Smoke and mirrors

Our oldest is experimenting with the idea that he may be lactose intolerant. Of course the 43 year old in me would like to say that this is an easy fix; just don’t consume products with lactose. Seems simple. I can’t recall the last time I actually had a class of milk, and I can ‘tolerate’ ice cream in small doses. When I do get an upset gut after eating ice cream, I’m ok with it, because that is the price that I am willing to pay. Two years ago I shared my thoughts on milk here.

But he loves him some milk, and isn’t ready to give it up. Fair enough. So now he’s gotta find some alternatives, or some sort of product that will allow him to continue to enjoy his milk.

He’s just started to drink coffee (he’s 19), and at first was very distraught about not being able to have coffee anymore. (I find this funny, because a year or so ago, life was perfectly fine without it. Now, though, he was actually upset about ‘not being able to have it’. Umm…black? oh, right. I’m 43….). So Tracey and I reminded him that Coffee-Mate is a NON-dairy creamer (read: chemical sh!t storm), and he was ok with that. Whew…

Next he tried some Lactaid (milk?) product. I hesitate to call it milk. Being the curious person that I am, I decided to look up the product on the web (www.lactaid.com). I poked around, trying to find out HOW they removed the lactose from milk to end up with their final products.

I couldn’t find it anywhere. All I could find were testimonials about how great the products are, etc. Nothing saying HOW IT IS MADE. Is it a chemical process? Dunno. Is it enzymatic? Dunno. But I DID find a place where I could write to customer service.

I did. I asked them to please explain their lactose liberating process. Here is the reply that I received:

“Dear Gene:
Thank you for contacting McNeil Nutritionals, LLC.  We appreciate your interest in our company.
We are very sorry, but our company policy prohibits disclosing this type of information. Most of our research, marketing and sales information is proprietary, as is information regarding our ingredient percentages and formulations of individual products.”

I call BS. If you are a company that ALTERS FOOD, the public SHOULD KNOW HOW YOU DO IT. I don’t need to know the exact ingredients in your chemical soup, but I would like to know if it is a chemical process, heat process, enzyme process, or simply smoke and mirrors. Hiding behind a corporate ‘policy’ of non disclosure should no longer be sufficient.

What say you?

Be Well, Do Great Things