Processed Cheese

Ok, so I am over at my man’s house yesterday, he had made me and some of his friends dinner (can you see the smile on my face!). I had come later owing to this and that other commitment, so I didn’t get to see what they ate, but something in the conversation had me think it was different than what I ate. He made me this awesome fish (can you say spoilt… well not only can I say it, and spell it, I am pretty darn good at enjoying it – and, yes, this was the first time he was making me dinner and, it’s true, I was quite impressed). Then, about ¾ of the way through my meal, I spied something with my little eye on the corner of the dining room table. It was a pasty, pastel orange colour, square-ish, stacked up, wrapped in plastic. Oh my god, it hit me. It is fake cheese. It is that individually wrapped faux-fromage (this is where I wish I had audio capacity, and then I would play that scary “wree, wree, wree, wree” sound from horror movies). After I got over my shock, a certain eerie panic set in. Wait, if he has that on the corner of his table, he must have it in his fridge, and he must have been feeding it to his friends. This is not good. Clearly it is time for the re-training to begin.

There is not room for processed cheese in my fridge or my life. End of story. No discussion. No debate. In fact, no brainer. Cheese, in and of itself, is supposed to be on my no-no list (but it has been harder for me to give up than sugar, go figure). Here is my compromise, I don’t buy cheese. Now, if it happens to be at the places I visit, well, that is beyond my control, but my home needs to be a cheese free zone. And because I am all about education around cancer and diet and health, I will take the opportunity to pontificate just a bit … here is why cheese is bad for me (and possibly you)…most cows have been treated with a bunch of hormones, most notable among those being Bovine Growth Hormone. And not only is it encouraging extra growth, you know, above and beyond what would be normal growth for them (please tell me how growth above and beyond normal is different from cancer), it is probably (I ought not be quoted on this though, as I have not done the research, but am just assuming and extrapolating) being excreted in the milk. Think about that, your dairy products are full of this (and others, I’m afraid) icky stuff. Yuck. So there is that. And there is also the fact that cancer, at least breast cancer, is more prevalent in overweight people. Well you can’t tell me that over consumption of dairy doesn’t lend itself to becoming overweight. Then there is the thing about dairy being a reproductive fluid (doesn’t that suddenly make your Brie sound a whole lot less appealing). My cancer was of a reproductive organ. Now I don’t know if there are studies, but just intuitively, there is something about that that say “Don’t do it”. Laying off the dairy just plain makes sense. The only exception to that is yogurt, since it is such a superfood, with all that acidophilus, but even then, organic, fat-free, not sugar sweetened are all-important.

So, now, suddenly it occurs to me, maybe having faux cheese in the fridge is a way for me to not have to be tempted (because really, tempted by faux cheese, that will never happen), but for him to have his, er, cake and eat it too. Ahh, the joys of relationships and learning how to compromise.