For the past year I haven't touched dairy. And not only that, I was so vocal about what is wrong with dairy that Mrs. Billingsley quit putting cream in her coffee. I suggested she do what I've been doing and put coconut cream/almond milk into her coffee. Not a perfect solution, I know. I was desperate.
Mrs. Billingsley tried coconut cream/almond milk and turned up her nose at it. "OK, just give me black coffee." OK. So I did that. Then I heard, "I don't like black coffee." You do NOT want to hear Mrs. Billingsley start whining. I pondered the solution.
The problems that I saw with dairy are myriad. Allergy, lactose intolerance, growth hormone, antibiotics, prions from Mad CowDisease, (MCD), and every other known disease, and general malfeasance in the dairy industry.
At first Mrs. Billingsley didn't pay attention to my concerns. But one day I told her about a video on Youtube. It was a disturbing video about Mad Cow Disease in the US. Of course, the Canadians were to blame. Well, I'm OK with that, naturally. May I point out the the cattle lobby is one of the largest in the US and has fought any MCD disease reports tooth and nail? Moreover, the USDA, supposedly created to protect the public, is staffed by cattle industry executives. Still, I knew from the experience in Italy that for every one cow exhibiting symptoms for MCD, they were finding 150 that were infected without symptoms. Italy had started dissecting the brains of every cow that went into the food supply as meat.
Well, anyway. There were comments in this video from viewers that stated that their son/daughter/sister/brother etc had died of MCD. This isn't what the CDC has been saying. They say there have been no cases of MCD in humans in the US at all. And if there was the infection originated in some backward foreign land like the UK. Technically it would be called Creutzfeld Jakob Disease (CJD) in people. The really odd part of one comment was that a man said that his wife had died of CJD and she was a vegetarian. There were questions about her exact diet. She ate vegetables, and eggs and yogurt. The yogurt part was causing a tailspin in the comment section. So dairy is suspect for CJD?
When I told Mrs. Billingsley about this, she refused to eat or drink dairy or beef anymore. But she didn't like black coffee, and coffee had better happen. Understandable.
And so I began to puzzle again over what to do. What if I bought ORGANIC half and half? Free of feed made from scrapie infected sheep, mad cows, and any animal renderings? Free from growth hormone, and antibiotics. Pure as the driven snow. What could go wrong?
I went to the Horizon Dairy website. It sounded great. OK. So I told her my plan and yesterday I bought Horizon half and half. I really thought the problem was solved. I was so convinced of this that I decided to experiment on my own coffee with Horizon heavy whipping cream. I thought heavy whipping cream would be better because it contains much less lactose. Who knows? Maybe heavy whipping cream without all the chemicals from cows that ate grass 120 days a year would make a difference for me.
I was hyped up about having cream in my coffee for the first time in a year. I tasted it. Uh oh. It was rancid. I checked the expiration date. It was expired. My expensive experiment had failed the test.
Mrs. Billingsley is perfectly happy and has quit whining. She prefers half and half. It's especially good that at least that worked because I use half and half to make her favorite tomato soup and I've been starting to panic about not making that. Would it surprise you to know that I have never tasted this delicious soup? Also, the soup contains dollops of cream cheese, which product had also been banned around here. But wait. There's the vegan alternative that is perfect. And not only that, I can make jalapeño poppers again with the cream cheese.
So somehow I have managed to walk on eggshells and find my way through a minefield. I'm going back to coconut cream/almond milk in coffee though.
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