Hello and welcome back to Eight Years In. (And if you’re new, welcome!) I’m Rebekah and I’ve been vegan for nine years now. If there’s something about veganism that I hear a lot, it’s that people don’t think they could give up cheese. Which I understand. Living in the Midwestern US, cheese was a big part of my diet before going vegan. And if you had asked me two months before going vegan if I could give up all animal products, I would have told you no way. (Once you explained to me what they were.)

   And yet, I still went vegan. And I stayed that way, still, nine years later. So what changed? Well, that’s what I want to talk about today. I think that not enough vegans talk about their journey with actually getting rid of these things with real suggestions tacked on. And hopefully, my story will help you realize that if I can do it, then you can do it too! 

Me and Cheese

   So let’s start off. Like I said, I used to eat cheese all the time. Every day, pretty much. And usually multiple times a day. It was good for me, right? A way to get some calcium and it was delicious. Also, it helped fill out the calories in my diet when our family didn’t have very much money. 

   I would eat cheese with my school lunch. Whether it was sprinkled on top of something or on the side like a cheese stick, there was always cheese there. And at home I loved Mac and cheese, quesadillas, cheese and crackers, chili with cheese on top, and topping baked potatoes with melted cheddar. 

   When I first heard about veganism, it seemed daunting. I had just settled into my ‘scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast’ phase. And what would my other two meals look like even if I managed to give up the first? But my first crack of light was realizing that all the others who were telling me about veganism had already done it. I wasn’t alone in this, and neither are you. 

Cheese is a trap

   I learned that cheese actually isn’t as healthy as we think it is. A lot of people are lactose intolerant, so cheese isn’t what they want to be eating anyway. But in my family, high blood pressure and cholesterol is common. Well, cheese doesn’t help that. It’s saturated fat and salt, both of which can screw with your blood pressure and cholesterol. 

   But I also learned that this mixture of fat and salt is a sort of evolutionary trap we have activated in our bodies. Naturally, we wouldn’t encounter foods so high in calories. So when we did, we needed to be encouraged to eat as much as we possibly could. Which is exactly what cheese tricks us into doing. 

   Not to mention, cheese has casein in it. Which is put in there to keep the baby cows coming back for more milk. You know, to nourish them into becoming big strong cows someday. If you’ve ever breastfed a child, you’ll know that they take some convincing to give up nursing. That’s because there is a hormone in there that makes it addictive. And in cow’s milk, there’s even more of it. Basically, once we get weaned off of nursing, we just swap one addiction for another. But we’re the only animal who consumes milk as an adult. That’s a little strange! 

Giving it up 

   Back when I first went vegan, the options for plant based cheese in my area were extremely limited. I think I had nondairy cheese twice in my first three years of veganism. It simply wasn’t good or accessible. And while some of you newer vegans may be reading this thinking “oh, how sad”, I am actually pretty happy about this fact. 

   I know that many people suggest trying all of the vegan replacement products as you’re transitioning into veganism. And I think that’s a decent way of going about things. But it you find that you’re having problems with prolonged cravings, you might want to try simply cutting all of that stuff out for a time. 

   For me, simply not having cheese specifically helped me a lot. I wasn’t preoccupied with finding the “most realistic” cheese, and I think it made my craving subside a lot quicker than some others. Instead of thinking about cheese, I was working on finding new favorite foods and learning different habits. 

Finding new favorites

   This is my best advice to anybody who wants to go vegan. Start trying new food so you can start finding some new favorites. 

   I began experimenting with new ingredients and ways of cooking once I got serious about being vegan. The truth is, before veganism my diet was pretty limited and if I wanted to be a healthy person, I’d have to start branching out. 

   But what I found was that vegan food could be just as delicious as nonvegan food. If you knew how to make it, a whole world of amazing flavors was opened up. And the more I took my culinary exploration seriously, the less I found myself missing the old familiar foods—especially cheese. 

Try substituting with nutritional yeast or beans

   Now, at first glance this point may seem odd, but it’s how I managed to substitute cheese in my diet when necessary. There are some specific meals that you might not want to give up. But you’re unsure of how to still have them as a vegan, because cheese is a pretty big part of them. I went through it too. 

   My solution was fairly simple. When I used cheese as a sort of salty filling, I started substituting beans. Instead of making quesadillas, I began making a bean filling to put inside my toasted tortillas. Melted cheese on baked potatoes? Try it with a bean stew instead. And I also found that bean chili without cheese was just as good. As long as I could still have the saltine crackers on the side, of course. If you’re craving salt and fat, you can make salty, fatty beans whether that’s a bean soup or more of a hummus, surprisingly, this can get you pretty far. 

   And if I was using cheese for more of a Parmesan flavor or sprinkling over the top of something, nutritional yeast was my go-to. It’s got an interesting flavor profile that imitates the fermented flavor of some cheeses. So if I was making spaghetti, I’d finish it off with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Or I’d add some to my side of vegetables. Or that bean stew I mentioned earlier that just needed a little something? Nutritional yeast, why not? You can get nutritional yeast in most health food stores or online, and I definitely recommend for new vegans to play around with especially. 

Trying vegan cheeses

   If you are in an area with lots of different vegan products, then you might want to experiment with vegan cheeses. Some of them can be expensive, so beware. But every so often (or regularly, if you don’t care about the money or possible health consequences), it can be fun to try a new product. And it is nice to have access to some different flavor profiles for certain recipes that you might want to try. (Yes, even now after 9 years I’m still experimenting with food. I’ve grown to really enjoy trying new things!) 

   But when would you want to start on vegan cheeses and how should you go about it? Well, if you’re looking at vegan cheese from a diet-varying standpoint like I do instead of a “transition food”, then I’d say it depends. There are all different schools of thought about how long it takes to form a habit whether that is three weeks or sixty days, I’m not going to take a strong position either way. I think the benchmark is just when your strong cravings for cheese start going down. 

   Once you don’t feel so desperate to have cheese, it’ll be easier to sort through the products at your disposal. Because as I’ve said, not all vegan cheeses are good! And I’m not trying to criticize vegan cheese makers. I think they do an amazing job but everyone likes and misses different aspects of cheese when they stop eating it. So you have to find the ones that you enjoy personally. I definitely listen to the opinions of online vegans when thinking about which new products to try, but it’s important to keep in the back of your mind that you might not like that new fancy vegan cheese the internet is raving about. And that’s okay. 

   I think the best usage for vegan cheese is the times when you would be eating a lot of cheese (as in, a charcuterie board for instance) or when there’s just no real substitute for it. Because believe me when I say I’ll eat a lot of weird vegan food but a cheeseless vegan pizza is not something I want. So to me, it’s a matter of substituting it with other things where you can and using the products at your disposal when you otherwise need to. 

   It is possible to eat vegan without trying to substitute cheese in your diet. I did it for a while (a couple years) and might do it again someday. But I decided I don’t need to do that anymore and it would be nice to try these vegan products coming out now. They add a new sense of variety to my diet and make cooking more fun for me (as well as the nonvegans who eat my food). 

Making cheese

   However, if you’re someone who is not interested in living a cheeseless life and you’re in an area without a selection of products, you have one more shot. You can try making some vegan cheese on your own! 

   I’ll be honest, this is not an area that I’ve delved into very much. But it is possible and people do it. You can find lots of different recipes and videos online. Some are better than others, just like with everything else. But I did want to mention it here to plant the seed in your head, if that’s something that interests you. We got our packaged vegan cheeses because some very creative and passionate people decided to take on the challenge of vegan cheese-making. And so can you, if the idea peaks your interest. 

   I will likely be making a post someday further exploring the topic myself—let me know if you want to hear that adventure in veganism. 

Give yourself some credit

   And the last tip isn’t really a tip at all, but more of advice. Just be gentle with yourself. Be patient and give yourself some credit. It can be difficult in the beginning to give up something that you’ve been consuming all your life. But you’re doing a good job! 

   Don’t worry if you’re still having cravings. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means that you’ve got some more work to do whether that’s waiting or finding more delicious vegan foods or trying new vegan cheeses. You can get through this—I know you can because I did. If you want to hear more about vegan cravings, check out this post. 

   And as usual, thank you for reading my thoughts. If you’re a new vegan, long term vegan or interested in becoming one, subscribe to the blog! We talk all about the vegan lifestyle as well as other things we can do to leave a positive impact on the world. If you’re giving up cheese, let us know in the comments below. And if you already did, leave your wisdom so that we can learn from you! And have a great day!