The Dairy Diaries – Part 2

I just had a huge panic attack – chocolate! Can you eat that if you are avoiding dairy?? I don’t eat masses of chocolate but a couple of squares of dark chocolate in the evening is really nice. A quick google search reveals that if you avoid the milk chocolate (duh :-)), stick to dark chocolates and most are totally dairy free. Phew.

You will be pleased to hear that since the last “Dairy Diaries” post I have managed to maintain my “no egg” regime. I did however, have a slight misdemeanour with on the milk front. We went to Starbucks for takeout, not very exciting but a rare outing during lockdown mode in Jakarta. I looked at the soy milk option on the menu… and caved. I ordered the vanilla sweet cream cold brew, less milk than a normal latte, but still a fail. I made up for it later in the week, with an almond milk latte from Beau Bakery which was more than acceptable. Let’s see how this next week goes.

The next thing I decided to tackle was butter. On the face of it an easy switch as sunflower and olive oil margarines are usually available. But margarine has such a dreary image, so I have actually just cut butter out altogether, and have since found that with nice bread, (Beau’s grain sough dough or ciabatta breads are divine), you really don’t need butter after all. I have used a little butter in cooking, particularly for sauces, which I will try and replace with oil in future. The big test will be once I am back travelling again – can I stay away from the croissants and pastries? Watch this space. But as I don’t eat those at home, I can avoid that hurdle for a bit longer. Overall I reckon that’s tick for a 90% reduction in butter consumption.

Before I go on, here’s some facts about dairy farming. The Kiwi’s amongst my readers will be familiar with the environmental impacts of dairy farming, with many of New Zealand’s rivers having seriously degraded ecosystems from 5 million cows required to make diary products the top export earner for the country. (As an aside the sheep numbers are well down from “peak sheep” of 70 million, with now only around 25 million). But New Zealand is a small contributor globally as there are currently over 270 million diary cows around the world. As people in developing countries become more affluent, the demand for dairy products is rising significantly. Quite aside from the greenhouse gases that all those cows produce, dairy farms are significant polluters of watercourses, and a huge amount of grain is grown just to feed cows. According to WWF a dairy cow consumes 100 pounds of food a day, produces 17 gallons of manure and urine a day, and it takes 141 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk. Sorry for the sermon, just thought I’d remind you why I’m doing this. Any reduction in dairy consumption has to be good for the planet.

So on to the next dairy challenge – yoghurt. I don’t eat sweet fruit yoghurts, but I do like plain greek yoghurt in the morning. Initially, I was preparing myself to just cut it out completely, then a friend told me about coconut yoghurt. I wasn’t sure I’d find any in Jakarta, where there is not a large vegan community. But low and behold, Good Gut is a great local brand and widely available. Coconut yoghurt is not as creamy and a little more solid than dairy yoghurt, but its very tasty and a more than acceptable alternative. I also tried the Good Gut almond yoghurt. The almond yoghurt has a very smooth texture, but is much firmer than coconut or dairy yoghurt. Overall I prefer the coconut yoghurt, and will happily stick with it. Dairy yoghurt – 100% gone!

Of course, I am very mindful that these are unusual times. It is very easy to make some of these changes when you are at home 24/7, never eating out and completely in control of your diet, from supermarket to kitchen to table. The real test, both of my resolve, and of the options available in Jakarta, will come once the restaurants and cafes are fully open, and when I start travelling again. We currently have at least another 2 weeks of lockdown ahead of us, and who knows what will happen after that, so maybe I can “lockdown” some habits that will see me through for the long term.

The Dairy Diaries, to be continued…