Studies show that overall, about 75% of people on this earth are lactose intolerant. Now, based on personal experience, I’d guess that about 25% of those lactose intolerants follow “the rules” and stay away from dairy, while the other 50% eat pizza and ice-cream on the reg. Let’s not lie to ourselves–it’s worth the ailing stomach and unruly gas. Regardless of which side of the lactose intolerant spectrum you fall on, if you’re a part of the dairy-free statistic, you’ve probably crossed paths with some of these daily struggles:
1. Paying more for your café drinks to taste worse.
I don’t know about you, but paying 75¢ extra for a milk alternative really gets me going. It’s not only the fact that lattes and other café beverages already cost around $4.00, it’s that substitutes for milk have, more often than not, made my drinks taste like foot.
2. Forgetting your Lactaid.
Lactaid–a product containing natural, dairy-digesting enzymes–is a lactose intolerant’s best friend. Without it, we’re nothing, and the delicious, dairy-filled world fills us with indigestion, bloating, and shamelessly boisterous bowels.
3. Eating pizza is a major ordeal.
There’s a mental checklist lactose intolerants have to go through before consuming something as tasty as pizza: 1. Will I be around anyone important in a few hours when it’s digesting? 2. If the answer’s yes, can I cancel those plans? 3. Is it worth it anyways? (Spoiler: the answer to #3 is always yes).
4. The fact that almost everything has some amount of dairy in it.
Ice cream? Dairy. Cheese? Dairy. Cream cheese? Dairy. Chocolate? Dairy. Alfredo sauce? Dairy. Frosting? Dairy. Frozen yogurt? Dairy. Butter? Dairy. And the list goes on…
5. Dealing with the way people pretend that methane-releasing cow farts are the main contribution to global warming.
We all know it’s really you, lactose intolerants.