A Cheeseless World

A cheeseless world. 

Sounds pretty grim I know, but I've been reading a lot about the high fat content in cheese. Although, Weight Watchers allows all foods, it does recommend the low-fat dairy for this reason. However, I've never really cared for this version of tasteless cheese. 

I began to wonder, as my weight loss seemed to be coming off as slow as Christmas this time, what would happen if I just stopped eating cheese? Could it even be possible, because it is one of my most favorite things. In fact one year I actually asked for a fancy, expensive cheese as a stocking stuffer. Who does that?

In my reading I also learned that cheese actually contains something called Casein that really has an addictive quality to it. It's there so that the baby calf will keep returning to its mother for nourishment. So all this time I've been beating myself up for not being able to walk away from the macaroni and cheese, and I'm finding out there's just a few degrees of separation between me and a calf. 

One of my favorite snacks each day is popcorn. Popcorn that is popped in oil, salted and then doused with Parmesan cheese. Popcorn alone popped without oil is a pretty sad, dry dissapointment. What I realized, though, was that my popcorn was just a vehicle for oil, salt and cheese. 

So what's a body to do? Well not to be outsmarted by a block of cheese, I discovered a cheesy alternative that seems to be doing the trick. You blend together slivered almonds, nutritional yeast ( you get it at the healthfood store) and some salt and voila you have a non-dairy Parmesan cheese!

So far I've used it to make an amazing cheeseless pizza. I mean who knew it was even possible? Even more so, by popping my popcorn in the microwave without oil, and spritzing it with a tiny amount of olive oil, the salt and "Parmesan" stick to the fluffy kernels, and provide that cheesy salty taste, without the oily residue. 

I'm also skipping the cheese as a garnish on food, and am not noticing the difference. Sometimes our eating becomes more out of habit than anything else, and just like other things in life you might just want to "shake" things up a little bit, and try something different.