Is There Life After Cheese? The Answer Is No

Okay warning, pity party ahead.  Nothing about this post is going to be positive and there’s a pretty solid guarantee I’m going to whine, so feel free to leave while I vent my spleen at the Universe.

On any given day, if you ever asked what food I could never, ever live without, the answer would be cheese.  Always.  I can do without chocolate.  I can do without bread even.  Not cheese.

So having a dairy allergy is pretty much one of my circles of hell.  I feel like a victim of some ginormous cosmic punking.

Hubby felt that way when we discovered his gluten intolerance, and things got better because I figured out how to duplicate almost everything.  But that was gluten.  Baked stuff.   And to a point , dairy free alternatives aren’t a big thing.  There are a zillion different alternative milks that work in a lot of applications–baking or whatever.

You can’t duplicate cheese.  I’ve been trying my best to stay positive and try all the stuff in The Uncheese Cookbook, but the fact is, it just doesn’t work.  It’s not cheese.  It doesn’t act like cheese.  It doesn’t taste like cheese.   Anybody who says otherwise is so far removed from the real thing, they don’t remember what it’s like.

I just tried to make pizza with faux mozzarella on my half (next to my husband’s half that was a perfect pizza).  It was revolting.  Didn’t melt as the book said it would (which ended up being a good thing as I could still peel it off).  So I had soggy tomato bread with pepperoni.  This is not pizza.  The entire POINT of pizza for me is mountains of ooey gooey cheese.   The same for Mexican food.  Lasagna.  Or just generally eating a big block.  Every single one of my favorite foods has lots of cheese.

I would like to know what I did to deserve this giant F YOU from the Universe.

I just keep getting slapped in the face over this.  I already made my best pie for other people and got to watch all of them eat and enjoy it.  Everywhere everybody wants to go to eat for lunches or dinners have pretty well nothing I can eat.  I’m a real party killer now.   Nobody knows what to feed me, and then I get to watch them all enjoy all my favorite foods.   This does not make me good company.

I’m so incredibly angry about this.   Cue fist waving and cursing at God about fairness and crap.  And yeah, while I’m perfectly well aware that this is a first world kind of problem because I’ve got a roof over my head and food in my belly and health care and a job and all that stuff.  BUT I WANT MY GODDAMNED CHEESE.

12 thoughts on “Is There Life After Cheese? The Answer Is No

  1. Honestly, fake cheese really is crap. I went vegan about a year ago, and I really dislike most of the faux stuff, though I have discovered nutritional yeast, which is fantastic for making a good cheese-like sauce when mixed with almond milk, corn starch, and a few choice seasonings like salt and turmeric. But there’s no substitute for the real thing.

    Perhaps it was a little easy for me because, really, I do love certain cheeses (oh, feta, I still miss you so), but I could easily live with out. It sounds hard (I can’t even tell you how many times people have said they could never do vegan because they could never stop eating cheese), buuuut…forget cheese. There are so many other new things to discover. Sometimes, you just got to let it go.

    It may seem crazy to think of, but I honestly don’t even crave cheese anymore, either. It’s amazing what a year can do. Give it time, embrace it, try to discover something new to love instead that going to be much, much better for you.

    1. Part of what’s hard is that everyone around me will still be eating all the things I can’t have. I live in the small town south. The world revolves around pizza, cheese dip, mac and cheese, cheeseburgers, and casseroles with cheese. My environment isn’t going to change–and I’m not mean enough to expect everybody else to have to accommodate me, but it’s hard not to want to punch them in the face.

      1. Yeah, that can be tricky, which is part of why we really don’t eat out any more, and I always research a menu extensively when I do go out to find what options can be had without dairy or eggs. It’s….a damn good thing I do like salads….

        1. That’s another tricky thing because, again, small town. Menus not available online for local places and everything I know about them already relates only to gluten.

  2. Are you lactose intolerant or are you allergic to dairy? I’m lactose intolerant so I can’t eat any processed or yellow cheeses without feeling the horrible symptoms but most white and hard cheeses, or aged cheese I can tolerate. I always want cheese on all my food even though I know it will hurt. Sometimes the pain is worth it.

  3. My most heartfelt sympathies…I can’t imagine living without my beloved cheese. There’s so much I *can’t* eat because of IBS, but cheese is the one thing I still *can*. Eating out is pretty much a no-no for me, though, because my diet is so otherwise restrictive. Then I have to explain what I have, what it is, what it entails…I can’t trust much of anything on restaurant menus. When your arms get tired from cursing the ‘verse, I’ll step in as your pinch curser. 🙂

  4. Sympathies, seriously. I’m so with you on could live without lots of stuff, but cheese is sacred. My husband is lactose intolerant, and lactose pills (Lactaid, Lactose enzyme) let him enjoy milk. Would that work for you? I have actually tried some of the soy cheeses while eating non-soy cheese, and jalapeno seems to be a good mix … though I’m not sure how well it melts. Hope you find a tolerable solution, and all the best until you do.

    1. No, lactose intolerance isn’t an actual allergy. A dairy allergy is generally to casein, so the immune system sees it and flips out with massive histamine dumps. Stuff like Benedryl helps some when I’ve had more than I should (so far can still drink what’s in my morning tea), but not enough to counter the full reaction.

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