Because lactose isn't a common ingredient in home cooking, you're not likely to need to find a substitute for it in recipes, though there are some options available to you should you need them. If you're lactose intolerant and are looking for substitutes for lactose-containing foods, there are many possibilities.
Lactose
The lactose molecule is a carbohydrate, just like fructose, or fruit sugar; and sucrose, or table sugar. Like these two more familiar sugars, lactose has a sweet taste and your cells can use it as a source of energy. It's a disaccharide, explain Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry," meaning it's made up of two smaller sugar units. These are called glucose and galactose.
Lactose Replacements
If you are trying to avoid lactose in your diet -- because you're lactose intolerant or for any other reason -- you may wonder how you can replace it to provide similar nutrition to your cells. The good news is that lactose does nothing for you that other carbohydrates can't do, so it's completely non-essential as part of the human diet. You can eat a completely healthy, balanced diet without ever consuming lactose.
Lactose In Cooking
Though recipes rarely call for lactose, if you do find you need to add lactose to your home cooking and are looking for a substitute, you have a few options. Any other sugar -- sucrose, fructose, and malt sugar, which is called maltose -- serves the same function in cooking and baking. These other sugars are sweeter than lactose, so you'll need much less of them in your recipe.
Lactose-Containing Food Substitutes
If you are looking for substitutes for lactose-containing food because you're lactose intolerant, you have a few options. Lactose intolerant individuals don't produce enough of the enzyme lactase, explain Drs. Mary Campbell and Shawn Farrell in their book "Biochemistry." As such, lactase supplements -- available at the drug store -- will allow you to consume lactose-containing foods so that you don't have to find substitutes. Alternately, you can look for lactose-free foods, which are sweetened with non-lactose sugars or which have the lactose "pre-digested."
References
- "Biochemistry"; Reginald Garrett, Ph.D. and Charles Grisham, Ph.D.; 2007
- "Biochemistry"; Mary Campbell, Ph.D. and Shawn Farrell, Ph.D.; 2005
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