Question of the day:
Q: But Jiiiill, if the animal doesn’t die to give up the milk, what does it matter if you eat the cheese? Why don’t you just eat the cheese? Eat the cheese!
A: From what I understand, in order to get a cow to give up milk all the time, a cow needs to constantly cycle through pregnancies, which produces calves who go on to become veal, or beef, or more dairy cows. The original dairy cows themselves eventually outlive their usefulness and are used for dog and baby food and whatnot. Therefore, as a person not eating meat for ethical (among many other) reasons, it’s actually not so hot to persist with the cheese, however hot the cheese itself is. So every once in a while, I try to do a little bit better by myself and the cows.
For the record, there is also this common argument:
Human beings are the only species to drink the milk of another species, and the only species to drink milk beyond infancy and that’s just unnatural and gross.
But I hate that argument. Human beings are the only species to do a lot of things and I’ll be darned if I’m going to give up toothpaste, blogging and trips to the moon just because rodents never figured out math.
This one is also fun, and quite silly:
Milk is full of casein and casein is an ingredient in glue.
Know what else you can make glue from? Flour, eggs, garlic… Virtually anything that is sticky when wet and not sticky when not wet. That’s what glue is made of. Since the dawn of the ages, or at least since kindergarten, glue has been edible.
Cheeses uneaten: parmesan, cheddar
Eggs unbeaten: scrambled
Uncheese enjoyed: melty white cheez sauce from the uncheese cookbook.
Publication not picked up at the Price Chopper: Pleasure of Cheese (Can you imagine? Porn! In the grocery store! I had to shield my eyes.)
Missing it: not yet, unless you count the stray thought I had of celebrating a successful 12 days without cheese with a big bowl of mac n’ cheese from The Beaconsfield. I can’t help it. They use Guiness aged cheddar.
Vegan resource of the day: The Uncheese Cookbook
Because it has only taken me 2 years to develop a real hankering for uncheese, which is but a sigh in time compared to the 27 years I needed to learn to love olives.
Befriend: