Goodbye, dairy.Today I've instigated a radical change to my diet- I'm giving up dairy products for one week. Mainly to see if I'm capable of doing it, but also because I'm curious to see if it has any effect on my chronic 'hayfever' and the amount of acne I get (I think that at one month off my 23rd birthday I'm far too old for pimples, but I keep getting them). Members of both sides of my family have alleged dairy 'intolerances', and while I'm reluctant to believe them, I thought I'd give it a go and see if I noticed a difference.
Given that milk, cheese, yoghurt, cream and icecream make up a huge proportion of my diet it's going to be a big ask. As big as getting Gam to eat vegetables for a week, a really far-fetched idea. Gam bought me Sanitarium Organics soy milk to try - it's only 1.8% fat, and while it went ok on muesli this afternoon, I don't think that a coffee with a low-fat (though not advertised as such) soy milk is going to compare very well with coffee made with milk and cream. I'm not even going to try soy 'cheese' or 'yoghurt'. I've never liked the idea of dairy and meat analogues. I'm fine with tofu- that's a food in its own right- but soy 'cheese' or 'burgers'? Eewww. This won't make me a vegan- Gam made chilli last night- but overall I hardly ever eat meat, so this must be a taste of the kind of torture that vegans go through. I've only ever known two vegans, and they were hard-core hippies. One stuck it out for a year on a vegan diet, and I'm not sure when the other gave it up, but she eventually rejoined the dark side. Dairy is just too good to quit for life, but if I do notice any positive effects during my totally unscientific little experiment I may just cut back a bit.
UPDATE: Soy milk didn't really do the job in coffee. It wasn't unpleasant, just not as nice as cream. If I'd never tried dairy products in my life I dare say the soy milk might have seemed quite good. I drank the coffee through a straw so I couldn't taste it as much. I may stick to green tea to get my caffeine quota for the rest of the week.
Hello soy... blegh.
9 comments:
Will be interesting to see if you last a week. It can be done though. My sister has been a vegan for more than 3 years -- seriously -- no honey, no cheese, no hoof-derived gelatine -- which is more gelatine!
Gee... I'm positive I couldn't do that! How does she manage?
acne != 3 pimples.
Sarah,
if you really wanna try improving your skin, I would take a look at how much coffee you're drinking. I realise everyone's skin responds to different things, but when I quit coffee it made a big difference to me.
I have been - due to sad, relatively recent medical stuff - pretty much dairy free for about a year - very rare exceptions for cheese and teensy amount of milk, mainly just milk in my tea.
TO be honest - beyond the tea, and, obviously, pizza - I haven't noticed it so much, and this is a boy who had ubringings as dairy-laden and bogany as yours! Good luck!
I quit coffee periodically (i.e. over winter) every year, but it's never made a difference. I'm not irretrievably hooked on coffee like I am on milk!
Gee I feel for you being forced to give it up... I'll try and quit whinging now :)
I think this is a dangerous experiment. What if you find it does make you feel better? Then you'll have to choose between eating cheese and feeling better? I think I'd choose cheese. Sometimes when I eat prawns it makes my mouth and throat itch and my stomach burn, and if I peel raw prawns I can get hives, but that doesn't stop me. Why? Because they're yummy. Cheese is yummy.
I'm 34 and I still get the odd pimple. So does Goldie Hawn.
Good luck - blog how it goes!
Lol Bec, I won't be choosing between eating cheese and feeling better, because I love cheese more than I hate getting pimples! And milk, and icecream, and cream, and yoghurt, and cakes and biscuits baked with butter... this is going to be a very long week indeed!
As for you- I hope you keep an epipen handy in case you develop a full-blown allergy to prawns! My vice isn't potentially life threatening (insert finger-wagging here).
ah, the prawn thing isn't so serious, plus after an episode where I had a cut on the end of my little finger, then I peeled raw prawns and the whole tip of my finger got swollen and turned white and the skin was really taut and I tormented matthew by periodically coming up to him and saying "isn't my finger so cool, touch it, go on touch it". It's been a while since I was allowed to peel prawns... My plan is never to eat sushimi that is raw prawns, because that really seems to be my downfall more then cooked ones. When will I learn - don't drink and blog!!!! Sorry about the rambling.
Post a Comment