I wasn’t always living dairy free. In fact, going dairy free was not a choice and when I was faced with the reality that I no longer could eat dairy it was devastating for me….. not to be too dramatic. It wasn’t until I was 35 years old that I went completely dairy free. Prior to my dairy free journey my idea of a good time was sitting on my couch, turning on a movie and slicing up a nice block of the sharpest cheddar I could find. I loved cheese more than life it’s self…. okay… too cheesy? (no pun intended)
You see, I am from the dairy state. The good ole state of Wisconsin. Born and raised and now I am pretty much an outlaw because this cheesehead does not eat cheese at least not the type of cheese that comes from cows. It’s sort of blasphemy where I come from. Not just blasphemy but do you know what it’s like navigating a Wisconsin family picnic?
For many years I found myself with a lot of stomach issues and as I got older the more frequent these stomach aches got and more severe they felt. It finally came to a point where once a week I would be so nauseous I couldn’t even function in my daily life. It started to consume my quality of life and impact the relationships I had. My doctor suggested eliminating food groups from my diet. I removed dairy from my diet and of course the stomach issues went away. I was really banking on gluten being the source. Boy was I wrong.
At this point I would say I was in denial….. “maybe I’m lactose intolerant” …… “maybe if I just reduce my dairy intake I’ll be fine” …… I would say 2 years of denial led me to finally realize my body did not approve of my consumption of dairy and I had to come to terms that I had to take it out of my diet.
What was a cheese loving, Wisconsin raised foodie supposed to do with this diagnosis? Welp….. I naturally tried every dairy free product out there and threw a lot of money in the garbage. Not every dairy free product is bad but I came to realize that if I wanted to eat crave worthy dairy free food, I was going to have to dive into my kitchen and start cooking. So here I am and I do hope these recipe and blogs can help save other people on a similar path some time, money and effort.