As you know, I've been sick a lot lately. I'm on some killer broad spectrum antibiotics because the doctors can't figure out what's wrong. Part of the issue, im come to realize, though it is not the main issue, is that a lot of food has dairy. PTS seems to cook everything in butter and a lot of options have cheese in them. I haven't been eating meat lately, I'm not too sure why but the smell and taste of red meat repulses me lately. And a lot of the vegetarian stuff has dairy. So I've been eating a lot of salads. But that is a problem because on the salad bar stuff tend to as I termed it "comingulate" (which was pointed out to me is not an actual word).
Today I went to add some chickpeas to my salad and luckily I realized that someone had dropped some blue cheese into them. If I eat anything that touched dairy, I will have an allergic reaction. My reaction is also steadily getting worse. The smallest iota of dairy will set it all into action. I am sick of getting sick because of dairy. The chaplain on campus is having me talk to dining services to see if we can figure something out but I feel really bad because I do not want to inconvenience them.
I went to Wegmann's this weekend to try to find something to cook so I could eat for the weekend. I was i their health food section and was shocked at the lack of non-dairy options. They have a whole aisle dedicated to gluten-free food. And don't get me wrong, I am glad that the gluten-free people have their alternatives but where are our Dairy-free choices. The Shaws back in Clinton sold Dairy Free Mac & cheese and I was really hoping for something like it but alas there was none. And when you are able to find a dairy free alternative it is ridiculously expensive! I'm a poor graduate student, I want to be able to eat and not have an allergic reaction to my food but at the same time I cannot afford a lot of the alternative. $2.19 for Sheep Yogurt and $2.49 for goat yogurt, neither of which I have had a chance to try to see if it would work because it is so damn expensive. And Dairy free and Lactose Free are not the same thing! Lactose free means it comes from milk but they've managed to make it easier to digest. Dairy free means it never came from a cow's udder. Being allergic to dairy and being lactose intolerant is not the same thing. I'm not trying to be difficult when I ask if you sell a dairy free product so do not give me a dirty look! For some reason nut allergies get a lot more respect than dairy allergies and I am not sure why.
...end rant...
No comments:
Post a Comment