Vegan "Cheese"

[squeaker]

Tried 'it' (as kwackers implies, 'cheese' covers a multitude of sins against good taste - to me), even went on a 1/2 day course on how to roll your own. In the end I couldn't be bothered as we only eat cheese once or twice a week.
YMMV

[kwackers]

I don't mind people liking veg cheese or whatever. But they shouldn't call it cheese. It isn't. Call it something else as a newly invented product, but not cheese.

AFAIK "they" don't call it cheese.

It's fairly well labelled on the packaging (at least looking at a quick google image search).
A lot of the packages never mentioned cheese at all and the ones that did said "cheese alternative" with greater emphasis on the word "vegan" which I suspect is a bit of a giveaway.
Interestingly "cheddar alternative" seems to be more frequently used than "cheese alternative".

Ultimately though it's a fine line. You need to let people know it's a cheese alternative otherwise how would they know what they're buying?
If you want to buy a cheese alternative and there's no indication that's what it is then you'd be a bit stuffed unless you were "in the know"...

[Oldjohnw]

I don't mind people liking veg cheese or whatever. But they shouldn't call it cheese. It isn't. Call it something else as a newly invented product, but not cheese.

AFAIK "they" don't call it cheese.

It's fairly well labelled on the packaging (at least looking at a quick google image search).
A lot of the packages never mentioned cheese at all and the ones that did said "cheese alternative" with greater emphasis on the word "vegan" which I suspect is a bit of a giveaway.
Interestingly "cheddar alternative" seems to be more frequently used than "cheese alternative".


...

I must admit I have never looked at this product's labelling. Just that the thread is called vegan "cheese" (yes, I saw the inverted commas".

[Jdsk]

The whole dairy thing is bizarre imo.
I mean nature saw fit to turn off our tolerance to lactose once we're weaned.

Worldwide it's about 50/50.

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

At some point we're going to get a lot better at mimicking the biological processes that produce a lot of our animal based food and I suspect real cheese will quickly become a minority product.

Of course you're right - I was going to come on that in my last post, but thought better of it. I'm certain that it's not beyond the wit of man (and woman, of course - see Archer, H, of Borchester Blue fame...) to create a cheese-like substance, with the necessary "mouth-feel" and "umami-flavour" yaddayadda - in due course, but a) the real thing is so markedly superior that I'll stick with it for now if that's OK and b) the satisfactory future product is far off enough that I'm not worred - I'll be dead by the time non-dairy "cheese" tastes better than the real thing.
Lastly, agree with commentators who object to the use of the word cheese, just like I object to the concept of a meat free 'burger. The food industry as whole, have an absolutely frightful track record for attempting to mislead their customers at any & every opportunity and the notion of naming artificial chemical concoctions after exisiting animal-based dishes is simply handing them a gift on - as it were - a plate...

[sjs]

Wild horses won't drag me to within a country mile of "vegan cheese"...

I always find such attitudes "odd".

I mean, I understand you might not like it but you haven't tried it and afaik there's no ethical reason not to try it.
Can't say it's something I'd recommend so I'm not defending it but there are lots of genuine cheeses I think are actually worse!

There are some dairy products I've found it pretty easy to move away from.
I use either oat milk "Oatley" or unsweetened coconut milk "Koko" on my cereal and IMO they taste better than milk which I find too sweet.
Haven't found a substitute for milk in my tea though...

But cheese is a difficult one although as I said above they are actually better now than they used to be.

My two daughters are vegan, and at least one quite likes vegan cheese. Perhaps it's just her preferred brand, but I find the smell a bit off-putting. However I agree that oat "milk" is better than the real thing, for cereals and coffee, and I drink tea black. Wife, who is vegetarian, still drinks real cow juice.

[sjs]

there's a well-known parents' motto to which I subscribe, thus: "don't yuk somebody else's yum" which is sound advice. And while I respect somebody's right to find vegan cheese proper yummy, as far as I'm concerned, cheese is what you get when you combine the milk of domesticated mammals, time-honoured selected natural bacteria and a ton of skill and nobody-but-nobody is going to plonk some splodge out of an industrial laboratory on my plate and tell me it's an acceptable substitute. End of.

Well perhaps if you made up you own name for it instead of "cheese", you might find you like it.

[DevonDamo]

My point is, having forsaken meat, cheese is the most planet-busting thing we regularly consume. Overall production emits a whopping 13.5 Kg of CO2 per Kg of cheese - worse than both chicken and pig meat (though not as bad as beef or lamb).

Well done for trying to do something to reduce your carbon footprint. I still eat dairy cheese, but I'd certainly be a flag-waver for any advances in food technology which are successful in reducing our reliance on meat/dairy.

[sjs]

I don't mind people liking veg cheese or whatever. But they shouldn't call it cheese. It isn't. Call it something else as a newly invented product, but not cheese.

If it's clearly labelled as vegan, it's obvious it's not actually cheese. So what's the objection? Calling it "Vegan stuff that bears a passing resemblance in some people's opinion to cheese" seems a bit long winded.

[iandriver]

A couple of vegan friends find the cashew based versions infinitely preferable to the coconut based ones.

Well worth experimenting with different foods. I've 0 intention of going veggy or vegan, but am certainly open minded to something in between, rather than an all or nothing approach.

Certainly I like things like bean chili, one easy place to start of for me.

[Mick F]

The whole dairy thing is bizarre imo.
I mean nature saw fit to turn off our tolerance to lactose once we're weaned.

Worldwide it's about 50/50.

Speak to dogs and cats worldwide?
I think you'll find it 100%.

[Jdsk]

The whole dairy thing is bizarre imo.
I mean nature saw fit to turn off our tolerance to lactose once we're weaned.

Worldwide it's about 50/50.

Speak to dogs and cats worldwide?
I think you'll find it 100%.

My comment was about humans... and I think that applies to every other post in this thread as well...

Jonathan

[Mick F]

I'm suggesting that humans are mammals. If dogs and cats drink milk, no doubt any(?) mammal would do too.

[simonineaston]

it's obvious it's not actually cheese

Absolutely incorrect! Obvious to who? The poorly educated? The busy housemum who's in a hurry? The naive follower of the latest diet??
If the product packaging / marketing / advertising uses the word 'cheese' (for example), it's because the industry have deliberately chosen to use the word, because of the all cultural and commercial value that's packed up in it. It's worth (literally) a small fortune to the industry and they will resist any suggestion that they should call a spade a spade with great gusto, even to the point of being prepared to break laws!!
The naive and trusting assumption that it's OK to label things incorrectly is one reason we're in the unsafe and unhealthy place we are now, where we're fed food that is truely bad for us, often ironically marketed as the "healthy alternative"!!

[Jdsk]

I'm suggesting that humans are mammals. If dogs and cats drink milk, no doubt any(?) mammal would do too.

Sorry, I'm lost.

Some humans have recently evolved lactase persistence, and the mechanisms are pretty well understood. This has had a massive interaction with dairy consumption, dairy production and the dairy industry, which started this branch of the discussion.

Where do other mammals come into it?

Thanks

Jonathan