Lactose intolerance...or lack thereof

From the previous post, I was bored. I cured my boredom by playing with fire. And by fire, I mean milk.

When I came to Japan in high school, I could drink milk and eat ice cream and it was no problem. I returned back to the US to find that sour cream and cheesy products were no longer friends with my digestive system. So I deemed myself lactose intolerant since then. I've had many..."accidents" involving various dairy products through the years, some of which have resulted in late night phone calls to friends as I moaned in pain about the poor life choice involved with eating sour cream.

But I've always said that since I could drink milk when I was in Japan in high school, it must be the milk that made me lactose intolerant. Well, Hokkaido has more cows than people, and they have the freshest, creamiest, smoothest, etc. dairy products in all of Japan. I told my boss the first day of work that I was lactose intolerant, so when they brought "soft cream" (a.k.a. "soft serve") to the office for our afternoon snack, he thought I was going to die; and it ran through my mind a few times as I licked my fantastic soft cream. Surprisingly, I was fine. So I tried it again a week later. Still no effect. Fantastic! Soft cream is delicious and smooth and fresh and just plain awesome.

So tonight came the real test. Drink milk. Just plain milk. I bought a tiny carton; it really should be called a juice box for milk. It's tiny. But I didn't want to chance it going any bigger. So I sat at the kitchen table and stared at it for awhile. It was like life-or-death in a little red carton starting at me. I drank it. All of it. And then I sat in silence. Waiting. Nothing happened. I walked to the store and back, and I was still fine. Two hours later, my digestive system seems to still be intact and no signs of the gurgles!

Now there are two options. I am either: 1) cured of my lactose intolerance and can eat/drink fantastic Hokkaido dairy products or 2) playing Russian roulette and will soon have a terrible dairy product encounter at the most inconvenient time. I'm hoping it's the first option, but I will continue to test this new "Japanese dairy product" theory until it's foolproof before I take it on the road.

When I started this post, it related to the topic of sin in my head, but now I don't know where that thought went. Maybe I should drink more milk...