Week One: Breaking up with Dairy & My Love Affair with Carob

It has now been a week since I had a yummy piece of cheese or some of my favorite boysenberry yogurt (Cascade Farms, I miss you!) to keep me company. But, gosh, I feel SO happy about breaking up with dairy!  Now, I am very lucky in that we didn't use a lot of dairy in our house to begin with, and my husband doesn't eat it much even now, so it's not like I have a tub of Ben and Jerry's staring me in the face each time I open the freezer.  But, still, there were a few times I really wanted a nice, creamy piece of cheddar or some butter on my veggies.  Still, it's worth it!

On Saturday, we made a special trip to Whole Foods Market so I could get some "comfort food" vegan-style to help me over the first week of my split with dairy.  Of course, my goal is to continue with my current devotion to using processed foods only sparingly, and trying to cut out all sugar except for occasional treats, but this weekend I just felt like being a bit naughty.  So, I splurged on Rice Dream's "Mint Carob Chip" frozen dessert and, WOW, was it heaven in my mouth!  I can't see how I would want real ice cream after that. My husband also brought me a treat home from his business trip: some carob, coconut and seed "bars" for me from the natural foods store in Santa Rosa and, mmm, mmm,  mmm!  I've always had a rather love-hate relationship with chocolate.  I think I should love it, like all women are supposed to, but I've just never really fallen for it in most forms (though I love brownies) and I always opt for vanilla ice cream.  Besides, chocolate never made me feel good--I left me irritable and sometimes headachy.  Yet, sometimes I just wanted something with that more heavy-body sweetness and nothing else seemed to fill it.  Now, in walks carob and I'm smitten!  And it's much easier for me to find that in vegan foods, so I'm thrilled.  I think this could be The One I've been waiting for ;-p

It felt super awesome to pay at the check-out and know that I wasn't contributing to any cruelty to cows through purchasing dairy products.  I haven't gone off eggs yet, but that will be next up on my list.   I don't think I will notice any changes in how I feel until I come out of my naughty sugar-foods binge and start again with more raw foods this week.


I got some vegan cookbooks from the library and had fun choosing some recipes over the weekend.  I'll see how they go this week and post back with some results.