Dying for Dairy

[Jane M]

Eventually, cow's milk, even hidden in foods makes you feel ucky. It's strange in a way but it really even gives food a funny taste.

[jhenn]

Guys I really believe I am addicted to sugar.

[portiakitty]

Sometimes sugar cravings are indicitive of low iron levels. Also, drinking water can often stave off a sugar craving. It also has the added effect of helping to cleanse out all the sugur and other toxins you don't need.
Maybe eating more fruit will also help tame your sweet tooth? I know I am guilty of not always eating as much fresh fruit as I should.

[Jane M]

I try to counter the sugar cravings with things like dates and dried fruit. True, I am stll getting sugar from them but I tell myself it is a more natural sugar.

[Pilaf]

Depending on where you live, you could get ahold of vegan, organic doughnuts and thing. I think sugar/fat seems to be your biggest problem, not the dairy itself. You'll just have to keep the ethical reasons to avoid foods with dairy in mind. That'll help the most when getting through it.

[Nest]

I'm starting to believe Neal Barnard where he says that dairy and eggs have addictive properties. I think if I just stick it out for a while I will lose the cravings.
I was a l/o vegetarian for 25 yrs and I went off chocolate & cheese cold-turkey (or should that be cold-tofu?) in January this year. I was totally addicted to cheese :eek: I used to eat it with every meal :eek: :eek: and I used to pay the big bucks for vegetarian cheese too :eek: :eek: :eek: (As Portiakitty already said, the stuff is expensive!).

I was climbing the walls for a while but the wonderful people around here helped me alot. :D

Now I rarely think about cheese. I certainly don't crave it anymore - as a matter of fact, the idea of eating it makes me feel queasy. I have a little vegan chocolate as a treat now and again - but I'm working on cutting out sugar too. (Cane sugar that is - I eat fruit.)

Anyway, best of luck and keep us posted. :)

[jhenn]

Yay guys! I had my first breakfast without dairy today! This is a landmark event as I always have milk and donuts or cereal for breakfast.

EDIT: I should say this breakfast still had a lot of sugar in it (peanut butter, juice, two fruits).

[puffin]

Thats great jhenn. Keep it up and you will get there. It does get easier i promise ;)

[jhenn]

Yeah I think I'm going to give up dairy before I give up sugar. The only problem is I told my mom I would continue to eat dairy because it makes life easier for her making meals, etc... I really do want to give up dairy though and I guess I just need to tell her.

[jhenn]

yay just had a dairy-free lunch!

[portiakitty]

You go!
They may be a wee bit over the top, but here's what vegan lunch's can be:

http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/

Just a little encourement and inspiration;)

[jhenn]

Oh wow this is a really cool blog. Thanks you've given me something to do.

[jhenn]

Okay I went that day that I was posting without dairy at all, but yesterday my brother, his friends, and I decide to order pizza. As non-vegans they wanted cheese so we got cheese. However that was the only dairy I had. I'm at work this morning and I was late and I didn't eat breakfast so I had some cake and cookies that we had left over from some event. I feel really bad though. I believe that I am addicted to sugar and not dairy though. For example instead of a latte I had a coffee the other day with lots of sugar and it satisfied me fine (no cream). I would really like a soy latte now though :)

[puffin]

I love soya lattes, but i still need sugar. I usually dip some chocolate in it :o
jhenn, i think it would be wise is you stocked up on some vegan cookies and chocs. You can carry some around with you so if you need to snack then you wont be tempted to just buy a dairy cookie.
There are plenty of vegan websites that have an amazing amount of sweet treats for vegans.

[jhenn]

Yeah I think tommorow I may go to the local health food store and stock up on some vegan goodies. It will be hard not to eat them all at once though :)

[portiakitty]

Unfortunatly their web site seems to be down at the moment, but in the next day or so try vegsource (they've just moved, it used to be .org, but now it's supposed to be .com, though I'm not having any luck with this at the moment). Anyway - there you will find ALL the help you need on this! In addition to a lot of really useful articles, there are not one, but two vegan recipe sites. One is a recipe data base, the other is a hosted by a very tallented can solve anything, find a recipe for anything, veganise anything woman.
I'm so sorry I can't give you the link right now - hopefully this wonder site will be back up soon - they've been out in operation for ever, so I doubt they've disapeared.

[jhenn]

Yeah I'm familiar with veg source. They maintain a pretty decent site and are affiliated with a lot of wonderful professionals who have a lot of good material available. I was thinking of buying their healthy life expo dvds but they're a tad pricey, plus I stopped buying dvds altogether because they are secret encrypted disks which are illegal to play with free software.

[portiakitty]

It's back up now:
http://www.vegsource.com/
Ask "Chef Deb" - she'll help you!
This is another good one, but don't take offence: I'm not saying I think you're fat! In fact, I picture you as one of these people who can eat anything without gaining a pound...
http://www.fatfreevegan.com/faqs.shtml
Just a lot of good recipe ideas, and a lot of great desert / baked goods that are a little lower in refined sugar.;)

C

[portiakitty]

Guess we posted at the same time.
So - what happens when you play dvds with free software?
What about burned or free shared dvds on 'legal' software?

[Blix]

Yeah I think I'm going to give up dairy before I give up sugar. The only problem is I told my mom I would continue to eat dairy because it makes life easier for her making meals, etc... I really do want to give up dairy though and I guess I just need to tell her.

If you get on well with your mother, she may well experiment and become vegan herself. Just try, oh, I don't know, well, just try something like custard made with soya milk and see what she says. You know, all the things people who eat what they consider to be normal. If she doesn't like it, try it with half goats milk and half soya milk. You do get used to it.
I tried totally vegan for a while and reverted to dairy. Goats milk instead of cows milk. Then I thought of the little billy kids who will go to the slaughter house just because they are little boys. So here I am, trying to go vegan again. My trouble is that I am permanently ill and I get really fatigued. I find it easier to eat 'normally' when I am at my worse. Then again, vegetable and fruit juices are a good standby in these times. They become the main meal instead of the sideline. I would like to know if vitamins and other nutrition gets destroyed in the freezer. I would really like to make a lot of meals when I am well and freeze them for the times when I am out of it. Can anyone advise me on this?

[jhenn]

Guess we posted at the same time.
So - what happens when you play dvds with free software?
What about burned or free shared dvds on 'legal' software?

It is illegal to play dvds with free software. When I talk about free software I'm talking about free as in speech, not as in beer. Its not the same but its mostly like open source software. To play dvds you have to give up your freedom by using propreitary non-free software. It is possible to play dvds with free software but in most countries to do so is breaking the law. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act makes it illegal to break copyright protection on dvds, which is why DeCSS (the free software dvd decoder) is illegal in the United States. I refuse to buy DVD's because they are secret encrypted disks that I can't play with free software. I will however watch a dvd if someone breaks the encryption and shares the file with me in another format, like ogg theora. I am not against sharing files with your neighbor through P2P and bittorrent. Sharing with your neighbor is not the moral equivalent to attacking a ship like the companies would have you believe. Sharing makes for a good society with a strong spirit of goodwill, and I will continue file sharing even if it is illegal.

If you want to learn how to play dvds in free software I can help you in private, but I encourage you not to buy dvds but instead to download things you might want to watch.

HDTV is also an assault on our freedoms, as well as Digital Restrictions Management, aka DRM like in itunes music store.

If you want to find out more check out http://www.gnu.org/philosophy or http://www.eff.org

[jhenn]

...

I doubt my mom would go vegan because she thinks God made animals for us to eat.

And I also have an illness, but the vegan diet has been shown for all stages of life if properly planned. The ADA which is probably the biggest diet org on the planet confirmed this, and they are compromised of professionals.

If your fatigued your probably not getting a lot of calories. If you don't have money on food focus on beans and rice. Beans and rice and carbs will fill you up but vegetables will not, but you still need some vegetables.

[portiakitty]

For sage advice about health, go to:
http://www.pcrm.org/index.html
Could also provide some helpful arguments for Mother's who feel that eating meat is the way to go.

[jhenn]

Hey everybody. Its been a few days since I have last posted, but I just need to share some things with you guys.

Sometimes I do not have animal products with meals, but sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel bad about it and sometimes I don't. I should say that since going vegetarian I have not ate meat except once when I went freegan and had some pizza with pig on it. It didn't really bother me because I knew that this pizza would just be thrown out if I didn't eat it.

Now for other sitiautions where I conciously consume dairy, like I said sometimes I feel bad about it and sometimes I don't. I guess I have taken a pretty big step in going vegetarian and not eating any meat, fish, or fowl. I probably did eat some cheese with rennet in it though becuase I don't always check.

I have a lot of good vegan cookbooks including Vegan with a Vengence, Students vegetarian cookbook, and a few others.

I live with my mother and I she knows I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian. However she doesn't know that I really want to go vegean. Do you guys think I should tell her this?

I think since I have money in the bank I will start riding my bike to the store to get food. There is a mexican/asian market within biking distance near my house, as well as a big commericial supermarket. I could fill up my backpack with like beans and rice (dry) and other stuff.

I really don't understand why I'm not more strongly associated with veganism and animal rights. I don't really have a burning passion for it, but deep down I know its right. Does anyone have any tips or comments? Thanks guys.

[tabitha]

Hi there Jhen! - So if someone asked you why you are vegetarian what would you say?. Then again if someone asked you why you want to go vegan what would you say to that? There must be some sort of passion in you to do this otherwise you wouldnt bother.:)