Cheese and pizza don't have to burden the stomach

When I heard that Italian food importer Gennaro Miele was marketing a lactose-free mozzarella, I thought he'd gone mad. Sold his soul to the devil. Or maybe been kidnapped by space aliens.

Miele, after all, is the guy who has made a name for himself in China over the past 10 years by bringing in high-end food products from Italy for some of the country's top European restaurants. The soft bufala and other cheeses that he has stashed in his flagship La Pizza restaurant at Shangdu SOHO entice Italian chefs from other restaurants to come over for lunch on Sunday afternoons. And now he's selling ... fake cheese?

"No no no," he says, "it's very good, very tasty."