4 STEPS TO QUITTING DAIRY

I hope you are now ready to let go of dairy forever! If not, here’s the slower route:

Week one

The lactose (sugar) in milk fuels your sugar addiction so step one is to discontinue milk and use a substitute such as coconut milk, or even coconut cream, or homemade almond milk (make it yourself; the bought version contains nasty additives). If you can’t go cold turkey mix 50% nut milk with 50% cow’s milk but it’s best to transition immediately to almond or coconut milk. Do this for a week and I guarantee you’ll love it in no time at all. Put it in tea, coffee, or wherever you previously used cow’s milk. Extra encouragement for those wanting to shed a few kilos: homemade almond milk contains 0.6g carbs per cup, full-fat milk contains 11.49g carbs per cup and skimmed milk contains even more. Cut down on cheese this week by a third.

Week two

Try coconut cream instead of yoghurt at breakfast – it’s a lot more satiating, doesn’t contain hormones or carbs and, if you add some berries or nuts, it’s utterly delicious. Better yet, change to eggs for breakfast to give you the necessary nutrition and energy for the day. Eat cheese only every second day this week and no more milk from this week onwards, just the alternatives.

Week three

Limit cheese to the weekend – and either keep it that way or stop altogether. If you can’t bear not to have it reserve a sprinkling of grated cheese for weekends. If you have dairy infrequently and are relatively healthy you won’t experience side effects from limited exposure.

Week four

If you must have ice cream you can make it from coconut milk and nut milks – the taste is almost identical. Find good Paleo/low-carb recipes on the internet. Cut out all dairy other than butter. Next, stay off all dairy for a full four weeks and keep a journal of your wellbeing. You’ll be surprised at how well you feel!