I did it

I ate the parmesan. I don't feel any better, but it was delicious.

What a crappy day.

spoke too soon

I woke up today (Tuesday) sick with a sore throat and cough. I'v felt bad all day and kind of out of it and shaky.

I'm currently craving parmesan cheese very bad right now, and I think I'm just going to go ahead and eat it. I hope it doesn't make me sick. All I know is I don't feel good physically anyway and I'm kind of depressed (not serious, something stupid) so oh well if I feel just a little worse??

long week!

I've been offline a while - I worked 70 hours this week (Sunday-Saturday). It was insane to say the least. I existed on this stew that I made last Sunday....

Sunday Stew
2 cans tomato soup
1 can Bush's beanscarrots chopped into small pieces
1/4 vidalia onion, chopped into small pieces
2 cups (uncooked) rice

cook the rice, and the onions and carrots, then combine all ingredients. Delicious and filling. I made way too much and ate it all week.


I also realized today that I have not been fainting like I used to since I've gone off dairy. I don't know if the two things are related, but it's good either way.

I've been eating pretty good. I eat an apple a day (on the weekdays).

I think this healthy thing really works well. Despite working myself to the bone, I've stayed physically well and not feeling terribly bad.

I need to sleep soon!

mystery

so the last 3 days: I had heartburn for no reason (like, even when I hadn't eaten anything recently and then when I had eaten 'safe' foods), then today had a headache on and off, and have had an upset stomach tonight. I haven't had any dairy. Why is my body mad at me?? :(

physical symptoms/improvements!

I've been pretty much dairy-free for at least 2 weeks now. Probably longer but the days have been flying by, I don't really know. The big question now is...did it work?

Well, they said that my blood tests showed a slight allergy to dairy and a large allergy to cats and dogs. I also know that I'm allergic to certain molds, dust mites, strawberries, NSAIDS (aspirin and anything like it), heat, sun, saltwater on my skin. Getting rid of the cats is out of the question, though I do hope to move to a less allergy-prone place (hardwood floors).

So, my symptoms.
-frequent headaches: tension, migraine, sinus.
-fatigue
-very sensitive skin - allergy to heat, sun, saltwater (Cholinergic Urticaria)
-asthma

Have these symptoms changed?
The answer is about 40%. My headaches have been significantly lessened, which is amazing. I used to have headaches about 4/7 days a week, so to be headache free for most of the last 2 weeks is prettttty awesome. The fatigue has lessened too - I hate mornings less now, and can work hard all day and not feel like I'm going to die (I actually have no days off!). The other two - skin and asthma - have not improved any. It really was the sun/heat allergy I wanted to solve the most, BUT, I have to be thankful for the fact that some good did come of all this trouble.

I'm really tired now since I've been up since 7:30....so night!

polenta!

Yesterday I went to Kroger before going home and I was hungry for something dinner-like. I shopped throughout the alternative foods section for a while and decided on getting some polenta (mushy stuff made out of corn...replacement for starch or grain sometimes). (I also got some more ZenSoy pudding, Newman-Os, apples, grapes, etc).

So after the grocery store, I made some polenta cakes. I call them cakes because I shaped them into such, but the stuff could have been just pushed around in the pan (like scrambled eggs) because it fell apart really easy. The polenta was pre-cooked so all you had to do was heat it up!

I used some of the polenta, a few strips of bacon, and the drunken goat cheese. I took all these things and just mixed them together well and formed them into cakes. I fried then in a pan with the fake butter I have, and I have to say it was pretty delicious. I probably could do it with just the bacon if I need to eliminate the goat cheese. I highly recommend polenta for those who miss grits, omlettes, or other mushy warm things that contain cheese or milk to make them delicious.

Note on goat cheese: if you remember, the goat cheese that made me sick last time was the 'rawer' goat cheese (wetter, more milk in it). The drunken goat cheesed is more aged, so it should be better for me and it was - no stomachache or headache.

It's interesting, I've been craving more healthy foods recently. Like, I always crave chocolate, but recently I've preferred Luna bars and been super craving apples and peanut butter. So I suppose that's good - wanting fruits and veggies.

Next post: an update on how I physically have been feeling.

the weekend

So once again, in a social situation my not eating dairy causes me irritation...

Last night a few of my girlfriends and I went to someone's house in the afternoon and then we were going to hang out and prepare for having people over later that night. So, we needed to eat something for dinner. The girls had made pizza and breadsticks, both of which had dairy in them. We went to the grocery store to get something anyway, so I had a chance to grab something to eat, but there isn't really a whole lot of food that's quick and dairy free. I got a potato salad, which didn't have any dairy ingredients listed. That still wasn't that much, and it certainly wasn't a whole dinner, so the next time we went to the store (yeah we went a few times) I got this bread from the bakery that was on sale. The bread was totally delicious.

I had enough food to not be hungry, but surely didn't eat well enough and I didn't have variety or really anything nutritious. Then I was super hungry all morning, even though I had my usual Luna bar for breakfast.

temptations!!

today at work we had a bunch of pizza for the students who were graduating, and it was like torture on ice to have to sit there and smell my FAVORITE pizza (Papa John's) for like seriously the entire day and not eat any. To top it off, someone brought in homemade chocolate chip cookies, which do have some dairy in them, and those I couldn't resist - yes, I cheated and ate two. But they were small and I didn't get sick luckily.

I really need to go to sleep because I have to be at work super early!! But it's hard to go to sleep early for me! I felt really busy today at work, and I will tomorrow too, now that I'm going to be full-time I have a lot more stuff to do!

Also looking forward to starting bartending this weekend!

Here's hoping I won't dairy cheat over the weekend!

cooking

tonight I made the old-school Japanese curry we've been making since high school. Look back to the post with the list of foods where I mentioned it before - it's onion, potatoes, carrots, curry, and rice.

I should have enough to eat for a week or more! Basically the reason why I cooked it was because I wanted something easy to eat at the massage school for lunch. It's completely dairy free, delicious, filling, and nutritious!

In other news I'm becoming obsessed with the Chocolate Newman-O's; I've eaten some at some point probably every day.

ice cream review and social hope

I have slightly more hope for being able to eat in social situations because last night when Crystal and I went out I had an almost completely dairy-free meal! We went to Friday's and I got pork dumpling pot stickers, chicken fingers and fries, and a peanut butter pie (surely had a small amount of dairy) and a pineappley drink. It was great!!

Tonight I was in an ice cream mood, and since the "So Delicious" Chocolate I got was less than great, I got some more at Kroger tonight. So...

Good Karma Organic Rice Divine in Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge
B+
The actual ice cream here is good, a good mix of chocolate and peanut butter flavor. The pieces in it though (peanut butter chunks? chocolate chunks?) are kind of odd, but not terrible. I like it better than the "So Delicious."

Purely Decadent (made with Coconut Milk) in Mint Chip
A-
This stuff is pretty good. Smooth and minty, no weird aftertaste like the "So Delicious," and seems the truest to its 'original' counterpart (the same flavor in normal ice cream. You can faintly taste the coconut milk, but I like coconut milk pretty well so I don't even realize, really. The only think I would like is more chocolate pieces in it - it does have some in there but not much and it doesn't have a strong chocolate component to it - it's really mint ice cream with chocolate shavings. Still, pretty good.

Still haven't found anything to even come close to the good old Blue Bell chocolate ice cream at work......

getting freaked

Now that the food that my mom brought me from her personal chef is running out, I'm getting kind of freaked out about what I'm going to eat. I had some of her vegetable chili from dinner, and then an apple with peanut butter.

I also am going to be working full-time during the week now, so I'll need to figure out some things to pack for lunch and really just be thinking ahead of time. Planning!!

I'm figuring that when I go out tomorrow to eat with my friend Crystal, I'm going to have to cheat because I don't think I'll be able to find things that are dairy-free in a restaurant.

It's frustrating, because when I don't have things I can eat I simply want to give up on trying to eat anything at all, and when I do that I end up literally starving my body of energy and I'll feel bad and faint. I want to avoid that of course, I know I need to keep eating on a regular basis, and not having food that I can eat readily available challenges me in doing that.

Maybe sometime next week I'll make a big batch of my curry and rice, because I can eat on that for like a week.

For now I need to go to bed soon since church is in the morning.

setbacks

remember that awesome pasta dish I described from the other day, made with goat cheese? Well...apparently goat cheese doesn't work out for me because it made me sick.

Also, I've had a headache since about 6pm (around when I got an email about this letter from Kenneth Cuccinelli...which outraged me to the point of a tension headache that tylenol could not assauge).

I went to a birthday party tonight, first time really being social since going strictly dairy-free. I ended up eating 2 pieces of pizza, but scraped off the cheese. It wasn't good enough to scrape it off - now I feel sick-ish and the headache got increasingly bad as I was there and is still persisting, though the loud level of conversation there was probably more to blame for continuing the headache. I tried to enjoy myself, but with a headache that noise was making worse and not really being able to eat anything...it didn't work out as well as I would have wished.

This makes me really sad for the future and the possibilities of socializing. I feel like a leper, that girl who doesn't eat anything...ugh.

I feel like I have some odd disability and I'm going to become an outcast.

No one is ever going to want to date a freak like me.

At least I can sit at home and eat my Newman-Os and ZenSoy Pudding..........

allergy vs. intolerance

Just an FYI for everyone, a little extra info on the whole thing.
Allergy versus intolerance: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=66
I am allergic, not just lactose intolerant.

food reviews and goat cheese!!

So I went to Whole Foods today, finally!

I went in search of chocolate, because I've been really craving it and only have chocolate chip cookies and chocolate pudding. I found: Newman-O's (Chocolate cookies with chocolate creme), 365 brand Vegan Chocolate chips, and this little dark chocolate wafer candy bar that I didn't like much. I'm sad that they don't have any dairy-free chocolate that is like milk chocolate but without milk in it. Couldn't they do that theoretically with soy milk or coconut milk or something? I might try making a ganache this way sometime.

Then I went over to the place where all the cheese was and asked the girl behind the counter about goat cheese and going dairy-free. She said she actually didn't do dairy, and pointed out all the sheep and goat cheeses to me that I could try. I got a plain goat cheese (soft) that was on sale for $4.99 for a pretty good size package, manchego cheese (made from sheep's milk, hard - 6 months aged) and DRUNKEN GOAT CHEESE! (semi-hard, made with red wine). I was so excited about being able to eat cheese of some kind.

I had a great experience with the things I found and the people at the store, but as expected it was expensive-ish ($20 for these 6 items). But it was worth it. As I was driving out of Whole Foods' cramped parking lot, I was really hungry and decided to go for the Drunken Goat Cheese right then and there. It was so delicious. I felt like I was doing something wrong and sinful. It was savory and amazing. I'm so glad I picked it up. Here it is, complete with in-the-car bite-marks:

And now for some reviews...

Chocolate Newman-O's (bought at Whole Foods)

A+

The cookies were crispy, the creme filling creamy (not chalky at all!) and overall they were chocolatey and delicious. I ate 4 after lunch, and pretty quickly! I think they are better than regular oreos, and I highly recommend you try them. They were also on sale for 3 dollars, which is a better deal (about 32 cookies) than Pamela's Chocolate Chip Cookies, which were $3.49 for 9 cookies at Kroger. Even when not on sale, $4 or $4.5 would probably be a better deal, considering how many cookies you get. I'm happy with this purchase, and glad they aren't terribly expensive.

365 brand Vegan Chocolate Chips (Semi-Sweet 41% Cocoa) (bought at Whole Foods)

A+

These chocolate chips taste exactly the same as regular chocolate chips. I might like them a little better because I think they were a little less hard (although maybe that's because they were fresher than the regular chocolate chips I've had for a while). Whatever, they were good and I highly recommend. They were $3.39 regular price.

So now I have chocolate alternatives and a cheese replacement, so I'm pretty happy with that.

Also, for dinner tonight I experimented with my new cheeses. I make some piccolini pasta, and made a cheese sauce for it: I heated up some olive oil, added some garlic, Italian seasonings, a little bit of pepper and chili powder. After the garlic simmered a few minutes in the oil, I added in a bunch of the plain goat cheese. Stirred this a lot, and it made a nice, creamy sauce that I added to the pasta after draining. It was a little tangy, so I added some grated manchego cheese on top which definitely improved the flavor of the dish. So, that's my alternative alfredo sauce! Next time I might try this with some plain soft goat cheese and a larger amount of one of the other cheeses that I got.

After that, I ate some of the 'vegetable chili' that my mom's personal cook made, along with a slice of my favorite bread.

So glad I get to sleep in tomorrow!! In case anyone was wondering, my head hasn't been hurting any since I got this dairy-free thing down, and my stomach has been better-ish.

*this was posted at 1am, it says 2pm because that's when I started the draft*

soy cheese reviews

another day going strong!!!

Today I had a Luna bar (A+!) for breakfast, a wrap with turkey, guacamole, and bacon at CIP for lunch, and a pizza I made myself for dinner with marinara sauce, peppers and soy cheese. Just had one of my Pamela's chocolate chip cookies for dessert and about to eat a Zensoy chocolate pudding (YUM!)

A few days ago, I tried a...

Tofutti Pan Crust Pizza (bought at Rebecca's)

C-

This pizza was my first interaction with soy cheese, and I was sadly disappointed. The cheese didn't really taste like anything and was very watery all over the pizza. Like...when I cut it, the watery-ness just leaked onto the plate from the top. The crust left a lot to be desired too - it wasn't "pan" and it was not crispy and not delicious. The sauce was blah.

The tastier, cheaper alternative to this is to make your own pizza!!

I used Mama Mary's Pizza Crusts (bought at Kroger), Harris Teeter brand marinara sauce (super cheap and super delicious), an orange pepper chopped up on top, and then tried some soy cheese (which I most likely won't use again) - Tofutti American Slices (B-). The pizza crust was very tasty, had a good amount of bulk to it and a great crisp. The peppers were good, but the cheese was once again pretty tasteless, watery, and not really worth it. So... in the future, I'll make pizza with the crust, sauce, and peppers (or some other toppings that aren't fake cheese!)

In other news, I have been loving my Oscar Mayer Fully Cooked Bacon. Buy it, microwave it, and bam! delicious!

and in other other news, the doc that called me, and all the other docs in the allergy clinic, went away to some conference until Tuesday or Wednesday this week...so nice of that lady to leave me a worrisome message and then skip town for a week. Here's hoping there's an answer tomorrow.

going strong

After the Thursday of Cheating, I have been doing very well with this. I did have a little bit of ranch Friday afternoon with my wings, but a very small amount. Other than that I have been completely dairy-free Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That's the best I've done so far. I've been eating chicken sandwiches with BBQ at CIP, and all kinds of food that my mom bought/brought for me at home.

Been working a lot lately, and the trend continues.