t tell the whole story and it’s only a slice of what’s actually going on. Austin has an undiagnosed condition which makes him sick a lot of the time. It’s currently undiagnosed as he is under the care of a specialist who is helping us to figure out what is making him sick.
One of the things we have been asked to try is to exclude dairy from Austin’s diet. So currently we’ve removed all food which could contain anything dairy from his meals and snacks. Having never suffered from food allergies, I had to do a lot of research to ensure that I was giving him the right products – especially as he’s a growing toddler and still needs all the same things that other toddlers need. I had a lot of help from a good friend of mine (thanks Jez) who advised me on what might contain dairy and what else to look for. Now I’ve got a good idea of what Austin can and can’t eat, even before looking at the packet. You’d be surprised what has cow’s milk in it – some bread and crisps!
One thing that I can be sure of, is that anything vegan will be suitable for him to eat as vegan food definitely does not contain cow’s milk. Violife has a great range of vegan cheese which is so handy for us as Austin loves cheese. They do cheese slices, grated cheese, blocks of cheese and even a round camembert style – perfect for dipping crusty bread into it. I find the grated cheese really useful as it’s so handy for popping in sandwiches or using to make a pasta sauce. As it is made using coconut oil it melts well, so when I combine it with some of our stir-fried homegrown veg, it makes a very quick and cheesy vegetable sauce for pasta.
One thing I have struggled with since we had to move Austin to a dairy free diet is to give him an interesting range of puddings. He generally gets fruit and yoghurt for pudding, but I do like to offer him a treat of a piece of cake, fruit with custard or some kind of chocolately dessert but with dairy being off the cards, we’ve had to substitute and get a bit more creative. The Violife website has lots of lovely dairy-free dessert ideas as well as many other vegan recipes. I love the look of these blackberry mini changecakes – they are perfect portion sizes for little ones like Austin, plus we can use our homegrown blackberries.
So if you are looking for vegan cheese or simply just some vegan recipe inspiration there are lots of great ideas out there, check out the Violife website and range.
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