cheese

[Kristyn]

I was curious if cheese was ok to eat...I did a search and didn't come up with any discussions on it. Sorry if I missed it somewhere.

Thanks

Kris :)

[Rawkinlocs]

It's okay to eat if you're not trying to be 100% raw (unless you're talking raw dairy which I know nothing about and we really don't get into discussing raw animal products on this site). It falls under the category of dairy and if you're interested in some good reasons to reconsider eating dairy, check out http://notmilk.com

[Revvell]

Not sure what you mean by "o.k. to eat". IF you are looking to do a raw food program as is discussed here, then no. Just in general? No. Milk and dairy products are some of the worst non-foods one can put in their body ~ and, seemingly, one of the most addictive. If you go to the site Rawkinlocs suggested, it'll tell you why.

Revvell

[Kristyn]

Thanks for the info :) Just curious because I love feta cheese in my salads. Not sure why you say it's the most addictive food. I don't find that I crave cheese.

thanks

Kristyn

[asil]

I'm not a big fan of dairy myself, and my skin almost immediately looked better when I stopped eating it altogether. But some raw types do eat raw cheese. Most people on this site seem to be, or aspire to be, raw vegans. But you could google raw cheese and see what you come up with if you want to do a bit of research.

[Revvell]

Thanks for the info :) Not sure why you say it's the most addictive food.

I didn't say "the" most addictive, I said "one of the most addictive"....and, I wasn't speaking of you personally. In general it is one of the hardest things for people to let go of.

[QUOTE}
I don't find that I crave cheese.
[/QUOTE]

Give it up and see if that's true then. :p

Revvell

[Kristyn]

I'm new to all of this and never tried to stop eating cheese although when I gave up milk years ago that was pretty hard. You have my curiousity though is there a brief list of like the top 10 hardest food for people to give up?


Kristyn :)

[Rawkinlocs]

IMHO, dairy, period is one of those hard-to-give-up foods. Lot's of people find it hard to let go of cow's milk, ice cream, cheese...

I don't know of an official list of top ten foods that are hard to give up, but from personal experience and what I've read/seen of a lot of folks when going raw here are some off the top of my head:

(these are in no particular order)

1. Dairy
2. Bread or grains period
3. Chips
4. Sugar or sweet treats
5. Coffee
6. I guess meat falls in there with some

[Ginger]

Check this out:


September 26, 2004
Casein and Cheese More Addictive Than Chocolate?
A couple days ago I joked that I was detoxing from dairy and that I needed a 12-step program because I find it so hard to give up cheese. Amazingly, little did I know that cheese has actually been proven to be addictive. This explains why so many people like me find it incredibly difficult to give up cheese. It has been harder for me to give up dairy than cigarettes. I am not joking about that. Perhaps the more shocking thing is that the Dairy Industry has deliberately fed on cheese's addictive quality, with all of us being completely duped. I feel sickened by the following article. I feel cheated, fooled, angry, repulsed, and depressed that people can be so evil. If you can honestly read the last paragraph of this article and not be furious, you are a better person than I am.

So here is an excerpt from an article in the Orlando Sentinel July 13 2003:

Of all the potentially addicting foods, cheese may be the most complex. In research studies using vegan and vegetarian diets to control cholesterol or reduce body weight, most participants soon forget the lure of ice cream, sour cream, and even burgers and chicken. But for many people, the taste for cheese lingers on and on. Yes, 70 percent of its calories may come from waist-augmenting fat, and, ounce for ounce, it may harbor more cholesterol than a steak. But that cheese habit is tough to break.
Why is cheese so addicting? Certainly not because of its aroma, which is perilously close to old socks. The first hint of a biochemical explanation came in 1981, when scientists at Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., found a substance in dairy products that looked remarkably like morphine. After a complex series of tests, they determined that, surprisingly enough, it actually was morphine. By a fluke of nature, the enzymes that produce opiates are not confined to poppies -- they also hide inside cows' livers. So traces of morphine can pass into the animal's bloodstream and end up in milk and milk products. The amounts are far too small to explain cheese's appeal. But nonetheless, the discovery led scientists on their search for opiate compounds in dairy products.

And they found them. Opiates hide inside casein, the main dairy protein. As casein molecules are digested, they break apart to release tiny opiate molecules, called casomorphins. One of these compounds has about one-tenth the opiate strength of morphine. The especially addicting power of cheese may be due to the fact that the process of cheese-making removes water,lactose and whey proteins so that casein is concentrated. Scientists are now trying to tease out whether these opiate molecules work strictly within the digestive tract or whether they pass into the bloodstream and reach the brain directly.

(some paragraphs about chocolate addiction snipped)

The cheese industry is miles ahead of them, having gone to great lengths to identify people who are most vulnerable to addiction. It dubs them "cheese cravers," and tracks their age, educational level and other demographics so as to target them with marketing strategies that are tough to ignore. With a $200 million annual research and marketing budget, the dairy industry is not content to have you just sprinkling a little mozzarella on your salad. It is looking for those Americans who will eat it straight out of the package, whatever the cost to their waistlines or cholesterol levels.

At a "Cheese Forum" held Dec. 5, 2000, Dick Cooper, the vice president of Cheese Marketing for Dairy Management Inc., laid out the industry's scheme for identifying potential addicts and keeping them hooked. In his slide presentation, which was released to our organization under the Freedom of Information Act, he asked the question, "What do we want our marketing program to do?" and then gave the answer: "Trigger the cheese craving." He described how, in a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the dairy industry launched Wendy's Cheddar Lover's Bacon Cheeseburger, which single-handedly pushed 2.25 million pounds of cheese during the promotion period. That works out to 380 tons of fat and 1.2 tons of pure cholesterol in the cheese alone. A similar promotion with Pizza Hut launched the "Ultimate Cheese Pizza," which added an entire pound of cheese to a single pizza and sold five million pounds of it during a six-week promotion in 2000. The presentation concluded with a cartoon of a playground slide with a large spider web woven to trap children as they reached the bottom. The caption had one spider saying to another, "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings."

[deedub]

Thanks for printing that article RawVeganMom. Who knew? It never ceases to amaze me what people will do to make money in the food industry. Ya know, it like, oh a little posion will help it sell, well bring it on! :confused: What is up with that? :mad: :( :o

[Jodi]

To help wean me off milk, I just this week bought my first carton of Light Soy Milk. I was anticipating it tasting nasty, but was pleasantly surprised that it did not. I eventually hope to wean myself off the Soy Milk as well.

For me...Milk is one of the hardest things for me to let go of.

Jodi

[Kristyn]

That's amazing and news to me thanks for the artical RawveganMom!


Kristyn :)

[Revvell]

Most raw food books, including Alissa's have recipes for nut/seed milks and cheeses. For me, I'm rather partial to Almond milk. It's VERY easy to make and tastes wonderful ~ especially in the hot summer.

A glass of cold almond milk with raw cookies or fudge? Yummmmm!!!!

Revvell

[Ginger]

No prob! :D Yeah almond milk is yummy but I have a new favorite: hazlenut milk! It's divine! Super simple to make also!

1 cup hazlenuts
3 cups water
a few soaked dates

Blend & strain. Chill & serve. Keeps about 2 days in the fridge but it hardly lasts that long because it tastes so darn good! lol