Dairy Products

There are many dairy products that you can easily eat. But, as with everything else, you do need to be careful. Not every dairy product is low in sodium. Cheese is one of the highest sodium foods out there, and your days of eating tons of cheese are likely over. That was a very difficult transition for me. There are alternatives, but honestly, they are not as good as really good cheese. But I would rather not have really good cheese, and not be sick.

There are some cheeses you can have in small quantities:

• Fresh Mozzarella
• Goat Cheese
• Swiss Cheese
• Parmesan

Everything else in the kosher cheese arena is pretty much off limits for us KosherLoSo folks.

You also need to be careful with, believe it or not, milk. One cup of fat free milk has 125 mg of sodium. I couldn't believe it when I saw that. It's a good thing I checked! Almond or Coconut milk are actually both better choices -- and luckily they are very trendy right now. You can usually order them at a cafe with your coffee. Even better, they are Pareve, so your Shabbat afternoon coffee is saved.

There are several brands of unsalted butter as well. When making a dairy dish, Breakstone's Unsalted Butter works well. For a Pareve option, Smart Balance has a Low Sodium Whipped Buttery Spread. I use this when I have a recipe that calls for sauteing, and it is a small amount of butter/margarine being used. I don't love using margarine, as it is not the healthiest. It is a bit of a conflict -- You can easily find an unsalted Pareve margarine, which is great for the sodium count, but it really doesn't help in the cholesterol department (or any other health criteria!)

Cream Cheese is pretty low in sodium. So if you have a salt free bagel, and cream cheese, it is not a bad low sodium choice. (Whatever you do, DO NOT add lox to this!) You do need to watch the volume of cream cheese that you eat. 2 Tbsp of Temptee Whipped Cream Cheese is 65mg of sodium, which is really fine -- IF you only eat 2 Tbsp. But if you go to a bagel store and get a bagel and cream cheese, we all know how much cream cheese they dump on that bagel. It could probably be the equivalent to 3 or 4 times that, which will quickly up your sodium. You should also be checking the sodium on every brand -- they are all different. Philadelphia Cream Cheese is 125 mg of sodium for the same 2 Tbsp -- this is more than Temptee.

The key with dairy products is to never assume! Many are OK -- many are not. And of course, always watch your serving sizes!