These last few weeks I have somehow managed to keep dairy out of my son’s diet, and in doing so have drastically reduced the amount of dairy in my own diet. This has been a really good thing for me because I have wanted to take steps to going dairy free for awhile to see if it would help me have less abdominal pain caused by my endometriosis. (Dairy is just one of many “trigger” categories for this).
The biggest contributors to dairy in our diet are milk and cheese….and maybe ice cream. But it’s been too cold for me to even want ice cream. I figured if we can reduce, or completely eliminate these items, it would greatly help my personal journey toward a dairy-free diet.
There are three things that have helped me reduce dairy in my own diet:
1) Not wanting to eat it in front of my son
…especially since he is the reason why we have had to eliminate dairy. My son is not at an age where he understands that milk or cheese might be hurting him (I have yet to add it back to his diet to see how he reacts). So it just wouldn’t be nice of me to eat it in front of him.
We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together. And if I’m eating it, he wants it. I’m not a milk drinker, so that wasn’t a problem for me. However, we no longer have grilled cheese for lunch, and I didn’t put cheese cubes with my lunches either. We also eliminated “Friday Night Pizza Night” and I started making a Chinese themed Friday night instead. Although, I do admit, my husband and I had some pizza with out-of-town guests one night after my son went to bed. After all, it’s not every day that our friends could enjoy Chicago style pizza!
2.) Buying blocks of cheese instead of shredded
Buying blocks of cheese meant that I may need to actually shred cheese to use it for various dishes. One of my favorite snacks is melted shredded cheese on tortilla chips. But if I had to take out the cheese, find the grater, and pull out a cutting board, I thought twice about it. Call me lazy, but that is just too much work. Plus I didn’t want the extra dishes that the extra effort created.
However, I have to say that freshly grated cheese tastes soooooo much better than pre-packaged shredded cheese. Plus it doesn’t have the extra plasticky stuff (or whatever it is that I at some point read about) that shredded cheese has.
3.) Not buying it
Yep. It’s that simple. If I don’t have it to eat, then I’m not eating it. I have only bought cheese for dishes I needed to make for guests (what is a Super Bowl party without a cheese dip?) or to bring somewhere.
Since I do plan to try adding dairy back into my son’s diet this week, I was so tempted to choose a cheese dish for one of our dinners. However, for the most part (other than some pizza here and there) I have been doing so good not eating cheese. And after three weeks of limited amounts in my diet, I no longer crave it. So I think it’s best to keep away from it for now!
Weekly Menu Plan
Thursday: Toasted Chicken Salad sandwiches with Sweet Potato Fries and fresh fruit and veggies
Friday: Dinner Out!!!
Saturday: Dinner out again…woohoo!
Sunday: Beef Taco’s with brown rice and fresh fruit
Monday: Mediterranean Chicken (from Plain Chicken) with salad and garlic bread
Tuesday: Barbecue Meatballs (from Money Saving Mom) with roasted potatoes, homemade biscuits and green beans
Wednesday: Leftovers
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