Regarding Lactose Intolerance

By Sam Burzinski
Blog Content Contributor

I have a few bones in my body. Roughly 206 of them, if we want to be precise. Unlike many of my past elementary school peers, never in my life have I broken a single one of them, a fact that I chalk up to my deep affinity for milk.

I drank milk day in and day out throughout my formative years with the vigor of a young calf suckling directly from the teat of the mother cow. Gallons weekly would be consumed by my family, with the main consumers being my father’s weekend bowls of cereal, my brother’s habitual late-night chugging and my enjoying a hearty glass of milk alongside every meal.

As time went on, however, something seemed to shift inside of me, quite literally. I won’t get too graphic, but I realized that my gaseous emissions and frequent bowel movements were not exactly normal for somebody of my age and stature. I am lactose intolerant.

What cruel god would endow a person – a young and feeble child, no less – with a love for milk and other dairy-based products just to bring about deep suffering as a result? I was raised Catholic and attended Sunday School for nearly 13 years of my life, and nowhere was I taught that this would be a part of the package deal. God was a crooked cable salesman, and I was the pawn in his accursed game, gauchely dancing and soiling my chinos for his indecent enjoyment.

“Why not drink almond, soy, or oat milk?” I hear you shouting through this article. The answer, as it turns out, is that all of them taste akin to the slurry one would find under one’s mud flaps if an off-roading expedition were made through a dermatologist’s office on “Half-Priced Abscess Popping Day.” There is absolutely not a single shred of anything appealing about having to guzzle down a sickly sweet, pallid beverage in lieu of the heavenly lactose-filled nectar that is normal milk.

For some unexplained reason, all cheap imitations of milk are artificially sweetened in the post-production phase of the process, leading to a disgusting discrepancy between what I expect the liquid entering my esophagus to taste like. The only way for me to “enjoy” any form of imposter milk is to drink the lactose-and-fat-free store brand Lactaid from HEB.

I was never too big of a cheese guy. Ironic, considering my father’s Wisconsin heritage and my long-standing love for the Green Bay Packers, but cheese just never struck the right chord for me. It was always weirdly overwhelming in taste, coating the back of my throat in an odd texture not unlike what I would assume a sneaker sole to feel like when swallowed.

However, since the realization of my state a few years back, I have had a fiercely big craving of cheese. I am the Dr. Jekyll of lactose, turning into a monster when in the proximity of the tantalizing promise of golden lusciousness. It is, however, never worth it. The proverbial fire and fury are not so proverbial once I consume a slice of Muenster, and my thirst for the yellow, hardened milk is quenched once again.

Never have I ever mourned the cruel injustice of this pain more than I have of my loss of lactose digestion. The anger I feel towards this cruel world is unmatched by any form of political pundit or social activist on the highest level. It is unfair, it is unjust and it is, quite frankly, absolutely disgusting in a manner not seen before or since.

Featured Image from PXFuel, image published into public domain