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.