Seriously y'all.... I can't do the cow's milk

For the last couple of weeks, I've been playing with fire and consuming my fill of milk in all of its forms. Butter, ice cream and oui le devil: cheese. Mozzarella, Feta, Colby Jack and cheddar that have each passed these ebony lips at least once over the last few days. The final offense was this bomb ass tuna casserole that I made last night. I mean after tasting it I was REALLLY feeling myself. It had fresh corn, spinach, onions, green peppers, tuna, and noodles all mixed in a creamy melody consisting of milk, creme of mushroom soup and of course mozzarella. After taking our first bite my mom and I simply looked at each other, and then I smiled. It was perfect! Hearty, creamy, savory, and because I added fresh corn, contained small sweet bites of sunshine. As the storm was ragging outside, we were in casserole heaven, and by the time Irene had hit her crescendo, half of the tray was gone.

As I was finally able to make it to sleep around 5am, I had something to look forward to in the morning... That oh soooo sweet tuna casserole. I'm sure that I even went to sleep with a smile on my face, but ironically, I didn't wake up with one :-/. At about 7am Irene was beginning to cool her jets, but a battle was being waged in my stomach. AHHHHHHH! I won't get into details, but in addition to a headache ( my usual indicator that I've eaten something wrong) I had many of the other symptoms of lactose intolerance. No bueno....

It's not like I didn't know that I had this problem , I've given up the dairy on numerous occasions, I've even spoke to friends about black folks being lactose intolerant. Articles on it: Science daily and NIH. According to NIH 95 percent of Asians, 60 percent to 80 percent of African Americans and Ashkenazi Jews, 80 percent to 100 percent of American Indians, and 50 percent to 80 percent of Hispanics have a lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerance is least common among people of northern European origin, who have a lactose intolerance prevalence of only about 2 percent. I KNOW this, yet I keep running back to the udder (ick!), and stumble away feeling sick. It's an addiction, like Alcoholics and other kinds of addicts, I need a 7 step program to kick the habit. But until then, I'll just take it one dish at a time, starting with Vegan chocolate chip cookies with rice milk... Mmmmm rice milk.




Image: http://www.ranker.com/list/lactose-intolerance-symptoms/reference