Philip, as regards the milk substitute. If you're looking for a substitute as a:
"creamer" for coffee or tea, for instance, you can use soy milk, almond milk, rice milk.
"baking" you can use any liquid including broth. I can't use milk at all and do use chicken or vegetable broth when making crepes. Corn bread I use broth. Any savory dish I'll sub with broth. Cakes, cookies that call for milk I'll use almond milk.
"cereal" I'll use the soy, almond and rice milks ... but to tell you the truth I love fresh orange juice on cold cereal.
When you say "safe substitute" if you're talking about the possible lack of calcium or vit. D in a milk substitute and you're worried about needing more in your diet for health reasons you should take a supplement. You should probably take a supplement anyway since I doubt you can drink enough milk to give you all of those two components on a daily basis. Or eat lots of broccoli which is loaded with calcium.
I think, too, just about everything you ingest has oil or fat in it. Even though it can't be detected by you it's there. It's a good thing because you need fat and oils to digest and absorb proteins.
