Best Cheeses If You’re Lactose Intolerant
If you are lactose intolerant, you might think you are cursed to live without cheese, but not all cheeses contain high levels of this problematic sugar. To find out which cheeses are still your friends (and which ones will get you in trouble), just take a look at the nutritional label.
Reduce lactose levels
Lactose is a sugar found in milk, so if it’s causing you stomach problems, the fewer grams of sugar on the label, the better. Compare, for example, 0.2 grams in cheddar cheese to 6 grams in feta cheese. Wegmans Store Chain ( via I Hate You Milk ) says:
The easiest way to check the lactose content of cheese is to look at the nutritional information in the Sugar section. Since the sugar in cheese is lactose, you can easily see how much lactose is in the cheese. If the sugar is listed as zero, then the cheese contains no more than half a gram of lactose per ounce. Compare to 12 grams of lactose per 8 ounces of milk.
Trace cheese (less than 0.5 grams of lactose). Naturally aged cheese (such as cheddar, parmesan and Swiss cheese) can be digested by many people with lactose intolerance. During the cheese making process, most of the lactose is merged with the whey (liquid portion). The small amount that remains in the curd is converted to lactic acid during the ripening (aging) of the cheese. Only a trace of lactose remains.
Low lactose cheese (less than 5 grams). Fresh unripe cheese (such as mozzarella, cream cheese, and ricotta) is not aged. Only part of the lactose remaining in the curd can be converted to lactic acid. Curd, which is also fresh unripe cheese, usually contains milk or cream mixed with curd. Consequently, fresh cheeses contain more lactose than aged cheeses.
Processed cheese products and cheese spreads are made by melting natural cheese to stop the aging process and then adding other ingredients, including whey or milk. Cheese products and cheese spreads contain lactose.
Look for aged, rather than young, cheeses with less than 5 grams of sugar per serving. Dairy guru Steve Carper also offers another rule of thumb: the higher the fat content, the lower the lactose level (usually). He also has a large list of the percentage of lactose in dairy products for your reference , and IBS Free has another (PDF) list with the gram of lactose.
Avoid dairy products completely
If you want to completely eliminate lactose, try to completely eliminate dairy products. Thanks to advances in science and cashews, many very good artificial cheeses have become available. Kite Hill and Miyoko’s make great soft, spreadable, dairy-free takes that taste great both by recipe and by themselves. If you want something that feels right at home on a cheese board, try Miyoko’s Vegan Wheels . If you want something for lasagne, try Kite Hill’s Ricotta Hollow . (Both companies make great substitutes for cream cheese.) If you want to grill cheese without milk, try Field Roast’s Vegan Chao Slices , which melt and stretch on par with Kraft singles. American singles only contain one gram of lactose per slice – technically at the “low” end of the spectrum – but it might be worth skipping them if you’re particularly sensitive (or like more than one slice of fried cheese).
This story was originally published in April 2014 and updated on November 5, 2020. Changes from the original include the addition of dairy-free options and edits to bring content in line with current Lifehacker style guidelines.