I Love Cheese, But This Is Ridiculous

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Like most people with souls, I am a cheese lover. Not even lactose intolerance could stop me from gorging on gouda, brie, feta and the vast array of cheeses that grace this fine planet – I’d eat and fart to my heart’s content, much to the dismay of anyone within a 10-foot radius. As much as I love cheeses of all kinds, however, I appreciate diversity in my meals and haven’t dialed up the fromage obsession to the point where I absolutely must have cheese at all times. This nutjob, on the other hand, begs to differ.

From the article:

“I love everything about cheese: the food, the texture, the smell. Unfortunately, it’s the only food I eat – unless you count bread and potatoes, which I can only just stomach if they’re smothered in layers of cheese.”

I love cheese as much as (and perhaps more than) the next person, but I also understand and appreciate the dietary benefit of eating a variety of food. Eating only cheese or bland starches you can drench in cheese makes me wonder how deficient this woman is in various vitamins and minerals. Sure, she’s getting calcium and healthy fats, but what about vitamin C and other building blocks the body needs, not to mention the excess of fat and sodium she’s eating on a daily basis?

The cheesophile continues by saying:

“Telling someone that you only eat cheese inevitably elicits a bad reaction. People usually think I’m a freak. Some try to psychoanalyse me, to uncover what made me this way, before attempting to change me; it’s often assumed that I simply haven’t ever tried good food, but that’s just not true.”

It roughly translates to “People think I’m crazy ha-ha, but I’m not!” However, the rest of the article stops being funny and veers into Sadsville:

“For most people eating is a real pleasure and trying new food is an adventure, but for me it is something of a nightmare. I can’t stand the texture or the taste, so every day is like ‘Groundhog Day’…My food phobia is the bane of my life. I have to avoid any social occasions involving food, and my eating causes big problems for our family…I can’t be in the same room as [my daughter] and her dad when they’re eating, so they eat together in one room, and I eat in another. It means we miss out on proper family time. At times like this I have to laugh at my condition, but other times I feel like it’s ruining my life. It’s a bit like being an alcoholic: I have to take each day as it comes. I would love to change my attitude towards food. Sometimes it feels like I’m turning a corner, but the next moment it seems as if I’ll be like this for ever.”

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill food quirk like, “I don’t like onions” or, “I always order sauce on the side” – this is a full-blown food disorder of Godzilla proportions. Being picky is one thing, but not being able to eat in the same room as people who are eating non-cheese items is pretty alarming. I can’t tell if this woman is proud of her disorder, embarrassed by it, or both, but if she’s serious about how miserable and caged-in her cheese-only diet forces her to be, maybe it’s time to look into food therapy or some other sort of treatment instead of just wishing she could change her food views.