The Great Cheese Takeover:

This article is biased—and I’m fine with that. I do not like cheese. Not in casseroles, not on sandwiches, and not melted over anything pretending to be healthy. I even order my pizza without it, which most people consider a culinary crime. I also don’t love cooking, even though I’m good at it. For me, it’s not joy—it’s pressure. The kitchen feels like a performance space where precision meets anxiety. My mother, a chef-level cook, thrived there; I definitely don’t. About twice a year, though, I feel a strange urge to create something. That’s why I follow a handful of cooks on Facebook. Sadly, unless they’re baking sweets—which don’t tempt me at all—the excitement dies the moment cheese appears. It smothers the color, the texture, the intention.

Another recipe, lost under dairy.

It’s nearly impossible to scroll through food media without tripping over melted cheese. Burritos bleed it. Vegetables suffocate under it. Even vegan bloggers simulate it. Somewhere along the way, we decided that a meal without cheese isn’t finished—that it’s deficient.

Cheese became the shortcut to applause. It looks photogenic, performs under heat, and forgives mediocre cooking. One stretch on camera equals a thousand likes. The algorithms adore it because viewers do. The cycle is self-feeding: post, melt, repeat.

In behavioral terms, cheese is a perfect reinforcer. Fat, salt, and glutamate activate reward circuits with precision. The same pattern used in nicotine and sugar marketing applies here—stimulate, soothe, repeat. Our brains read it as safety. The body follows the script. When life feels uncertain, the internet hands us dairy.

Convenience amplified the dependency. Time-starved cooks stopped learning how to build depth through browning, acid, or spice. Why wait for onions to caramelize when a handful of shredded cheddar can mimic “richness”? The food looks decadent, the brain relaxes, and no one asks what’s missing.

What’s missing is discipline—the small, sensory patience that once defined cooking. Cheese covers all mistakes. In my opinion, it also covers all flavor. The modern palate, trained on instant gratification, mistakes saturation for satisfaction.

There’s a cultural mirror here.

A society conditioned for comfort clings to anything soft, familiar, and forgiving. Cheese delivers all three. It silences sharp edges—the sour, the bitter, the nuanced. In psychological language, it functions like emotional bubble wrap. We reach for it not out of hunger but out of habit.

Even so-called innovation obeys the same reflex.

Vegan versions exist only to mimic the look and feel of dairy, proving that the obsession is symbolic, not nutritional. We crave the ritual—the melt, the stretch, the blanket effect—more than the substance.

When everything tastes the same, individuality disappears. Culinary sameness becomes social currency. You can’t offend anyone with cheese; it’s the Switzerland of ingredients. Neutral, agreeable, and visually comforting. But comfort has a half-life. Too much and it dulls the senses that make food meaningful in the first place.

Breaking the pattern doesn’t require anti-cheese extremism. It requires awareness. Start with acid. Citrus, vinegar, tomatoes—anything that wakes the mouth. Use texture. Crunch, char, bitterness. These are the dialects of flavor that existed long before dairy domination. When cooks relearn contrast, cheese becomes optional again, not mandatory.

Some of the most balanced cuisines in the world—Thai, Japanese, Peruvian—build emotion without dairy. They rely on chemistry, not cosmetics. Their dishes satisfy by design, not dependency.

That’s the difference between nourishment and sedation.

The online recipe machine won’t change soon. Excess still pays better than skill. But individual cooks can opt out. Skip the melt shot. Let the camera see restraint for once. Flavor doesn’t need to drip to be understood.

When comfort becomes compulsion, it’s no longer comforting. The smarter rebellion isn’t against cheese—it’s against numbness disguised as pleasure.

In the meantime, I’ll be looking for an “anti-cheese” cook on Facebook. Surely I can’t be the only person who dislikes cheese.

Sources That Don’t Suck:

National Institutes of Health – Food Reward Research

Harvard School of Public Health – Nutrition Source

Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health

Serious Eats – Flavor Science Series

The Food Lab – J. Kenji López-Alt