Dairy Free for beginners
If you are new to dairy free food shopping and sourcing dairy free products online when doing your food shopping then this post is for you.
I realise I am probably stating the obvious for some people, but, I just wanted to take a few minutes to write a post that may make life easier for some of you that do your food shopping online and are looking for dairy free products online. Especially, if you are looking for dairy free for beginners.
Where possible, I have had to adjust to shopping online during this pandemic over the last year. I have become accustomed to logging in to our account and, if you are anything like me, just start adding what I want, or need, to my basket. I’m usually rushing around, trying to fit everything in. Meals, kids, homework, and everything else that needs doing. What I failed to observe until recently are the filters that are available, to help me identify dairy-free products! How did I miss this? DUH! So, I’ve just had a quick scoot around the websites of supermarkets that provide online shopping. (I am not associated with any supermarket!)
Use filters
Firstly, nearly all the supermarkets that offer online grocery shopping have filters of some kind. They are just not always that obvious until you start looking for them. It’s different from one supermarket to the other so you might need to look around a bit. They are mainly found in two places. On the left of a page, if there is a column, scroll down, even if you cannot see it at first glance. You will usually come across a column that covers Dietary & Lifestyle requirements (or Lifestyle & Dietary in some cases!) where you should find an option for no milk, dairy-free, or milk free etc.
The second place you frequently find these filters, is after your search results. Try searching for a product and have a look just above the results. It varies from one supermarket to another but there are usually two or three drop-down boxes. These will be something like Dietary & Lifestyle, Category, or Dietary. Click through these and you should find an option for dairy-free, milk-free or similar. I’ve looked at these before and when I have not seen what I am looking for in the filters at first glance, I give up. What I should do, is look a little further and expand the boxes.
Flags
As I am writing this, special mention must go to Sainsbury’s and Ocado. You can set up a food profile under account settings and select from 15 allergens. If you have a food profile set up, when you search for a product, it flags all the products in the results where there might be a problem with the allergens you specified. I’m so impressed with this. It will also flag up warnings like cross-contamination, may contain, or produced in a factory that also….. I think this is incredibly helpful and time-saving. I wish all supermarkets would have this option!
A cautionary note.
These filters, amazing and helpful as they are, are not a replacement for checking labels yourself. Ingredients can and do change without warning. Or, it could be a supermarket website does not have the most up-to-date information from a manufacturer. Please remember to always check the label!
