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Lactose Intolerant on the Camino

BamaVol

Member
Time of past OR future Camino
Planning our first for May (2016)
I can't digest dairy products. I can get by in restaurants at home by scanning menus or requesting that the cheese be left off a sandwich or asking for the grill to be cleaned of butter before they fry my eggs. In a pinch, I can eat any meal listed as vegan, although I have no need to avoid eggs, meat or fish. Does anyone have any experience avoiding dairy in restaurants along the Way?
 
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Sorry, no experience with lactose, but I think it would be pretty simple.
Also, the food in Spain is much cleaner than the food we have here in the USA.
I'm intolerant of wheat here, but can eat all I want in Spain.

Anyway, I think if you are careful, you will be just fine.
Most of the pilgrim plates are choices of ensalada mixta or macaroni (I'd avoid the macaroni unless it is a red sauce), some type of meat (no milk there) or fish (ditto), and a vegetable.
If you do a little research on menu items in Spanish you shouldn't have much trouble.
 

Thanks for the encouragement. It's a shame to miss some of the culinary highlights of the trip but better safe than sorry. I feel so much better since I was correctly diagnosed. My body is simply unable to digest the lactose that is naturally found in dairy products. But there are days when I am tempted by a slice of pizza. Non-dairy cheese is yucky. There are okay substitutes for most everything else - lactose free milk, yogurt, ice cream.
 
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Luckily, there are awesome desserts in Spain made from eggs and flour and fruit! YUM!
 

Pity you will have to pass on the cafe con leche, but at least know that olive oil is the oil/grease of choice, not butter, so that will make things easier. I remember asking someone how many liters of oil he would go through in a year (single male) and he said 15!!!!!

You will not see meals listed as being vegan, but pork a la plancha, seved with fried potatoes and a bit of tomato being your typical pilgrim meal, you'll be ok. Same with espageti. Desert will be trickier as flan is made with milk (sorry you'll miss that), and yogourt is often offered, but so is fresh fruit. As for sandwiches (aka bocadillos) they seldom have anything in them other than the protein you have chosen: no butter, no nothing ;0) so easy to eat, if you can manage to eat that dry stale bread found in so many places.

Tarta de Santiago: any milk in there? Soooo gooood... I hope for you it does not.
 
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Thanks for your response. I am comfortable I can survive. You've made it sound like I actually might enjoy a few meals. We subsist on fruit vegetables and some fish and chicken at home. My wife makes up for all the dairy I don't eat with cheese and daily yogurt.
 
I suggest you try a cafe con leche before your journey starts. As you know most Asians are lactose intolerant too and I grew up with reconstituted milk. I noticed that the milk they use in Spain are that judging from the square packaging of the milk and the fact that they don't need to be refrigerated. I may have built up some tolerance to lactose over the years that I don't know. No problem for me. Still it is best for you to test it in a controlled environment when you get to Spain. If it is okay and if they use the same milk all their dairy products, then you might actually have a even better time in terms of choices of food there. I said that also because I noticed the cold section in the supermarket are mainly for cheese and yogurt while the milk are all outside the fridge area.
 
UHT milk is not reconstituted milk but milk heated to Ultra High Temperatures, and increased temperature does not have an effect on lactose.
 
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Anemone del Camino said:
UHT milk is not reconstituted milk but milk heated to Ultra High Temperatures, and increased temperature does not have an effect on lactose.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will avoid all milk unless I see a clear indication on the container that it is lactose free. Lactose intolerance is common in places where dairy products are seldom consumed, like in many parts of Asia. In places like the Netherlands or Wisconsin it would be much more uncommon. I was unsure about Spain's love for dairy.

There are lactase pills (the enzyme my body forgot how to make) I can take but it's hit or miss for me. It's one thing when you can read a box label or read a menu, quite another when the menus are in another language or someone just places a plate of food in front of you.

I will compile a list of safe foods before I leave and try to stick to what I know to be safe.
 
Also consider carrying a card that reads, in Spanish: "I am highly allergic to all kinds of milk and milk products. Can you please help me with my food selection?"

Something on the lines of "Soy muy alérgico a leche y productos lácteos. ¿Me puede ayudar, por favor con mi selección de alimentos? "

Hope that helps, SY
 
Butter is rarely used as a grease for cooking in Spain. Usually, the grease used is olive oil although you may find places along the route using sunflower oil because it's cheaper. You find cheese on pizzas and some pasta dishes but otherwise you aren't too likely to find dishes including cheese (maybe the main exception would be meat with cheese sauce)... Avoid anything with bechamel (btw, croquetas are most/many times made with bechamel) as well as dishes where you read "gratinado" or "gratinada" (cheese and/or bechamel are commonly used on "gratinados"). In other words, you shouldn't have (big) problems to avoid dairy products but ask beforehand to know for sure whether a dish has anything dairy or not (specially on desserts).

BamaVol said:
You've made it sound like I actually might enjoy a few meals.
Click to expand...

Sure! You should be fine eating patatas a la riojana, menestra de verduras, morcilla, cecina, pulpo a la gallega (aka polbo á feira or pulpo a feira), anything "a la plancha" or "rebozado/rebozada" accompanied with salad or fried potatoes...

Anemone del Camino said:
Tarta de Santiago: any milk in there?
Click to expand...

Not milk there but butter is used (sometimes) to spread (is that the correct verb?) the cooking mold so be sure to ask before trying it.
 
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Perfect. I'll quote you.
 
Castilian said:
Sure! You should be fine eating patatas a la riojana, menestra de verduras, morcilla, cecina, pulpo a la gallega (aka polbo á feira or pulpo a feira), anything "a la plancha" or "rebozado/rebozada" accompanied with salad or fried potatoes...
Click to expand...

It sounds like the Spanish people are not as fast to throw cheese on everything as we are here in the States. I've sent a lot of salads back to the kitchen when they showed up smothered in shredded cheese. It's practically impossible to pick out and I sometimes forget to ask if the menu doesn't remind me. If I couldn't communicate, the average US menu would be something like 90% off limits to me - and given my weak spanish skills, I worried about that being the case on the Camino. Looks like my worries are mostly unfounded.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond.
 
 
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I think you're ok with most dishes in Spain or Portugal. Occasionally some sauces might have cream or some things may be cooked with margerine/butter.
Many deserts though will have butter, like puff and filo pastries and cakes will have cream or yogurt.
However there are many alternatives, so you won't have a problem.
 
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