Conquering the cheese addiction

You know, I used to be omni 'til about 2006 when I went lacto-ovo vegetarian (ok, I ate fish too, I really wasn't very vegetarian at all!) And it's only this year that I have been vegan. I, like so many others, thought I could never go vegan because I could never give up cheese. Oh how I loved super cheesy pizzas, cheese plates with the stinkiest bluest cheese available, good ol' comfort foods cheese on toast and macaroni cheese, ricotta and spinach anything, parmesan with pastas and risottos... I loved it. I had already stopped drinking milk and using butter but cheese was so hard! Cheese was the last thing for me to quit.

The only way I think I managed it was by educating myself on the horrific truth about it - about the miserable, painful and short lives of the cows, the millions of newborn calves born to keep their mothers lactating then sent to veal crates before being slaughtered as babies, the no longer profitable cows sent to slaughter whilst pregnant and the unborn calves being cut out of their stomachs. For some reason I had always thought cows just produced milk all the time and never really thought about how that makes no sense. Of course, these details are kept secret from the general public, the dairy industry doesn't want people to know the nasty side of it.

Add a little common sense in there - why on earth would the human body be so poorly designed as to need the milk of another animal, past weaning, to survive? Touted as being a good source of calcium and protein (ignoring the high saturated fat content) it could still be good for you, right? The protein provided by milk releases acid into the blood, and in order to neutralise this acid your body draws calcium from your bones which is then excreted in your urine. The calcium in milk is not easily absorbed by your body, hence the HIGHER rates of osteoporosis in dairy consuming populations. If that wasn't enough, the high mineral content of cows milk puts a dangerous strain on human infants' kidneys hence the recommendation that infants don't drink normal milk in their first year.

And if all this was not strong enough for me to rely on when confronted with a cheese plate, I could count on reminding myself what it was I was tempted to eat. Secretions from an animals reproductive organs, full of both cow hormones, artificial growth hormones and antibiotics, mixed with the pus that inevitably gets squeezed out of the cows udder due to the mastitis most dairy cows get from constantly being milked (there is actually an acceptable level of pus allowed in milk measured by the 'somatic cell count', gross). To aid in the cheese making process, juice from a slaughtered calf's stomach is also added. Then this already revolting mix is left to rot, for bacteria and mould to cover and predigest it.

And people look at tofu, essentially mashed up beans, and think THAT is revolting...

But, through all of this I knew I would always love the taste of cheese regardless. I could quite happily not eat it anymore because the thought began to really gross me out. But I knew it would still taste DIVINE. That is until I ordered a takeaway pizza from Mr Naturals and asked for vegan cheese as usual. But halfway through the pizza I realised something tasted funny, that it tasted a bit weird but familiar. And realised that the strange flavour was real cheese on the pizza - they must have mucked up my order. And it was gross. It tasted a bit rancid, was cloying, and overpowered the other flavours on the pizza. I couldn't be 100% sure that they mucked up my order but it made me feel sick and I couldn't finish it. That was my first realisation that I really no longer liked cheese at all.

This wasn't a one off either. Having found bits of cheese hidden in things I have found the familiar flavour rancid and rotten tasting.

So the good news is the one thing I thought I would always secretly want is now repulsive to me. Cheese addiction conquered!

I really don't think I could ever go back to an omni or lacto-ovo diet, it repulses me so much. So what really puzzles me are vegans who go back to a diet with dairy despite knowing all this? How do they do it?