I have this girlfriend who does everything right. Jules is perky, smart, sweet and disciplined. I’d hate her if I didn’t already love her so much.
So Jules, Mary and I are at a local pub enjoying a few pints and a girl’s night out when Jules drops the bomb.
“I haven’t had a drop of dairy in over 6 months.”
My jaw drops open in shock.
Across the table, Mary has gone white. “SIX months? But how?… Why?…”
It turns out that Jules read this book that said that dairy is the root of all evil (who knew?). It’s unnatural, unnecessary, and…
it twists and binds your bowels.
“I haven’t felt this good in YEARS!” Jules declares. And we can tell she means it.
I toss back my pilsner and shake my head. It sounds good, but it’s not for me. I like my dairy. Pretty much all my favorite foods are in that category.
**
Two months later, casual-like, over coffee, Mary drops the bomb.
“I’m off dairy,” she says, like it’s no big deal.
“No!” I gasp. Jules I can see. But Mary is a woman of vices. I did not see this coming.
“I know!” she says, “I feel fantastic!”
She adds in a lowered voice, “my bowels have never been better.”
(This type of conversation is how you know you’re getting old. In case you were wondering.)
**
So it eats at me. The dairy thing. Maybe I don’t need it. Probably it’s not good for me. Very likely, if I just stopped eating dairy, I would become model-thin, my hair would turn all shiny, and just THINK what it could do for my bowels.
I’m going to do it! I decide.
It won’t be that hard!
After all, they have all those lovely dairy substitutes. Basically it’s like you’re still eating dairy. Only you’re thinner, with the shiny hair and the happy bowels.
And so I make up my mind. I am going off dairy THIS VERY MINUTE.
I stop by our local organic grocery and pick up soy yogurt, soy milk, and some soy creamer.
The next morning, I make myself a tall coffee, pour in the soy creamer, and take a sip.
… and dump the coffee down the drain, with the whole container of soy creamer right behind it.
(Soy creamer, for your information, is completely disgusting.)
This is the story of how I started eating dairy, 3 seconds after I stopped.
Did you really expect anything else?
February 25, 2012 at 11:02 am
I went off dairy for a while. The best thing in coffee was almond milk, specifically the vanilla flavored one. In fact, vanilla almond milk was so tasty that I drank MORE of it than of regular milk. It was great on granola, perfect for smoothies. And once I’d been off dairy for a while, I actually stopped wanting ice cream or things like pizza or mac & cheese. It all sounded too gut-heavy to me. It was still hard to resist really really good cheese, like appetizers at a friend’s house. But that is so infrequent that it was okay as a treat. Of course, now I’m back to heavy cream in my coffee. But I will say that having that but hardly any other dairy has made me feel better.