Bactose Probiotics- Do These Lactase Producing Capsules Actually Work?

Bactose is a company that produces capsules that claim to produce lactase enzymes for people who are lactose intolerant. These capsules are exclusively sold on Amazon, as far as I could see from searching the web.

Found on the Bactose Amazon store front.

What are their claims?

“Throw Away Your Lactase Pills! A probiotic that actively produces excess lactase enzymes directly in the gut helping your body naturally digest lactose.”

“Use only 7 days, Bactose works the entire month.”

“L. Acidophilus super strain- Our unique strain does an amazing job at digesting lactose.”

“Eat the Foods you love! No longer worry about foods that contain dairy.”

“Healthier gut. It’s not just for dairy- it’s super for gut health.”

“BACTOSE DOESN’T CONTAIN LACTASE, IT PRODUCES IT! Bactose is a L. Acidophilus Super Strain that works like little factories producing excess Lactase enzymes directly in the gut and adheres better to the intestinal lining where it does its work, effectively creating a one of a kind Lactose Intolerance Supplement.”

– Found on the Bactose Amazon store page.

Understandably, I was equally excited and skeptical when I first heard about this product. They make some bold claims when it comes to helping people with lactose intolerance.

There are lots of people out there with varying degrees of lactose intolerance, yet it doesn’t mention anything about that. There isn’t an option for a stronger or a weaker dose based off of how much dairy you can handle. This seemed strange to me, since people have to figure out how many lactase pills to eat at a certain meal for an allotted amount of dairy. It’s hard for me to believe that one “miracle” probiotic can help every lactose-intolerant person out there.

Since Bactose is a dietary supplement, it has not been approved by the FDA, and so Bactose doesn’t claim to fix or cure lactose intolerance.

Bactose claims that dairy is no longer a concern, but it made me wonder- how well does it work? Can I have half of a pizza and then a scoop of ice cream without negative effects? Or do I have to make sure to not eat too much dairy at one time?

After deliberating for a few weeks, I decided to take the plunge and try it out for a month.

My Experience with Bactose

I ordered the probiotics on Amazon and they came within the next week. I started taking them, one capsule with breakfast and one with dinner, for 7 days.

I then tentatively started trying dairy products out to see how much it actually helped- or if it was all the placebo effect.

Ice cream was first, and I didn’t have any of my usual side effects. However, if I had large amounts of cheese or milk, I felt very uncomfortable. Not as bad as I would have without any lactase at all, but I definitely noticed the gas. (As did my hubby- sorry, honey!)

I continued to test the limits with my newfound freedom and learned how much dairy I could comfortably eat in a day. It was a relief to not have to check everything for dairy or carry lactase pills with me at all times.

The Bactose Amazon store front claims that the effects can last up to a month, but some people might find that the effects end sooner than that. Unfortunately, I was one of the people that found the effects wearing off within three weeks of taking the pills.

How Much Does Bactose Cost?

A pack of 14 Bactose capsules costs $34.99 on Amazon. That’s $2.50 a capsule- Ouch! It’s pretty expensive to it’s counterpart, lactase pills.

That being said, lactase pills have to be taken with every meal, snack, or dessert that contains dairy. Bactose only has to be taken every three to four weeks. So if a person is eating dairy in every meal, Bactose would be more cost effective for them. I tend to eat lactose-free dairy or occasionally use lactase tablets, so buying bactose isn’t as useful for me.

Is Bactose Worth it?

Personally, I don’t know that I would buy Bactose again. It’s pretty expensive and it doesn’t last the claimed four weeks, at least for me. While it was a relief to not have to worry about what was in my food, it was frustrating that I could only eat so much dairy. The way that Bactose advertised the capsules made me think I could eat dairy like my husband does, but no dice.

Maybe for other people that don’t have as severe lactose intolerance, this probiotic would work really well for them. If you decide to try out Bactose, let me know about your experience!

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Dairy-Free Pie Crust

Pie crust is a versatile ingredient in so many recipes- pot pie, pumpkin pie, quiche, and the list goes on! Who doesn’t enjoy a good pie crust? I particularly love this recipe because of the addition of vinegar. I dislike sweet pie crusts, especially paired with a sweet filling. The slight zing of the vinegar makes everything I put in the pie crust delicious!

My family has used this pie crust for my whole life- and I know why! It’s flakey, delicious, and cheap to make. Best of all, it is dairy-free!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of flour
• 2 cups and 2 tablespoons of shortening
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• Water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Whisk the flour and salt together.
3. Add the shortening and cut it into the flour mixture with a fork until the shortening is about pea size. Be sure to not work it too much, otherwise it will turn into a strange clump of dough and won’t be flakey.
4. Crack the egg into a liquid measuring cup and add the vinegar. Beat it slightly, then fill up to the 1 cup line with water.
5. Pour the liquid slowly into the flour and shortening mixture and stir until it becomes a dough. It might be slightly crumbly, but that is normal. You might be tempted to add more liquid, but I promise it’s enough! Try not to stir it too much or the pie crust will become tough.
6. Dump the dough out onto the floured counter (Or some parchment paper) and roll it out to the size and shape of your pie tin. It should make three or four 8-9 inch pie crusts. The more times you roll it out, the tougher it becomes.
7. Place the pie crusts into greased pie tins and poke holes with a fork all over the crust. If you have dry beans or baking weights add them on top of parchment paper and place them in the pie crust for the first 10 minutes of baking. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Let the pie crusts cool and fill with your favorite filling. In these pictures, I chose to use banana cream filling! Yum!

Side notes:

• As I said, the more you mess with the dough, the tougher it will become. I try to roll out each individual pie crust only once and fold the extra dough down into the pie crust to make pretty edges.
• One of my family’s favorite ways to use the last bits and pieces of pie dough is to place them on cookie sheets and liberally sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and then bake them for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees. A delicious way to use up leftover dough! (And it pairs wonderfully with warm homemade pudding!)

Easy DIY Lactose-Free Milk

This is less of a recipe and more of a life hack to save money- and your stomach! Milk is used in so many ways that it’s hard to cut out of my diet. My husband prefers me to use milk over milk alternatives when baking, and truthfully, so do I.

Of course, I enjoy a good bowl of cereal with some chocolate almond milk, but it’s hard to convince my husband that almond milk is tasty.

So I turn to lactose-free milk instead of dairy alternatives but it gets expensive. That’s why I decided to make it myself. It’s super easy and cheaper!

Now I don’t have to worry about buying two kinds of milk every week for my husband and me. Such a relief!

If you are like me, you need a nice glass of milk with just-out-of-the-oven cookies. Now you can have that creamy milk without worrying about paying more than you actually need to!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 Gallon of milk
• 2-4 tablets/ drops/ caplets of lactase

Directions:

1. Take 2-4 tablets/ caplets/ drops of lactase and put them into your milk. Shake the milk well and let it sit for at least 24 hours. If needed, let the milk remain in the fridge for up to 4 days before using.

Side Notes:

• This recipe does need you to know how sensitive you are to lactose. If I put two tablets of lactase into a gallon of milk, I can use it within 24 hours. But other people might need to wait 3 or 4 days before using it.
• If you use lactase tablets, I recommend crushing them up before putting them into the milk. If you use caplets, I would open the caplet and put the powder directly into the milk. I haven’t used lactase drops before, but I know that you can buy them on Amazon. Let me know if you use them and what your experience is like!
• On occasion we see some funky clumps of milk, but it has never bothered us. I am guessing it has to do with something the tablets or caplets have in them. If this would bother you, I would recommend buying the lactase droplets instead. (Although I don’t know if it eliminates the lumps because I haven’t used them before.)

How to Make Homemade Lactose-Free Butter

When I figured out that all of my stomach distress was from lactose, I was pretty devastated. Dairy, especially butter, is one of the main flavors in many recipes. And I looove butter- buttered toast, brown butter blondies. and the list goes on.
 Taking lactase pills is always an option, and I do use them often, but it makes eating far more expensive than I would like it to be. It’s frustrating having to worry about what is in each and every meal I eat. I kept my meals dairy-free for a while, but it is hard to get the right texture and flavor when baking with dairy substitutes. 
 I have looked into buying lactose-free butter, but I don’t have any local options, and shipping it to my house is far too expensive.
 My husband encouraged me to find a way to be able to use actual butter instead of substitutes. I happened to stumble upon a video of how to make butter, and the gears started to turn. I had been adding two pills of lactase to a gallon of milk for a couple of weeks at this point. It was cheaper to have a whole gallon of DIY lactose-free milk and share it with my husband than to have a half-gallon of store-bought lactose-free milk for myself and a gallon of regular milk for my husband. (Do all husbands like milk that much?)

So I started to experiment. I added one or two lactase pills to a half-gallon of cream and let it sit for at least 24 hours in the fridge.  

Then I churned it into butter and I didn’t have any… ahem… issues. It was wonderful to have real, creamy, delicious butter without the unwanted side effects. 

The hard part about this recipe is knowing how much lactase to add. I am generally okay if I put one lactase pill into the half-gallon of cream, but other people who struggle more with lactose may need to add a couple more pills or a couple extra days in the fridge.

Side Notes:
The buttermilk will thicken as it sits in the fridge, but I wouldn’t use it if it has clumps in it. I generally use the buttermilk the week that I make the butter to be safe. I really like making buttermilk biscuits to use it up.  
Making lactose-free butter at home is wonderful and I recommend it- however- please, please take time to understand your body and how lactose-intolerant you are. Even though I would love to be able to tell you the exact amount of lactase to use in this recipe, it is truly up to you and your body. Please be safe!
I have been able to leave the cream in the fridge for up to a week before churning it into butter without any issues. I don’t know that I would let it sit for longer than that.
Smell something kind of sour while churning the cream? Don’t worry, that’s normal. My husband doesn’t like to be in the kitchen when I am making butter because of the smell.
The butter can last up to a month in the fridge and longer in the freezer. I wouldn’t leave the butter out on the counter. Making it at home makes it go bad sooner if you leave it out at room temperature. 

Recipe 

Ingredients:
Half-gallon of heavy whipping cream
1-4 lactase pills 
Tools needed:
Hand-Mixer, Stand-Mixer, or Whisk and Large Bowl
Sieve
Spatula
Jars
Measuring cups
Silicone molds (Optional) 

Directions:
Place one to four lactase pills into the half-gallon of cream and shake it. Let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours and up to a week.

Whenever you are ready to churn the cream, put it in your mixer and let it churn for 20-45 minutes. It’s easy for me to let it do its own thing in my bosch, but you will want to keep an eye on it if you are using a kitchen aid or a hand mixer. Wipe down the sides of the bowl occassionaly to incorporate all of the cream together. 

It will look like regular whipped cream after a couple of minutes. It will start to thicken and condense as you continue to whip it.

It will gradually take on a lovely light yellow color when it gets closer to being butter. But don’t stop there! Keep going until it completely separates into clumps of smooth yellow butter and watery buttermilk. The buttermilk you get from the store is different from the buttermilk you get from this process. It starts out watery and slowly thickens up in the fridge.

Once it is separated, set out your jar, seive, and funnel. 

Slowly pour the buttermilk through the sieve, trying to keep too much butter from clogging up the sieve.

Once you have the majority of the buttermilk separated out, start taking clumps of the butter and putting them into a smaller separate bowl. Press the butter against the side of the bowl to press the remaining buttermilk out. As you press out the buttermilk, add it to the jar of buttermilk. Then rinse the butter with cold milk. The less buttermilk in the butter, the longer the butter will stay fresh. I generally split my batch of butter into 1/3 of salted butter and 2/3 of unsalted butter. 

I just so happened to have these silicon pumpkin molds that perfectly hold 1/4 cups of butter! I like to measure the unsalted butter into 1/4 cup amounts because it’s easy to take it out of the freezer for recipes when I need it. I have also simply pressed the butter into a 1/4 measuring cup and scooped it out on to a baking tray. I generally let the butter on the tray sit in the freezer for fifteen minutes or until they are firm enough to play into a bag or container without mushing together. I had to wait a bit longer on the butter in the silicone molds so they would come out of the mold nicely.

And voila! You have your own lactose-free butter. Enjoy!

Lactose-Free vs. Dairy-Free

Some people don’t think there is a difference between dairy-free and lactose-free, but there is! Lactose-free products are still the dairy we know and love, just without the pesky lactose. Dairy-free alternatives (almond milk, coconut yogurt, nut cheese) are obviously dairy and lactose-free.

Dairy adds flavor, texture, and color to many recipes that just isn’t the same without it. That’s why certain recipes don’t work without the dairy-free counterparts. If I have the option, I use lactose-free products in baking because I prefer it.

Don’t despair if you have a milk allergy! There are still many wonderful ways to use dairy-free alternatives. I like to find recipes that are specifically dairy-free that work with the alternatives rather than using them to replace dairy.

On this blog, you will find a variety of recipes that are either lactose-free or dairy-free. I hope you enjoy learning about the ways to make tasty food and have a happy stomach!