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How to live without cheese...and still have happy kids

June 21, 2025

I used to think there was no way we could live without having cheese in our home.

I used to think there was no way we could live without having cheese in our home. I had friends that were vegan and I said we could never do it. Quesadillas, mac and cheese, pizza, string cheese, cheese-y crackers and any other salty, fatty, melty concoction that made its way to meal time was a large part of what we ate.

As our children complained of stomach aches and even some major headaches after a greasy, cheesy meal, I brushed those things aside and just thought it was part of childhood. The more I read about dairy, and the highly saturated fatty, salty cheese we were consuming, the more I realized we needed to make some changes. How to break the news to our kids who loved the stuff? And, what would I feed them instead!? That was scary!!

While driving home from our traditional spring break camping trip, I decided to implement a plan. “We can do anything for 30 days, right kids?” I’m sure they didn’t know what I was getting at. They hesitantly agreed (along with my awesome husband) to try 30 days without dairy. Of course I was bombarded with many questions of what that would really look like.

First, we had to get rid of all things made from milk at our house in order to not be tempted. Lucky for us, there wasn’t much there after being away for 10 days. The butter got left in the freezer…so we could come back to it after the experiment. After all, I could finally afford to make cookies with real butter, and they were heavenly!

Back to the cheese. I had to be ready with something to use instead of the cheese we were used to. While driving, I found a cashew “cheese” recipe that could be made in the blender with minimal ingredients and only a few minutes. A bonus-it also had good online ratings. I couldn’t wait to try it on some curvy pasta noodles. Giving up that infamous blue box of cheesy macaroni that my kids could make themselves, when we were away on a date, would be really hard!

The recipe was a success! Yay. In fact, it is still one of our favorites that we tend to make on a monthly basis to mix in with pasta, pour over baked potatoes, dab into our tofu scramble for “cheesy” breakfast burritos, or drizzle over grain bowls with roasted veggies. If you feel like you or your family wants to incorporate more plant foods in your diet and consume less dairy, here is a great recipe to start with https://blendingforgood.com/recipes/cashew-queso/.

After our 30 day trial of ditching dairy, we realized that the kids were no longer complaining of stomach aches, we had way less headaches and felt better overall. It did take a bit more effort to experiment with new meals and snacks, but we felt it was worth it. We haven’t looked back!