Le Fromage, part deux

I’ve been slowly making progress cutting out down on cheese. I love cheese, but I sort of don’t. I’m definitely noticing that when I don’t eat it for awhile, I feel generally better. Then when I do eat it, I feel like crap. A lot of chronic inflammation can be attributed to food intolerances and immune issues, just in general, and it seems to be true for me personally. I’m trying to cut out common offenders and then add them back in to see what bothers me. Bad reactions are things like increased chest pain and asthma, joint pain, or eczema (that thing that makes you want to rip off the top four layers of your skin).

I also get mood issues, and some of the more current research links SSRI-helped depression and anxiety to serotonin problems in the gut instigated by food intolerances. It’s all very cool stuff, though it’s still in the baby steps of human research and applicability, and it doesn’t apply to everyone. Gluten might be another trigger for me, and some people have Celiac’s and can’t have any gluten, and some people have varying amounts of intolerance, and some people can have all the gluten and wheat they want. Unfortunately, when we talk about food and health a lot of times things get labelled as “bad” in a bit of a moral sense when that isn’t really true.

Except High Fructose Corn Syrup.

 Just kidding. Sort of.

Anyway, I’m moving toward going dairy-free, though reluctantly. I need to smack my brain around or something to get into the mindset that I NEED to eat the right foods to do right by myself. And, really, not being in pain is awesome. My general tactic is to eat what we have in the house and then… try not to buy more. Well, not for me. Some foods we have completely cut out at home, and some stuff I just try to save for the Hubbles and not eat myself.

I think… I’m way less bummed about cheese than I was before. The intense cravings aren’t there, just little ones. And I had cheese today and it wasn’t that great. And then my hand broke out again later in the day. You know what WAS great? My homemade strawberry jam. And healthier.

Well, except for all the sugar. Yeah…

So. Anyone have any good ice cream alternatives they can recommend? Something cold and tasty that doesn’t have dairy, including whey or casein? Whey especially is one that seems to seriously mess with my immune system, so I have to watch out for it.

*Photo by Anne Hornyak, used under Creative Commons