There was a time, not that long ago, when I myself uttered this very phrase. Cheese, after all, went with EVERYTHING! You could bake it, fry it, deep fry it, stir it into soup, sprinkle it on salads; it was the secret ingredient that could make anything taste better. Those crazy vegans, I thought to myself, must do nothing but fantasize about eating cheese all day long.
Not so! Just like with any other drug, there is a chemical connection involved in peoples' addictions to cheese. Let's explore: cheese is made of milk. The purpose of milk is to nurse a tiny little calf into a full grown, giant cow. Thus, it is extremely fattening to promote growth. To ensure that the calf wants to continue nursing and continue growing and getting fat, milk contains casein, which when broken down, is incredibly similar to, and just as addictive as, morphine.
So when you say you are addicted to cheese, you may not be joking! You could be as addicted to cheese as a smoker is to cigarettes. And, like with cigarettes (or sugar, or coffee, or any other drug), once you quit cold turkey, and battle the brief (though sometimes intense!) withdrawal phase, chances are you will begin to wonder what was so great about cheese in the first place. If you need more convincing, there are some very disturbing images and descriptions available on how exactly we get milk from cows these days, but I will spare everyone the horror.
Why should you cut cheese out of your life? Besides the animal cruelty factor (which was reason enough for me) eliminating cheese slashes massive amounts of calories and fat out of your diet, lessens the appearance of cellulite, unclogs your arteries and often clears your sinuses and lessens the intensity of allergy symptoms! Plus there are the bragging rights, and those are pretty nice too!
Read More:
Big Food About to Lose Its Biggest Defense: Food Really Is Addictive by Dr. Neal Barnard, MD
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