To eat cheese as a vegan?

[Sparksi]

I’ve been vegan for 5 years. I’m 8 weeks pregnant and craving cheese triangles. There isn’t a vegan equivalent anywhere. Vegan cheese is not the same. I haven’t had any dairy for years and read somewhere you can develop a bit of an intolerance to it if you’ve not had it for a while - if this is true it would be silly to succumb to the craving if it’s only going to upset my stomach.

I do feel a bit icky if I think about the morals as to why I have been vegan for so long, and definitely wouldn’t be making any permanent changes. I am wondering if it’s my body telling me I need something, though!

WIBU to have it or should I find something else?

This....I had serious cheese cravings when pregnant @Sparksi - Cheddar cheese in particular.

Cattle have decent, if short lives generally, the beef cattle who are born to make the milk aren't crated like veal calves.

Probably the worst part is where Mother and calf are separated.

My mum is vegan and has been for 5 years but did have a moment of weakness when she saw the cake id made for my sisters birthday a couple of years ago. It was dairy free but not egg free. She just kind of lost all control and shoved the whole piece in her mouth which was hilarious! She’s not eaten egg since so it was just a blip. Have a cheesy triangle blip if you need one OP

I would eat the cheese! If you are craving cheese it's probably because your body needs it. However, cheese triangles are really processed and you'd proabably do better with a nice bit of cheddar.

I’ll be flamed for this but hey ho I don’t care because I never come back and look.

OP I don’t believe you can build a baby without at least dairy. You just can’t get everything you need from a vegan diet. Your baby needs the easily absorbable nutrients that unfortunately only come from animal products. He or she needs meat, fish, eggs and dairy because humans are omnivores. You can go back to being vegan after he or she is born.

Makes me wonder about my pregnancy cravings. I really craved beer during my third pregnancy. I never drink it normally (and did not give into this craving I might add, but I did used to buy the odd bottle and smell it)

I used to joke it was because my DH is Belgian lol.

It's likely healthier to eat what you are craving and not be restrictive while pregnant/breastfeeding.

@AmethystSparkles "OP I don’t believe you can build a baby without at least dairy. You just can’t get everything you need from a vegan diet."

I would never 'flame' anyone but just politely point out I have seen several babies who came from vegan pregnancies and they are all completely healthy and thriving and also it states on the WHO website that veganism is completely ok for all life stages including pregnancy. And let's face it nothing really makes it into the WHO website unless it is pretty accurate!

Op I would just like to say only do what feels right for YOU and don't give in to any external pressure like I did. I strongly disagree with eating meat but because society makes you believe you 'need' it be be healthy I remember forcing myself to eat it while sobbing my heart out for absolutely ages. I regret it so much and wish I had just stayed true to myself.

I love that cravings are linked to deficiencies.
I must have had quite the prawn cocktail pringles deficiency.

If you were not intolerant before,I would not you would be now.Listen to your body.Eat those cheese triangles,and most of all,enjoy 😊

I think talking to your midwife would be a good idea. Cravings can be a sign of something your body needs. It is perfectly acceptable to abandon the vegan diet for your and your baby's health.

In the nicest possible way, noone except you cares that you are vegan, so if you are craving the cheese, eat the cheese.

I havent eaten poultry in for ever - partly for moral reasons (too lazy to go full vegan im sorry!) and then i hated the taste. However, both pregnancies, with DD and now, i could eat chicken all day long. Couldnt bear to be around it post birth last time.

Eat the cheese - especially in the early weeks if you feel sick, just give in to what your body wants (theres a science behind it) and blame the cheese loving genes!

This particular baby seems to be partial to cheesecake too... highly recommend indulging if you're going to allow soft cheese :)

And I frequently cut our diary for my skin for sometimes over 2 years, always been fine tummy wise when ive eaten it :)

Thanks all. I had the cheese 😂it hasn’t upset my stomach so far. I actually only had a little bit but definitely satisfied a craving.

YWNBU at all to eat cheese.

YWBVVVU to make some godawful tasteless crap like dairylea your first taste of cheese in years. Go for a nice cheddar or another hard cheese of your choice - as pp say hard cheese is lower in lactose than soft cheese.

Marvellous. If you can't have a bit of what you fancy when you're building a whole human being, it's a sad life.

I had a huge sweet tooth while I was pregnant, the opposite of my usual tastes. Out on a day trip one day my mum steered the whole family into yet another tea shop because "she's wittering on about having cake again". I wasn't supposed to overhear but it was quite touching really 😁

Re the intolerance thing - it’s absolutely true. I cut out dairy for 2 years due to breastfeeding a child with a milk allergy. When I reintroduced dairy I had a few issues with loud tummy noises/gurgling and runny poo. Even 4 years in my lactose digestion is not what it was. Tbh, I had no idea this would affect my lactase levels and cause prior to reintroduction of dairy. Take it easy!

If you haven't eaten dairy for 5 years, you'll probably be lactose intolerant by now. So you need to choose low lactose cheeses - there are lots of them, so not a big problem.

I am a vegan and I ate cheese by mistake once. It took me a long time to veer far from a loo.

If you're craving cheese, could you have something equally as pungent/flavoursome? Hummus, nutritional yeast? Something salty and fatty? But ultimately, if you want cheese and cheese only, a couple of bits of it doesn't make much difference in the great scheme of things. You won't be a vegan though. You could always decide you'll be a vegan from X date in the future.

I'm vegan too and wouldn't judge you having the cheese personally.

(I don't think being judgemental or too all or nothing is particularly helpful either, although it might be best to keep it to yourself if you're still vegan, just to avoid any mixed messages.)

I say this as someone who, back when I was still only pescatarian and training for a 10k, started massively craving chicken out of nowhere. I wasn't sure what to do but ultimately ended up having it a few times as I figured my body was telling me something. I never told anyone though. I later realised I just had a really crappy diet 😅and wasn't getting what I needed, and once I had consulted a nutritionist at the gym and started eating better I never had those cravings again, even after I started training much harder for a longer race. So I really do believe in the whole deficiencies leading to cravings thing. I imagine being pregnant puts even more demands on your body than just exercising too!

If you do want to try a possible vegan solution that could satisfy cheese cravings, Rachel Ama's tofu and chive spread recipe is really good and easy to make. Won't taste like the triangles obviously, but as long as you use a calcium-set tofu like Cauldron then it'll be really high in calcium, there are cashews in there as well so a double dose of protein and also fats, nutritional yeast for B vitamins etc. Tastes really good on a toasted bagel as a snack. 🙂

The Cathedral City vegan cheese is really good too if it's purely the taste you're missing - but I don't think any sort of pre-made alternative is going to have the same kind of nutritional profile.

Definitely do be careful with dairy as well though. I've had what I think was probably contaminated coffee a couple of times since going vegan and was violently ill afterwards. 😱

YOLO eat the damn cheese! 🧀

EAT WHAT YOUR BODY IS ASKING FOR.

Jesus christ, have some faith in you biology and listen to what you need, don;t fucking listen to hipsters on the internet. We're not herbivores, we have evolved over hundreds of thousand of years to eat animal products, and starving your body of what is needs does absolutely fuck all in helping anything. ESPECIALLY when you are trying to build the most precious thing inside yourself - your baby.

Go eat some cheese or dairy, but fuck the triangles off, get some really high quality organic stuff, and enjoy. xx

The WHO is full of shit and vulnerable to political sway, so no, don't listen to them but listen to bloody obvious common sense.

My children go to a bit of a 'hippy school, and in my son's class there are a handful of vegan kids. I can absolutely 100% tell you those children are malnourished. They all look ill, pale, dark bags under their eyes and are really low energy.

Forcing your children to be malnourished based on your own ideology is cruel and stupid.

Nothing the OP has posted indicates she preaches or judges 🤷🏼‍♀️ I very rarely see a preachy or judgy comment from a vegan and yet I frequently see comments judging vegans, or accusing vegans of preaching and judging!

Anyway, OP. In my last pregnancy the only thing I could eat was cheese sandwiches. I wasn't vegan then but I am now. I wonder if I'd feel the same if I got pregnant now? If I did, I don't think I could fight it, anything else made me sick. Pregnancy does such strange things to us. Do what you feel you've got to do. You can always go back to fully vegan afterwards if you wish.