Wanting a new perspective, and a old-world experience I ventured to Ireland to experience things new and old. With the only expectation being "the unexpected" I was open for trying new things and gaining new insight. It was wonderful! The sights were staggering in a balance of days gone by, and modern day "keeping the pace" - a lesson in contrast and balance.
As this relates to diet - I was a bit concerned about sticking to the program, considering that the two highly touted items on the Irish menu are butter and guinness. Preface this with the fact that I have gone through years of what I thought was a hormonal issue, to realize last October that once I eliminated dairy from my diet the hives and skin problems immediately healed, as such I have sworn off milk, ice cream, cheese and butter entirely! (Yes, it hurts!) On a hunch, I decided on day 2 to test the waters on my recently discovered lactose intolerance and see if I was equally affected by Irish dairy, so let's start with the best of the best - butter.
The first creamy taste of Irish butter was enough to have me looking forward this little experiment - Irish butter is better, much much better! I can only describe it as the difference between drinking a sip of fresh cream, and sip of watered down 1% milk. After my first taste, I felt a little apprehensive, waiting for the hives to appear on face and wrists - so I only had 1 piece of bread lightly spread with the oh-so-creamy and delicious Irish butter. To my surprise, no unpleasant side effects. I ventured on to slathering on the butter, then to the cheese, not just a bite, but a whole cheese tray - still no unpleasant side effects. By the 7th day or so, I finally got brave enough to have cereal with milk - I have given up milk in my coffee, cereal, resorting to cooking with powdered milk, and using rice milk as a substitute otherwise. The European equivalent to our shredded wheat, and a bowl of milk I thought for sure would bring out the hives. Nothing. AMAZING!
You can imagine that on the last morning in Ireland, a tear in my eye formed as I was spreading my last pat of creamy Irish butter on my last piece of brown Irish soda bread, I savored every bite. It leaves to question what really is the difference between the dairy products being served up on American tables, and the dairy served in other parts of the world. It's well worth looking into.
As we lifted off in Dublin, I waved a sad goodbye to Irish butter as I affectionately embraced in my mind for the keeping, the green landscape dotted with fat grass-fed Irish cows and fluffy Irish sheep! The whole experience had me back up to 157.2 when I got on the scale at home - I will be smiling the whole time as I'm jogging off those pounds! No regrets!
1 comment:
I just found your blog. I wanted to say that there may be something to the theory about the dairy in the US. I also recently discovered that I'm lactose intolerant and I eliminated some skin problems and other issues by cutting out the dairy in my diet. I was recently traveling outside of the country and I found it difficult to find soy milk...so I tried the equivalent of our 2% milk. It didn't bother me at all and I was traveling for 2 weeks. I wonder what they are putting in our dairy in America?
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