Say ‘ello to my cheezy friend

Ever since I was little, I LOVED cheese (but who doesn’t?). It was the only way my mom could get me to eat brocoli when I was 4ish. I still remember her giving me brocoli and I refused until she put the cheese on top. Now, I absolutely love brocoli, but cheese doesn’t really love me. And that’s okay! Once I discovered more about the dairy industry, I am more and more glad that I found out it was wreaking havoc on my body because it’s not an industry I want to support. You can read more here.

When I was 15, I started getting pretty nasty side effects from the garbage I was trying to fuel my body with. One of those things was cheese. After getting a biofeedback test which was done to test any food or environmental allergies and sensitivities. Well, guess what… dairy came back, among some others, as being highly sensitive to. I decided to research more about this whole dairy dilema, and found all of my symptoms could be affected if one is allergic or highly sensitive to it. So, I begrudgingly took it out of my diet. And guess what happened! My symptoms started to disappear! It took a while and a lot of persistance, but it worked!

I’m sure you are wondering, what I do when I need my cheese fix… Well “they” have come a long way with cheese substitues and I have to say, when I’m feeling lazy, I opt for Daiya cheese, which you can get at the Breadroot Coop. This is the best tasting, and closest resembance to cheese for me. When I’m feeling a bit creative and adventurous, I make my own. There are many different ways of doing this and I made my favorite list of cheese substitutes and added the recipes I have used to make them.

Life Without Cheese Cheeze

1. Cheeze Sauce– this uses the very flexible and forgiving vegetable known as the cauliflower. I pour this over noodles, zoodles (zuchini noodles or any other veggie noodle), or speggheti squash
2. Veggie Cheeze– another vegetable based cheeze
3. Nutritional yeast– Quick and fast cheeze – my favorite quick and highly beneficial addition to popcorn, mac n cheeze, throw it on a baked sweet potato, salads, soups, kale chips
4. Nut cheeze– mmmm this can be made into a probiotic cheese with herbs
5. Sour Creme– quick and easy for all your sour needs
6. Yogurt– mix with some berries and nuts and you’ve got a sweet treat

A lot of the recipes, I’m sure you noticed, have nutritional yeast. This yummy and cheesy ingredient is packed with energy boosing B vitamins like B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxine), B9(folate), B12 (cobalamin), plus in just 2 tablespoons you get 8 grams of protein! While it’s low in sodium, the levels of magnesium, manganese, and zinc are not. You can see here, all of it’s nutritional info.

Are you cheese free? What are your favorite dairy free treats? I’d love to hear what your tips and tricks are!