I prepared the following leaflet in response to Dairy Week at a local public school:

Non-Dairy Alternatives

Some people choose to limit or avoid dairy products for health, dietary, religious or philosophical reasons¹. Such reasons might include lactose-intolerance² or being vegan³.

When avoiding dairy products, it's important to ensure that your calcium and vitamin D needs are met. (Vegans must additionally ensure an adequate B12 intake⁴.) Calcium occurs naturally in dairy products, whereas vitamin D is added through fortification. Calcium can also be found in tofu processed with calcium, broccoli, seeds, nuts, kale, bok choy, legumes (peas and beans), greens, lime-processed tortillas, and soy beverages, grain products, and calcium-fortified orange juice⁵. These items are available in local grocery stores, although you can also go to a specialized natural foods store⁶ for a larger selection.

Calcium and vitamin D fortification levels equivalent to milk can be found in certain brands of grain-based beverages (soy, rice)⁷ as well as orange juice⁸. Be sure to explicitly check the label of such products because non-fortified versions of these exist as well. (Even the fortified versions must never be used as a substitute for infant formula - used a suitable soy-based formula instead.) Vitamin and mineral supplements also offer an additional source of calcium, vitamin D and more. 

Here are some representative non-dairy calcium sources⁹:

Footnotes and Links

Here are some links and resources for the above footnotes. You can also find the hyperlinked version of this document online at:

http://www.thisiscool.com/mohan/nondairy.html

¹ Such reasons are expounded more in Non-Dairy Beverages, How Good Are They? http://www.andrews.edu/NUFS/nondairy.htm

² Lactose intolerance is the inability to digest lactose, a sugar present in milk. Lactose content varies by type of dairy product. See http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/lactoseintolerance/index.htm for further details.

³ Vegans are vegetarians who also exclude animal-derived products such as milk, eggs and honey in addition to the meat, poultry and fish which vegetarians avoid. See also:

⁴ See also http://www.veganhealth.org/shv/index_html#vitaminb12

⁵ FDA: http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/895_vegdiet.html#animal

⁶ Local natural foods stores include The Outpost (http://www.outpostcoop.com/) and Beans & Barley (http://www.beansandbarley.com/).

⁷ Representative products include Edensoy Original Extra Organic Soy Beverage and Rice Dream Original Enriched rice beverage

⁸ Popular brands such as Tropicana (http://www.tropicana.com/index.asp?ID=100) and Minute Maid (http://www.minutemaid.com/mm_nutrition/vitamind.html) have calcium and vitamin D levels equivalent to milk.

⁹ See also http://www.veganhealth.org/shv/index_html#calcium