I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. The LSU Dairy Store is our campus’s premiere creamery that highlights our school’s agricultural history and our wonderful animal science programs.
With a goal of delivering delicious ice cream to our students and by our students composed of natural cream, milk, and sugar (and polysorbate 80 and mono- & di-glycerides and the occasional artificial color for some flavors), the cows are treated ethically with pasture grazing and a blend of corn silage, hay, whole cottonseeds, grain and a vitamin-mineral supplement.
And the sweet treats they provide are a must-have. But not everyone can eat them.
If you are unaware, milk comes with this fun little sugar called lactose. Lactose is typically broken down by the enzyme lactase inside our guts; however, individuals with lactose intolerance have difficulties producing this enzyme, resulting in an upset stomach whilst ingesting products with lactose sugar.
When a person with lactose intolerance ingests lactose without adding the enzyme into their gut via pills, the results can be uncomfortable, to say the least. From bloating to stomach cramps to borderline explosive diarrhea. Not pretty.
My lactose-intolerant informant, Arabella Casey, a second-year psychology student at LSU, would describe ingesting lactose as a “romantic candle-lit date on the toilet with death.”
Thankfully, science has progressed to having lactose-free milk or other dairy-free milk alternatives available for those who don’t feel like popping pills when they crave something lactonic.
It should also be noted that there are other reasons for not eating dairy, from dietary restrictions to culture and religion to just not loving the taste of milk.
And maybe a word on the street is that most of these alternatives don’t really serve as a fair substitute for the “original.” But, through my own self-tasting, I can say that most of them are good; some, like lactose-free milk or oat milk, are good enough for me to swap out my typical favorites for their alternative options.
But these options are important because they allow others the opportunity to get, at the absolute least, a modicum of joy that ice cream brings. Unfortunately, the LSU Dairy store offers no lactose-free options. And as an offshoot of the animal sciences department, more specifically a store making a profit off of dairy sciences, one would think that the Dairy Store would offer lactose-free alternative ice creams.
Not only would this provide more options for students and tiger fans alike to get their paws on, but it would also show an advancement in the field of dairy sciences on LSU grounds.
It’s nigh time our top-notch faculty and students over at the Dairy Store don their white lab coats, put their milk-pilled heads together and brew us some innovative and inclusive new iced creams, especially because our tour guides may point out the Dairy Store as a place for visitors to wing by and grab on their way out.
Casey recalls on her Bengal Bound experience that “on my tour our guide recommended for us to stop by and grab some ice cream before we headed home. We did, or tried to. But, I was unable to get anything, as I suspected I would be, but still it was disappointing. My parents and I were like, I thought this was a part of dairy science… Where’s the science?”
Basically, our Dairy Store is already absolutely killing it, but they could be killing it even harder by not killing people’s bowels… and bowls.
Garrett McEntee is a 19-year-old English sophomore from Benton.