I’ve been gluten-free (GF) , dairy-free (DF) for four years or so. I did it for health reasons. I ‘ve always been lactose-intolerant (I’m Asian) and it’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. I used to be able to pop a Lactaid pill and be fine with eating dairy. Right around my forties, that stopped working for me. It took me a few years, but I finally decided that the negative results of eating dairy was not worth the pleasure of said eating. I also realized that I was having a negative reaction to eating gluten. I cut both out at the same time and felt much better.
There have been great strides made in the making of dairy-free and/or gluten-free foodstuff in the past ten years or so. I was gluten-free/dairy-free/sugar-free once twenty-five years ago or so for bronchial reasons. All the substitute foods seemed to be made out of arrowroot or tapioca, neither of which was tasty. I suffered for four months and started literally dreaming of pizza and lasagna. Nowadays, there are some very tasty substitutes, some that I like even better than the real thing. Such as Earth Balance’s vegan butter. And Green Valley’s line of lactose-free products. Katz has a great dessert line, including Twinkie and Hostess Cupcakes copies.
Before I ended up in the hospital, I was slowly cutting down on meat products for ethical reasons. I got it down to one serving a day, mostly chicken. Being already GF/DF, I don’t eat any dairy, anyway. So that was a leg up in the right direction, to mix my metaphors. I was pretty proud of myself for cutting down to one serving a day–that was down from two to three a day. That was how I grew up, by the way, with eating lots of meat. Making the jump from one serving a day to none, however, was just a mental block for me. But I was getting there. I was confident I would make it.
Oh hey. In looking up vegetarian/vegan songs, I came across one that I would never have thought was on the list. I’ll Stand By You by The Pretenders. Chrissie Hynde is a vegan and wrote the song in solidarity with animals. That’s pretty cool.
Anyway, after I got out of the hospital, it w as a different story. As I mentioned, I grew up in a meat-heavy family. When I mentioned to my brother and mother I was trying to go vegan (this was before the hospital), they were both disapproving. They maintained that there were things you could only get from meat. They’re not technically wrong, but you can make up for most of the shortages with vitamins and other tricks of the trade. Once I got out of the hospital, I had a lot to think about and didn’t really want to waste mental energy on what I was eating. My brother set my parents up with Origin Meals. They send meals with fresh and simple ingredients from around the world. They got two large meals a day to share and I eventually participated, which meant we ate two per meal. They were really delicious and most of them were dairy-free/gluten free. Oh, the other thing I can’t eat is cauliflower and a few of the meals had that.
On the whole, they were really tasty. But all of them had a hefty serving of meat. I decided it wasn’t worth it to argue with my parents and I would deal with the meat issue once they were gone. While they were here, I just ate the Origin meals and was more than satisfied with them.
Once they left, however, I managed to claw back my meat eating to once a day again. I’m stuck here, however, and I can’t seem to jump through the last hoop. And I’m not just eating chicken, either. I’ve had sausage, duck, beef, pork….Granted, a lot of that was with the Thai food I ordered–twice! Once the day my parents left in celebration and once for New Year’s. That was a lot of meat over three to four days. It was fucking delicious, though.
I really want to get down to zero animal products, though. I feel bad for eating our animal friends and there are so many good substitutes. Tofu-as-meat? That wasn’t good. It didn’t taste like meat and just made me sad, missing the real thing. It was also funny how they tried to make things that are not meat tase like meat, but never the reverse. You never see pork trying to e a carrot, for example. I’ve had Beyond products and they’re pretty good. Better than Impossible, that’s for sure. I have to admit that if they could find something plant-based that tasted exactly like meat, I would be all over it all the time. There’s an egg sub that tastes really close to the real thing, but it’s pretty expensive. I know that’s the trade-off, though.
My father has gotten it into his head to question me about my eating habits. It started while they were here and it’s annoying as fuck. I have fed myself for decades. And it’s not like he was providing food while he was here. He couldn’t understand my diet and was convinced that I was GF/DF because of my hospital stay. He asked how long did the doctors say I had to stay on the diet and couldn’t seem to grasp that it had nothing to do with my medical trauma. There was no going off it, and I have no idea why he couldn’t understand that. He also didn’t bother to figure out what I could and couldn’t eat. If he just asked if I could or couldn’t eat something, that would have been fine. But he’d say either, “You don’t like ____?” in an injured tone or offering something to me that I can’t eat. My mom did it a few times, too. I tried not to get too mad about it and if it was the latter, I mostly was fine with it. If it was the former, though, then I got mad.
If it ended with that, I would have gritted my teeth and borne it. But, of course, my father had to take it further. He asked me about my meals and I didn’t want to answer. Here’s the thing with my father–he never asks out of idle curiosity. He always has a reason and it’s always a twisted, STUPID reason. Yes, I use that word deliberately. I have culled that word out of my vocabulary for the most part, but the shoe fits in this case. I told him that I snacked throughout the day rather than ate three big meals. I prefer keeping my blood sugar level steady rather than having it spike three times a day. I explained that I had an orange when I woke up, then maybe a sandwich an hour later. I had to explain this several times because it simply did not register in his brain. That’s part of his narcissism. If he doesn’t do it, then it doesn’t exist.
Now, his newest trick is to ask me about what I eat whenever we talk on the phone. I asked why he was asking because it’s not like I was going to starve myself. He nattered on something about nutrition and eating better. I know he thinks I’m a fat cow because he’s mentioned my weight before–so does my mother, but I’ve laid down the law about not mentioning my weight. I told him I eat tons of veggies and fruits and that he did not have to worry about me.
I’m going to keep trying to eat less meat until I get down to zero. That’s one of my goals in the new year.