[HN Gopher] Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated ma...
___________________________________________________________________
Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream
supermarket shelves
Author : danso
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-04-29 18:11 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eater.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eater.com)
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| There's something unexpected about this aspect of veganism, which
| is often embraced by those wanting to lead a healthier lifestyle,
| resulting in the development of more and more advanced food
| processing technologies designed to synthesize the experience of
| foods being excluded from the diet.
|
| Basically, in the quest to return to a more healthy, natural
| diet, some folks end up moving to foods that are more and more
| processed.
|
| That's not meant to be a criticism! In my mind it's just a bit of
| a surprising outcome and makes me wonder how folks who consume
| these products square that circle in their minds.
| hvna wrote:
| This is something I've noticed as well. Sometimes ingredient
| lists are a mile long. Less so here in Europe than what I've
| seen in America, but nevertheless it is shockingly less
| natural. I have always though that it makes more sense to just
| create vegan foods from what you have rather than recreating
| the things you are choosing not to eat.
|
| Warning though, I am not a part of the vegan club, so it is all
| just opinion.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| The ingredient list of an apple is also miles long if you are
| forced to write it out, you just aren't.
|
| There are a million different things "processing" can mean.
| It can be as innocuous as just chopping something up, or
| complicated like pickling. Not all of it is bad.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| Certainly true.
|
| But, as an example, the Impossible Burger notably has more
| fat and significantly more salt than its meat-based
| brethren. Sure, it may be purchased due to a perceived
| variety of other benefits (sustainability, animal rights,
| etc) totally unrelated to the healthiness of the product,
| but it's objectively not a healthier option.
| andor wrote:
| The Impossible Burger has about 12% fat which is quite
| lean. As far as I understand, the meat in most burgers is
| around 20% fat. Adding things like breadcrumbs, eggs or
| onions to the patties will of course change the amount.
| La1n wrote:
| >objectively not a healthier option.
|
| I am not saying you are wrong, but there is a whole lot
| more to "healthiness" than amount of fat and salt.
| Accacin wrote:
| I'm vegan but I do agree. However, myself and other vegans I
| know do only use these alternatives on occasion. They're
| definitely not a part of our daily diet. I probably have
| vegan cheese once a month at most.
|
| Being vegan is a big change, and I ate meat for 29 years, so
| sometimes my body wants something non-vegan and it's nice to
| know alternatives exist.
|
| I never really went vegan to be 'more' healthy anyway, so I
| eat similar to how I did before.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| To some extent, it's an attempt to partake in the wider food
| culture while still following stricter ethical guidelines
| than those food cultures developed in.
|
| Most of the vegans I know can nutrition themselves capably
| using non-imitation food, but still want to be able to have a
| pizza on occasion.
|
| As much as some in the hackerverse like to pretend it
| doesn't, eating is both an emotional and an expressive
| experience for some people. Expecting everyone to be a
| rational actor in the food world is approximately as
| reasonable as expecting them to be rational actors in the
| dating world.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I'd love for vegetable products to be processed skillfully
| enough that I wouldn't miss animal products. It's not the
| amount of processing that bothers me, it's the types of
| processing (and the types of additives.) Processed foods are
| _on average_ terrible, but any _particular_ heavily processed
| food might be wonderful for you.
|
| This is almost the most important technology being developed
| right now IMO. Meat is killing us through environmental
| degradation and disease jumps from domesticated animals to
| humans. When I hear a "horror story" in the news cycle about
| there being no meat in a Taco Bell taco or somesuch, I'm like
| "if only."
| elliekelly wrote:
| If you haven't seen the Impossible Burger episode of South Park
| yet I think you'd enjoy it.
| izgzhen wrote:
| A related question I always had is why many vegan people are
| pushing so hard for a substitute product just to simulate the
| flavor of flesh --- many Asian food like Tofu are vegan _and_
| natural. Why not embracing and inventing more types of
| naturally plant based recipes rather than pushing for fake
| meat?
| dundarious wrote:
| Though I have no evidence to back it up, I get the impression
| that the popular justification for new adherents to veganism
| has shifted from ethical to health. Its original definition
| certainly points to the ethical concern:
|
| > Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to
| exclude--as far as is possible and practicable--all forms of
| exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or
| any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development
| and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals,
| humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the
| practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or
| partly from animals."
|
| Only by extension might there be a benefit to humans.
|
| However, I think there is a parallel misconception that vegan
| implies healthy. This is absolutely not always the case! I do
| see rational health advocates more often use the phrase Whole
| Food Plant Based, to denote both a non-junk-food vegan diet,
| and a relaxation of the rule to _always_ dispense with animal
| products, especially non-food products.
| sarakayakomzin wrote:
| >There's something unexpected about this aspect of veganism,
| which is often embraced by those wanting to lead a healthier
| lifestyle, resulting in the development of more and more
| advanced food processing technologies designed to synthesize
| the experience of foods being excluded from the diet.
|
| not particularly - would love to see where you get those
| numbers. many vegans make the choice because it's one of the
| few things an individual can do to make a (very small) impact
| on factory farming and a complete waste of resources. in my
| experience, very few but the uninformed do it for "health
| reasons" (save for having health problems processing meat or
| dairy).
|
| "processed foods" isn't always a bad thing. overprocessing
| certainly is, but adding nutrients to food that would otherwise
| be left out of a diet is pretty important. there are plenty of
| vegans with malnutrition and plenty that just "eat vegan" which
| happens to be a steady diet of oreos.
|
| > In my mind it's just a bit of a surprising outcome and makes
| me wonder how folks who consume these products square that
| circle in their minds.
|
| That's because your argument is that "vegan means healthy and
| not processed"
| wvenable wrote:
| It's basically abusing the single metric. You can put "Vegan"
| on your label if you follow very specific rules and anything
| outside of those rules is far game. The folks that consume
| these products have mostly that label and marketing to go by.
|
| It's like orange juice advertised as "not from concentrate"
| which goes through a massive amount of processing just to
| satisfy that labeling even though it's unlikely any folks
| consuming the product really want that.
| qudat wrote:
| > Basically, in the quest to return to a more healthy, natural
| diet, some folks end up moving to foods that are more and more
| processed.
|
| Is less processing always more healthy? It's often touted as
| such but adding some processing can unlock nutrients vs eating
| raw, right?
|
| Spinach for example, when eaten raw, has less bioavailable iron
| than if it were "processed" by steaming.
| cavisne wrote:
| The justification is that they are temporary/bridging foods
| while transitioning to a whole foods diet.
|
| There is not much evidence of this working among vegan
| influencers (who fill their videos with meat and dairy
| mimicking meals) but that could be distorted by most product
| placements being such foods.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| I wonder about that claim.
|
| I've never seen the Impossible Burger, for example, pitched
| as a bridging mechanism. It seems to be purely about food
| substitution with no expectation that someone would phase
| that substitute out as they adapt to a plant-based diet.
|
| I feel like the pitch is "hey look, you can be
| vegan/vegetarian and not miss the meat-based foods you love
| so much!" i.e., you can have your vegetarian cake and eat it,
| too.
|
| But that then gets back to, why switch at all? If it's about
| ethics, these products make sense. If it's about health, it
| makes a lot less sense to me.
| autarch wrote:
| > There's something unexpected about this aspect of veganism,
| which is often embraced by those wanting to lead a healthier
| lifestyle ...
|
| I'm not sure what you base this statement on. There are many
| people whose initial motivations for going vegan were ethical,
| either to avoid funding animal abuse, environmental
| degradation, or both.
|
| That was why I went vegan 23.5 years ago, and why I'm still
| vegan. I eat mock meat and non-dairy cheese because these taste
| like foods I liked before I went vegan. I didn't stop eating
| meat and cheese because I thought it tasted bad! I loved it,
| but I hate what went into its production. Now I can have the
| foods I like without the negative externalities. That's
| perfect!
|
| That said, my palette has expanded hugely since I first went
| vegetarian, and I also enjoy all sorts of things I used to
| really dislike, including more whole foods type dishes, and
| even raw food.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I totally get ethical vegetarianism, and appreciate that much
| animal abuse _can_ occur within the dairy industry, but I don
| 't think that's _inherent._ Of course, believing that and
| shopping ethically requires a great deal more selectivity and
| research (and willingness to pay more for food whose
| provenance can be trusted).
|
| Not to pick a fight, but I don't get the basic argument that
| 'all animal husbandry = unnatural exploitation' given the
| symbiosis between species like ants and aphids etc. which I
| can just go and observe in my yard at this time of year.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Using an example of something that exists in nature like
| aphids/ants to justify human behavior is a fundamentally
| flawed argument because quite simply: ants aren't humans,
| we're quite a bit more sophisticated and have far more
| reach/impact which comes with greater responsibility and
| consequences.
|
| Putting that aside for the moment because it is a rabbit
| hole, there is a continuum of what people think constitutes
| animal abuse.
|
| One the worst side of the spectrum (IMHO), are CAFOs:
| Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. These are the first
| things you read about when you research animal cruelty.
| They're the videos of hundreds of thousands of cows
| standing kneed deep in their shit their whole lives and
| pumped full of antibiotics. And yet, some people look at
| this and go, "Yeah, I'm cool with that."
|
| On the other side of the spectrum, we have vegans who do
| not use any products derived from animals.
|
| In between we see efforts to mitigate the cruelty, such as:
| free range vs. constricted cages where movement is
| impossible; feeding them diets of foods they would find in
| nature (instead of feeding cows ground up chickens); not
| forcing them to grow so much meat they cannot move (chicken
| breasts; growth hormones in cows); not forcing them to
| produce so much milk their udders tear and become infected
| so they are injected with antibiotics, etc.
|
| For example, there is a cattle farm 10 miles from my house
| that has about 20 head of cattle, and you can purchase one
| as part of a co-op a year in advance. You can go visit the
| cow. You can see how it is raised and its conditions. This
| makes me feel a lot better than buying plastic-wrapped
| package from a Save-Rite supermarket. But that's me: some
| people might laugh at me for being "fancy pants liberal
| simp" other's think I'm still keeping animals from doing
| what they would do in nature if we weren't harvesting them.
|
| My point is: this is not an easy answer, and in my opinion
| how we treat animals that we capture and cage matters. Why?
| Since reason is a social construct, I can go deeper if you
| push, but it is my choice to not make animals suffer more
| than they have to.
| subungual wrote:
| I've not really encountered the idea that it's unnatural
| exploitation, to be honest, and I completely agree with
| your point there. The core ethical argument that I
| generally see presented for veganism is that once you've
| advanced past the point of requiring animal products to
| live a healthy life, consuming them becomes entirely a
| matter of convenience, taste, and preference. The argument
| follows, then, that it may not be ethical to subject
| animals to the realities of modern husbandry simply on
| account of these reasons.
|
| The question of whether abuse is inherent is largely
| academic at this point. The fact of the matter is that
| almost all of the animal products we consume are the result
| of optimized industrial processes that result in shortened,
| low-quality lives for those put through them. Whether an
| animal could, under the right circumstances, be humanely
| raised for resource extraction or slaughter doesn't really
| apply in modern consumption.
| RacfeelBudkind wrote:
| > I totally get ethical vegetarianism, and appreciate that
| much animal abuse can occur within the dairy industry, but
| I don't think that's _inherent_.
|
| It's inherent. Cows, like all mammals, need to have given
| birth to produce milk. This means dairy cows are
| impregnated and give birth roughly yearly. It's entirely
| uneconomical to raise all of the calves, since it would
| effectively triple or more the cost of producing milk,
| which is already barely profitable, even with government
| subsidies. So the calves are killed and sold as veal.
| xeromal wrote:
| Not a vegan or vegetarian but it's very hard to get past
| this point. It's definitely insane that we have to
| impregnate cows over and over to keep them producing
| milk.
| TomatoDash wrote:
| Abuse is only one among several other arguments presented
| for ethical vegetarianism. For example see
| https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/bts/vol19/iss1/1/
| anigbrowl wrote:
| But I'm not questioning ethical vegetarianism, I'm
| talking about veganism's opposition to any kind of dairy
| farming over and above that.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| There is a wing of the ethical-vegan community who disapprove
| of meat substitutes, arguing that we will never truly do
| justice to our animal brothers and sisters until we have lost
| the very appetite for their flesh. So, it is not just those
| who eat vegan out of health concerns, who are concerned about
| meat substitutes.
| subungual wrote:
| Whoa, I'm an ethical vegan and pretty steeped in theory,
| and I've never encountered this wing before. I doubt I'll
| agree with them, but I'd be curious to read if you have
| anything you can link or cite.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| That's why I said "often embraced", not "always embraced". :)
|
| I certainly am not so arrogant as to believe I understand why
| each and every person eating a vegan diet has made that
| choice.
|
| However, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to claim that
| a non-trivial number of people make the switch for health
| reasons, and that these plant-based substitutes are marketed
| based on claimed health benefits.
| autarch wrote:
| Sure, plenty have done it for health reasons, but your
| comment implied that it was the majority reason. Maybe it
| is, but I don't know of any good statistics on this.
|
| As to whether the plant-based substitutes are healthier,
| they probably are when compared to the thing they're
| replacing in nearly all cases. But if you want to optimize
| your health I'd expect a plant-based diet based on less
| processed foods would be much better.
| dokem wrote:
| Yea I don't really get the whole 'health food tech' industry.
| When I want to feel good or lose weight: Chicken breast,
| vegetables, water, nuts, rice. It's the same old story, people
| want to be healthy and diet without actually doing any of that
| or give up the idea that every meal is supposed to be a treat.
| hannob wrote:
| I don't think "natural" is not a very good metric or goal to
| begin with.
|
| Is cheese made from milk natural? I think people only believe
| that because cheese has been around forever, so they consider
| it being "normal", while they consider the vegan cheese
| alternatives "unusual".
|
| Cheese is both a pretty processed product and not particularly
| healthy.
|
| It's true that there's some relation between "unprocessed" and
| "healthy" (eat lots of veggies and fruit), but neither cheese
| from milk nor from plants fits that category. Also that isn't a
| fundamental law, it's more a "rough guidance". There's no
| fundamental reason a plant-based product can't be as healthy or
| healthier as a similar animal-based product.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I eat them because dairy cheese triggers my autoimmune
| condition. They are a god send tbh
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| There are ethical vegans and health vegans. The distinction can
| matter and it's unfortunate, but not unexpected, how much
| people from both camps deal with the contradictions involved
| between the 2.
|
| I think critiques about what's required to make substitutes is
| warranted and good for the industry. I also think that
| increased sales and attention will drive these products towards
| much better versions in all aspects. So let me thank all the
| non-vegetarian/vegans who are willing to dabble in these foods
| once in a while. I truly appreciate any contribution to the
| reduction of meat intake, regardless of the motivation.
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| As with anything, all people have different priorities. Some
| people prioritize taste in their food. Some health. Some
| ethics. Though usually it's some combination of many different
| priorities. Indeed there are different types of Vegans as well,
| who don't like to eat processed foods.
|
| I'd guess that most people would prefer to eat less pre-
| processed food. But most people are all too busy and stressed
| that they don't have time to grow their own crops, process our
| their food, cook meals by hand, AND make lots of money working
| a full time job selling insurance or whatever. And of course,
| much of this preprocessing makes food deliberately tastier and
| store longer, so there are clear benefits. So I'd guess most
| people are just balancing their food priorities among their
| needs to, say, interact in society and eat a living while
| staying full and healthy.
|
| Disclaimer: I am not a vegan
| mesh wrote:
| In my experience, the vast majority of people go vegan out of
| concern for animals, and not primarily because they want to be
| more healthy.
|
| Doing a quick search seems to support that, but perhaps the
| trends / reasons are changing as veganism in general becomes
| more mainstream.
|
| https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-people-go-vegan-2019-gl...
|
| https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-people-go-vegan-2019-gl...
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Note that the _The China Study_ book a few years ago (and its
| accompanying cookbooks) brought some people to adopt a solely
| plant-based diet, but without necessarily referring to
| themselves as "vegans". Of course, people following such
| movements may still be a minority of all plant-based-diet
| eaters, but they are out there if you search beyond fora
| calling themselves specifically vegan fora.
| danimal88 wrote:
| So far, I'm sold on Soft/Spreadable cheeses from Miyokos. I don't
| remember having had any real winners on the hard cheese side yet
| but I will keep trying different ones until someone cracks it.
| I'm actually most excited for the CRISPR'd yeast approach to
| cheese (food more broadly) approach because I feel like we will
| be able to get a culinarily equivalent product (eventually...)
| but perhaps remove some of the less healthy components (saturated
| fats and others) for a superior product with a lower carbon
| footprint.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| As someone allergic to dairy, just being able to find more vegan
| products at my local grocery store is wonderful. Dairy-free
| chocolate is a lot easier to find.
|
| Sadly, vegan replacements for dairy products generally don't hold
| up, but having something close is better than nothing.
| bondant wrote:
| Most of the vegan "cheese" I tasted were honestly quite bad, they
| seemed to be plastic imitations of standard milk cheese. But once
| I found one named Cicioni [1], and it was absolutely awesome! But
| sadly I have a hard time finding it in shops. :(
|
| [1] https://www.casadelfermentino.com/en/brand/cicioni/
| underseacables wrote:
| I've always found it interesting that vegan "cheese" is still
| considered cheese. Should it be cheese-food? or imitation cheese?
| xdennis wrote:
| The EU has protections these sort of brand dilutions. You can't
| call it cheese if it doesn't come from milk and you can't call
| it milk if it doesn't come from a teat.
| La1n wrote:
| Which is weird to me, coconut milk has been "milk" for over
| 300 years.
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coconut%20milk
| kuratkull wrote:
| Which is why it's basically the only exception. No other
| non-milks are allowed that. Good
| La1n wrote:
| But if consumers understand that coconut milk doesn't
| come from a cow, surely they can understand soy milk
| doesn't.
|
| Milk is already used for non animal milks as coconut
| shows, so I don't see this doing anything pro-consumer.
| kuratkull wrote:
| A historical exception isn't an acceptable excuse to
| muddy the otherwise precisely defined definition further.
| But that's just my opinion. I'd even wager that coconut
| liquid may lose its privilege in the near future. Good
| DogOnTheWeb wrote:
| If plant-based cheese is ever going to gain mainstream
| acceptance, it will be necessary to fall under the "cheese"
| category alongside cow, goat, and other animal-based cheeses.
| The founder of Impossible Foods has a great framing on this
| about targeting meat-eaters with a substitute, rather than
| going after the much smaller group of highly incentivized
| vegetarians/vegans.
|
| There are multiple legal fights by animal agriculture lobbying
| groups to exclude plant-based products from using the
| meat/cheese/egg terms, specifically (IMO) to try to maintain
| the status quo and prevent these products from gaining
| traction.
|
| Ultimately there are no natural laws governing language, and
| given the above acceptance of plant-based products under these
| terms is a fight worth fighting for anyone hoping to see them
| gain traction and mainstream acceptance.
| adeelk93 wrote:
| What is "cheese"? Is a Kraft American Single "cheese"? What
| about Cheese Whiz?
|
| Certainly there's a lot of debate about "cheese" even before
| getting into vegan
| phonypc wrote:
| There's no real debate about those products. They're not
| cheese and can't be labeled as such.
| proc0 wrote:
| When you have to put "with real cheese!" on the label, it's
| not that real cheese.
| parski wrote:
| I was really into fromage before I transitioned to a plant based
| diet several years ago and I do miss cheese quite a lot. The
| vegan imitations are, as stated all over this page, lackluster at
| best. However, I think there is one exception, at least from what
| I've tried. That is Parveggio. It's a grated parmigiano imitation
| and it's super tasty! I use it on pasta, lasagna, etc all the
| time. I highly recommend it to vegans and non-vegans alike.
| Sigmoid wrote:
| Vegan food will never be able to match to a natural human diet.
|
| https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/veganism-is-the-pinnacle-of-b...
| ggm wrote:
| Only time I had some was in vegan quesadillas in San jose. The
| cooking process caused some material change and the more
| astringent, chemical qualities came to the fore.
|
| I've seen molten plastic with more cheese like qualities.
|
| It was a 3/10 experience. I would try again, but there would have
| to be improvement.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I used to eat and enjoy vegan cheese but it isnt really like
| normal cheese. I liked it because it was a bit stringier and went
| well with mac and cheese.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| lot of fake food propaganda on the internet lately
|
| fake meak was proven to be non-healhtly, and now fake cheese
|
| if i want cheese i'll buy cheese, stop trying to sell me fake
| things as X, because it clearly is not the same thing
|
| meat and cheese are what they are because the animals eat plenty
| of things and they are living creatures, you can't replicate this
|
| can we stop promoting pseudo VC startups, they clearly are only
| interested in making money, STOP
|
| also only americans will use "cheese" as a universal word
|
| what kind of cheese? do they know it's not yellow and it doesn't
| come from an aluminum tube?
| TomatoDash wrote:
| > fake meak was proven to be non-healhtly
|
| Here [0] is a series of nine short videos (with text
| transcripts and links to all scientific sources) on plant-based
| meat substitutes' health and environmental impact. The reported
| findings go against your claim.
|
| [0] https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-environmental-
| impacts-o...
| incrudible wrote:
| Nutritionfacts is ideologically driven[1], advocating a
| plant-based diet. What exactly did you expect?
|
| Actual "nutrition facts" are few and far between. I could
| selectively cite all kinds of studies that go for or against
| veganism. They're all flawed in _some_ way, so people can
| just dismiss what they don 't want to hear.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Greger
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Fake meat was never made because of the health benefits. People
| want impossible burgers because they are unhealthy and taste
| like burgers.
|
| > meat and cheese are what they are because the animals eat
| plenty of things and they are living creatures, you can't
| replicate this
|
| I mean, you certainly can. Look at the companies making 'clean'
| meat and fish.
| mtlewis wrote:
| Here in the UK there's a number of small companies making some
| really delicious vegan cheeses, and some of them are starting to
| show up in organic supermarkets. Anyone based in London who's
| interested in exploring what's available should make a visit to
| La Fauxmagerie in Shoreditch - they have all the best stuff.
| Otherwise, some brands to try are Honestly Tasty, I Am Nut OK,
| Kinda Co, and Tyne Chease, all of whom I believe have online
| stores.
|
| These companies are all getting extremely close in terms of
| flavour, but I've not personally tried anything that replicates a
| stringy melty mozzarella to top a pizza. That's the holy grail
| for me.
| subculture wrote:
| There's certainly a trope of "...but I can't give up cheese" and
| as someone who went from vegetarian to vegan: Yeah, cheese is
| hard to replicate. But also: your body and tastes adapt.
|
| After a few weeks off of dairy our memories of those old textures
| and mouth feel start to fade and are replaced. Humans don't like
| changes in patterns, but at the same time are relatively quick to
| adapt to new ones.
|
| There's real addiction at play with dairy as well [1]. Those
| young calfs get the dopamine hit to attract them to their mom's
| milk. For humans, it fuels our addition to dairy, whose
| importance as a food group was manufactured because it created
| another revenue stream after post-war food industrialization [2].
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpellmanrowland/2017/06/2...
|
| [2] https://www.vox.com/2015/4/19/8447883/milk-health-benefit
| ThaDood wrote:
| This is a great point. My evidence is anecdotal but I became a
| vegetarian about 5 years ago. I used to hate all of the meat
| substitutes as the tasted "off". Now, after a few years of not
| eating meat, I could not tell you what chicken or meat would
| taste like and I have grown fond of some of the alternatives.
| proc0 wrote:
| We have blood sausages, why wouldn't we drink some animals
| milk. Humans have been also eating entrails and brains for a
| long time, so milk is just another ingredient in the omnivorous
| diet of humans.
|
| You point out the for-profit incentives of dairy industry, but
| surely you don't think that it is much different for non-
| dairy/vegan products. Of course they are also pushing for same
| kind of acceptance at societal level, which means $$$.
| the-alchemist wrote:
| Yeah, I've found moving to new foods to be relatively painless
| if done incrementally. Took just two weeks to convert my
| toddler son from cow's milk to soy milk (Silk brand, for the
| curious).
|
| First day, it was 90% / 10% dairy/cow. Second day, it was
| (eyeballing) 85% / 15% dairy/cow.
|
| You get the idea... Didn't even notice the transition.
| pengaru wrote:
| Mmmmmm, more processed food options, joy!
| danimal88 wrote:
| OG cheese is obviously a processed product. I have never seen a
| cheese cow but perhaps that just me
| pengaru wrote:
| I don't deny it, and Vegan cheese aspires to bring processed
| cheese to those who otherwise wouldn't go near it for
| containing animal products, rejoice!
|
| More products for the grocery aisles best ignored.
| scollet wrote:
| All you need is a backhoe and a rocket ship that can carry a
| backhoe.
| jjcon wrote:
| > Vegan Cheese Is Ready to Compete With Dairy. Is the World Ready
| to Eat It?
|
| I'm vegetarian and my partner is vegan - I've tried every vegan
| cheese on the shelf. The answer is no because it's not even close
| to ready. It might pass an initial taste test where you say,
| that's not so bad, but then you pick up on all the things it's
| missing.
|
| Sometimes the aftertaste is terrible, sometimes the texture or
| versatility.
|
| Maybe someday someone will crack it but what's on the shelf today
| isn't close. I'm not saying it's all terrible but you aren't
| going to convince many non vegans to eat it (like may be the case
| with the current beyond/impossible burger tech).
| nerdponx wrote:
| Vegan cheese is junk food. When you bake it into mac & cheese
| or melt it on a hamburger it does a great job. When you want to
| actually enjoy some cheese it's not even close to equivalent.
|
| It also has approximately zero nutritional value, although the
| nut-based cheeses I guess have some fat and protein.
|
| It's not really meant for regular people to enjoy. It's meant
| for vegans, people with dairy allergies, and other people can't
| or won't eat cheese to have the ability to enjoy the memory and
| suggestion of cheese.
|
| I personally am very very deeply grateful for the existence and
| excellence of Daiya in providing me with a melty cheese-like
| food product that reminds me enough of real cheese that I can
| have fun eating it. But I'm not about to suggest that vegan
| cheese is and equivalent for real cheese made of milk from a
| cow, goat, sheep, etc. It's a substitute.
|
| It's like Impossible meat. Yes, it makes a good burger, but you
| aren't going to get an Impossible Steak any time soon, and no
| it doesn't really taste like beef. It's still just chunks of
| soy protein (and it sits in your stomach the way you'd expect
| chunks of soy protein to sit).
| dheera wrote:
| Non-vegan vegetarian here and I agree. The flip side of it is,
| the dairy cheeses next to the vegan cheeses don't pass my taste
| test either.
|
| What are they trying to imitate, shitty deli slices?
|
| I really _want_ vegan cheese, but I want Parmiggiano-Regano,
| Brie, Smoked Gouda, Burrata, Pepper Jack, and Manchego, not
| deli slices. I don 't even eat real dairy deli slices.
|
| Same thing for vegan yogurt. Every goddamn vegan yogurt brand
| makes the same 4 boring flavors: vanilla, strawberry,
| blueberry, and peach. The EXACT 4 FLAVORS I HATE. That's why I
| don't eat vegan yogurt. Why is there no pineapple upside-down
| cake, white chocolate raspberry, red date, and matcha? START
| with interesting flavors and I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
| jfengel wrote:
| Do they not make plain vegan yogurt?
|
| That's how I eat cow's-milk yogurt: I get the plain stuff and
| add whatever jam/jelly I want to it. That doesn't have exotic
| flavors like matcha, and it's less convenient than a single-
| serve package, but it also means that I get to sweeten it to
| my taste.
|
| I've been thinking of trying some vegan yogurt (I'm a non-
| vegetarian who is drastically reducing my animal products and
| eats vegan more often than not). The plant-based milks have
| been getting pretty good and I had high hopes that they'd
| make a decent yogurt.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I recommend buying plain yoghurt and adding to it whatever
| you actually like. It's less waste usually, cheaper and
| exactly what you actually want to eat.
| [deleted]
| morsch wrote:
| Not sure that the "pineapple upside-down cake" flavoring is
| widely available.
| derbOac wrote:
| So my wife and I are vegetarian and I love certain vegan
| cheese, the naturally cultured ones where you essentially have
| a plant product that is cultured with cheese bacteria.
|
| My experience with this stuff is similar to a lot of things in
| vegetarian diet, which is that the problems come about when you
| start trying to create imitations of animal products.
|
| I do not want to suggest that people "just don't like vegan
| cheese because they're expecting animal milk cheese" but I do
| suspect that if people would stop thinking of certain vegan
| cheeses as substitutes for animal cheeses, they would feel
| really differently on average.
|
| I also don't want to suggest substitutes don't work to a
| certain extent in certain cases. Impossible burgers, for
| example, have really pushed a lot of limits in that regard. But
| I do think that a lot of times trying to imitate just fails
| miserably.
|
| I tend think of naturally cultured cashew cheese as pretty
| good. I just think of it as a cultured nut butter, which it is.
| I still love animal milk cheese, but I wouldn't just expect to
| substitute cashew butter for chevre, for example, nor would I
| expect to substitute cashew cheese for either one.
|
| Maybe the article is poorly framed in that regard. I guess I
| just see it as a fool's errand to try to approach vegan cheeses
| as imitations. Why can't it just be treated as a food in
| itself?
| cwyers wrote:
| Because they're vegan cheeses.
|
| There's a lot of cultures with strong vegan food traditions,
| or at least, there's plenty of dishes that are naturally
| vegan. Vegan cheese doesn't fall into those traditions, it's
| a processed food product meant to provide a substitute for
| cheese without using animal products. That's really the only
| standard by which it can be judged, how well it succeeds at
| what it's trying to do.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I do not want to suggest that people "just don't like vegan
| cheese because they're expecting animal milk cheese" but I do
| suspect that if people would stop thinking of certain vegan
| cheeses as substitutes for animal cheeses, they would feel
| really differently on average.
|
| Naming the product "vegan cheese" isn't doing it any favors
| in this regard.
|
| A Chinese instructor told me once that tofu was the Chinese
| equivalent of Western cheese. ("And in as many varieties!")
| Nutritionally that seems basically correct. But you're not
| going to sell much tofu as a cheese substitute, or cheese as
| a tofu substitute.
| woofcat wrote:
| >Why can't it just be treated as a food in itself?
|
| It can but if the objective is to reduce the world's, and
| specifically North America's appetite for animal products.
| You need to either aim to replace the current products or
| await a culture shift away from what is easy and cheap today.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| We can also wait (not so long, either) for increasingly
| severe heat waves and droughts to harm the viability of the
| dairy industry in the US. That way scarcity and cost will
| take care of the job in a less gentle way, but there were
| be a lot of other incidental problems to cope with.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| I bet it would just cause a change in production
| conditions which would be poor for the animals. It would
| be far better to find sustainable ways to use the
| livestock to sequester carbon (c.f. Allan Savory TED
| talk) and limit their environmental impact instead of
| giving up good eating.
| xdennis wrote:
| Your objective is terrible. The ability to eat as much
| animal products as you desire is synonymous with living in
| a first world country. A future where we can no longer do
| that is backwards.
| ccmonnett wrote:
| Your ability to eat as much food as you desire is
| synonymous with living in a first world country.
|
| The ability murder as many animals as you want is not the
| desired state _I_ look for when thinking about the world
| in which my child to grow up. A future in which that is
| synonymous with status is backwards - to me.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Well, you can choose to not contribute to animal-based
| agriculture. Similarly, I do not want mine to grow up in
| a world with forced veganism. Who wins in this conflict?
| I would say you keep your morals in your court for such
| contentious issues, to do otherwise is maliciously
| aggressive.
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't know if cows can suffer like humans can or not,
| so I am content to not get in your way.
|
| That said, I invite you to consider what you would and
| would not allow others to do given a hypothetical: if you
| _genuinely believed_ that cows were just as capable of
| suffering as humans -- especially given that cows lactate
| only after giving birth, and dairy cows live only for so
| long as their milk is worth more than the cost of keeping
| them alive.
|
| Most functioning adults can keep quiet about a simple
| preference (for Star Trek when around Star Wars fans, or
| whatever) but morals don't work the same.
| xdennis wrote:
| > murder
|
| Please show me the law.
| whynotkeithberg wrote:
| Yeah veganism is 100% a first world privilege.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Let me introduce you to South Indian cuisine... yes, it's
| not actually 100% vegan, but it goes to show that you
| don't need to be a Marin County millionaire to eat
| healthy plant-based food most of your life.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Not at all. I live next to a tiny shop in Mexico that
| sells fruits, vegetables, and some extras like oatmeal
| and beans and olive oil. I eat healthier (according to
| research reviewed by NutritionFacts.org) and more cheaply
| than anyone I know once I decided to limit my diet to
| only the things they have, incidentally vegan.
|
| I spend almost nothing on food in this shop. Same for all
| the poor Mexicans who live in the area.
|
| It's quite obvious that ubiquitous access to cheap animal
| products is a first world thing.
| ben_w wrote:
| They're clearly using the word in the moral sense rather
| than the legal sense.
| xdennis wrote:
| So in the wrong sense?
|
| This squeamishness is a product of the infantilization
| western culture seems to be going through recently.
| Hopefully immigration from 2/3-world countries (e.g. me)
| helps fix it.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's a perfectly legit use of the word. Words are not
| defined by God; they get their meaning though use, and
| Merriam-Webster records one such use is "to slaughter
| wantonly".
| [deleted]
| chme wrote:
| There is a difference between imitating and replacing.
|
| Personally I would love a list of animal product ingredients
| and their suitable vegan replacements when trying to cook
| after some recipe.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| > stop thinking of certain vegan cheeses as substitutes for
| animal cheeses
|
| Why do we even begin with naming vegan food products after
| the items they are meant to represent?
|
| "Cheese" is made from milk. "Vegan cheese" as a label is
| specifically targeted at being "like milk cheese" and thus
| intends to replicate it.
|
| If you want
|
| > Why can't it just be treated as a food in itself?
|
| we should entirely dispense with imitating, and create an
| entirely new food category whose principle is "vegan" and not
| "like real food minus animal". Invent new stuff. Ferment
| things from plants but do not reuse any labels that are
| derived from animals.
|
| If you do not do this, people will still bring this up,
| because their expectations are intentionally shaped by how
| something is called.
|
| Don't call vegan cheese as "cheese" if you want it to shape
| its own path as a new sort of food product.
|
| edit: same with "cakes" which require butter and eggs in
| their traditional forms. Make something new but perhaps do
| not call it a cake? Make a new word that sounds catchy (we do
| all the time, and incorporate these into our language, e.g.,
| Kleenex, google, "cloud" for servers, ...).
| delecti wrote:
| I broadly agree, certainly so with all the vegan cheese
| approximations I've tried, but I don't think it applies to
| cakes. The cake recipe I grew up eating (in a non-
| vegetarian, lower middle class, US household) was
| "accidentally vegan". It absolutely passes the test of "if
| you didn't know you wouldn't know". Incidentally I think
| impossible burgers pass that test too, and beyond burgers
| only barely don't.
| fooblat wrote:
| Where I live in the EU, a product cannot legally be labeled
| as cheese if it does not meet the official definition of
| cheese, which includes being made from milk.
|
| We also have lots of vegan "cheese" type products with
| funny names like "Keese" and "Cheez" and some are pretty
| good.
|
| I like keeping the names clear because no one gets confused
| and buys the wrong thing.
| stonesweep wrote:
| In the US it's the same, the FDA has regulations and all
| the (not real cheese) items have either a funny name
| ("cheeze") or have something like "imitation cheese
| product" or "cheese food product" (I've seen a number of
| different labels over my life) to indicate it's not real
| (milk) cheese.
|
| https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/
| CFR...
| rusk wrote:
| Em nope? There was a case brought by the farmers to try
| and outlaw this labelling but the case is still ongoing,
| if not thrown out already ...
|
| Maybe it's the case in Your Country but it's far from
| being a pan European thing.
| fooblat wrote:
| Em yes!
|
| "The European Parliament has voted in favour of an
| amendment (no.171) which would place further restrictions
| on the use of dairy food labels for plant-based products.
| The use of dairy terms, such as "cheese", "yoghurt" and
| "milk", for non-dairy products is already banned within
| the EU, following a decision by the CJEU in 2017,
| however, under the new amendment, these restrictions
| would go one step further by also prohibiting terms that
| liken plant-based products to dairy, eg "yoghurt-style",
| "butter alternative" or "cheese substitute"."[0]
|
| 0. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=588638a
| 6-879c...
| rusk wrote:
| Apologies that's a new one on me I guess it hasn't made
| it to my neck of the woods yet! I don't think the similar
| effort around meats has gone so well ...
|
| EDIT still ongoing and not yet legislated you can still
| buy "vegan cheese" for now https://m.foodingredientsfirst
| .com/news/amendment-171-34-pol...
|
| It's interesting that your jurisdiction is so proactive
| in this area!
| PKop wrote:
| >Why do we
|
| Because this is as much a political statement, and battle,
| as it is a personal dietary choice.
|
| As crazy as it sounds, a certain segment of people love to
| change the definition of words. It is not enough to not
| want to eat animal products themselves, they also are not
| content to allow others to have these things to themselves
| unmolested by grotesque artificial imitations.
|
| They want their non-thing to become the thing, replace it,
| and to the degree it disgusts and frustrates the normal
| crowd and impinges on their enjoyment of the normal
| version, the happier they are.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Much simpler to assume that selling to omnivores opens a
| much larger market than selling only to vegans. Omnivores
| want to eat cheese, and are not looking for "fermented
| cashew cubes", but might try "cashew cheese" if it was
| with the cheese and
| (cheaper/healthier/prettier/recommended by a friend).
| strken wrote:
| I wish vegan cheese would be _more_ specific as to what
| it 's imitating. "Cashew cheese" is less helpful than
| "cashew paneer (great in curries!)" or "melty cashew
| mozzarella" or something that describes what facet of
| real cheese they've managed to get right.
| tpoacher wrote:
| I don't mind people calling something "vegan cheese" or
| "vegan milk" or "milk alternative" etc. But I do mind
| people calling it "cheese" or "milk" intentionally when
| it's a vegan alternative, revelling in the confusion, just
| to give the impression that they're interchangeable and
| it's really no big deal if you get the vegan version
| instead.
|
| Like, wtf is almond milk? When I was a kid, almond milk was
| super tasty, and it was basically normal milk mixed in with
| sweet almond sherbet. What's wrong with calling the vegan
| almond milk "almond-based milk alternative" if it's not
| actual milk? If you asked me for almond milk and I gave you
| _actual_ "almond milk" (i.e. the dairy kind) and it turned
| out you were vegan, you'd be pissed off, right?
| danShumway wrote:
| > and I gave you _actual_ "almond milk"
|
| What makes that the actual version? Almond milk as an
| animal milk substitute made from almonds dates back to
| the 1300s[0]. It's not new.
|
| I hear where you're coming from, but I also question what
| does and doesn't count as an "authentic" name, and I
| suspect a lot of it comes down to people thinking that
| the names they used growing up or the names they ran into
| first are the "real" ones and everything else is a new
| fad.
|
| When people are arguing about confusion I'm a little bit
| sympathetic (although I'm doubtful consumer confusion is
| actually the serious problem they make it out to be). But
| when people start to argue about needing to use proper
| words, I usually check out, because usually they have a
| very narrow view of what word origins count as proper.
| They're rarely tracing the etymology of the word, they're
| usually just saying that everyone should adopt the same
| definitions that their specific parents used.
|
| So let me flip your question around on you: almond
| sherbet already traditionally contains milk. What would
| be wrong with calling almond sherbet... almond sherbet,
| or an almond milkshake if the balance of milk is
| increased. That would be helpful anyway, because you
| could make vegan almond sherbet using a vegan milk as a
| base, and then what are you going to call it under your
| system?
|
| My take on this is that vegan cheese/milk is
| substitutable in nearly every single recipe I make. Many
| people dislike the taste of vegan cheese, which I
| understand and think is completely valid, but many people
| also dislike the taste of brie and I don't see a general
| campaign to classify brie as a non-cheese. So part of why
| I call those products vegan milk/cheese instead of
| "cheeze" is because I think if it looks like a duck, and
| quacks like a duck, and if I can use it in all of my duck
| recipes often without any additional thought or research,
| then for all practical purposes it's a duck.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_milk
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| > What makes that the actual version?
|
| That it's milk with almond. Like "chocolate milk" is milk
| with chocolate and "milk coffee" is coffee with milk.
| bin_bash wrote:
| It's because "almond juice" sounds disgusting
| Djvacto wrote:
| I'm curious, do you have a link or image of what that
| "almond milk" you used to have was?
|
| Obviously searching for the various possible terms gives
| results mostly from recent times, about the vegan almond
| milk.
| tpoacher wrote:
| Well, admittedly, I'm thinking in my native language,
| which is Greek, and where "almond milk" was basically
| milk mixed in with "Soumada" [1]. Whereas if you say
| "almond milk" now even in greek, it'll probably refer to
| the vegan stuff, and you'll have to literally say "milk
| with the taste of almond" for the other one.
|
| Soumada is very tasty, a bit like amaretto but without
| the alcohol. I haven't had it in years ...
|
| A similar and very popular drink along similar lines is
| "rose milk", which is stirring up some rose sherbet in
| milk.
|
| It was a popular way of getting kids to drink milk back
| in my day (slightly less popular these days).
|
| But I admit, if a vegan "rose milk" comes out as some
| milky alternative made of rose petals and I have to
| repurpose "rose milk" as well, I'm going to be quite
| upset :p
|
| [1] https://www.mycretangoods.com/article/16856/Soumada-
| traditio...
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| > Well, admittedly, I'm thinking in my native language,
| which is Greek, and where "almond milk" was basically
| milk mixed in with "Soumada" [1].
|
| "Amugdalogala"; I confess I've never heard that word but
| maybe it's just an old word?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Huh? Almond milk goes back 500 years and has always,
| always been made of only almonds. It would be very
| strange to rename it after 200 generations and several
| civilizations have come and gone.
| milesvp wrote:
| Bah! I think you may be right. A quick google
| corroborates it was referenced in english as early as the
| 14th century. I've been annoyed at the term milk for non
| lactose based liquids for a while now. I'd assumed it was
| modern marketing usurping the term. Now I have to find
| some other thing to be mildly annoyed at.
| interestica wrote:
| I guess we should always be specifying "Cow's" milk.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| > What's wrong with calling the vegan almond milk
| "almond-based milk alternative" if it's not actual milk?
|
| Because that would be crippling for an advertising
| perspective. It sounds like something out of a satirical
| sci-fi dystopian environment. The goal is to encourage
| people to choose it as an alternative to dairy milk, not
| to use the most precise label.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Trader Joe's (and maybe others) uses the word "beverage"
| to describe a lot of its milk alternatives.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Well, it is something from a dystopia. So... yeah.
| tpoacher wrote:
| I get it. But it could have easily been a play on the
| word 'milk/milky', without calling it 'milk' per se. Like
| "Nilk" or "Plantmilk" or something.
|
| E.g. lactose-free dairy milk is marketed as 'delac'. It's
| not that hard.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| Lactose-free dairy milk is milk with added lactase, an
| enzyme that is used by mammals to digest lactose in milk.
| Now, children, remember from dairy science class: lactose
| is a complex sugar made of two siple sugars, glucose and
| galactose. Lactase breaks lactose down to its constituent
| simple sugars so that they can more easily be absorbed by
| picky mammalian guts.
|
| Fun fact: lactose-free milk still has all the sugars that
| made up its original lactose content (you could even
| argue it still has all its lactose, if you wanted to be
| really obstinate). Glucose in particular registers as
| sweeter than lactose and for this reason many "lactose-
| free" milks have messages on the packaging informing
| consumers that they have "no sweetener added".
|
| Lactose-free milks also tend to be Ultra Heat Treated,
| which enhances the sweet taste by means of the Maillard
| reaction. See wikipedia.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Food is very highly regulated. And for good reason.
|
| It seems totally feasible to require a new product to
| have a new name, even if it's kind of like an existing
| product. Think: ice cream. Ice cream is a regulated
| product with a formal legal definition. Places making
| cheaper ice cream substitutes were forced to come up with
| names to distinguish their products: soft serve, Frosty,
| FroYo, etc.
|
| It takes the consumer all of 10 seconds to get the gist.
|
| Everyone should be okay with truth in food. Especially
| vegan, who certainly would NOT be okay with products that
| mislead them into believing a product is vegan when it is
| not.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Im sure there is a happy middle ground here where nut
| juice could be called something both attractive and
| accurate, but not all foods are protected like that. Milk
| chocolate is not really chocolate, lots of things with
| "pie" in the name aren't really pie, lemon "bars" are not
| really bars, choco tacos are not really tacos, peanuts
| are not actually nuts, and numerous other examples. If
| they made it illegal to label nut juices as milk, it
| would due to lobbying from dairy and not from a general
| protection of accurate food labeling.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Fun factoid: in Chinese, there are different terms for soy
| juice (Dou Jiang doujiang), freshly made from soy and
| meant to taste like it, and Western-style soy milk (Dou Nai
| dounai), which adds in all sorts of weird additives,
| particularly oil, and ends up tasting like neither. The
| latter did not exist in China until the concept was
| imported from the West, and remains far more niche (coffee
| shops, packaged drinks) than the original.
| etrautmann wrote:
| it's a good point, and one I broadly agree with. These
| products do exist, however, like seitan and tempeh. If you
| making something sufficiently delicious, however, it should
| be easier to sell than those (IMO).
| qudat wrote:
| The main exception I would grant to this is when you have
| ingredients in a recipe that you need to figure out vegan
| substitutions for. In this case you do want something
| marketed as the vegan version of it.
|
| Eggs, in particular, need a valid vegan substitute. As an
| aside, if we could veganize all the different incantations
| of an egg it would be ground-breaking. Alas, I fear we are
| doomed to have 5 different vegan products to replace those
| incantations of an egg. 1 for scrambled eggs, 1 for baking,
| 1 for emulsifying, 1 for adhesion, etc.
| ianai wrote:
| Agreed. I explained benevolent bacon to someone as "you're
| not going to think 'wow it's like I just ate bacon' but you
| might think 'ok I don't need to eat bacon when I've had
| that'." For me, anyway, certain key flavors and textures are
| there, but it's still a new experience itself.
| js2 wrote:
| I tend to agree with this. I'm not a vegetarian, but if I
| were, I'd wouldn't eat imitation animal products anymore than
| I'd drink non-alcoholic beer.
|
| I'm happy to eat vegetarian food. It stands on its own as
| delicious. One of the best "burgers" I've ever had was made
| with black beans and wasn't trying to imitate meat. (It was
| at The Vortex in Atlanta years ago.)
|
| Imitation products that I've tried have always just left me
| wanting the real thing. Soy can be delicious prepared as soy
| and not trying to make it pretend to be meat. Tofurky. Yuck.
| TheDong wrote:
| > I wouldn't eat imitation animal products anymore than I'd
| drink non-alcoholic beer.
|
| And nor shall I drink anything with corn syrup as that's
| simply an imitation sugar product, nor do I eat chipotle
| burritos since they're a pale imitation of actual burritos.
| I eschew Cavendish bananas entirely since, just like a
| boca-burger tries to mimic a real burger, the Cavendish
| banana tries to mimic the real banana. You can taste the
| difference.
|
| My point here is that "imitation" is very poorly defined.
| Is a boca burger an imitation? Is a black bean burger? What
| if the black bean burger uses spices similar to what you
| use on meat patties?
|
| I think that taking inspiration from another food and
| trying to mimic it (as chipotle does with real burritos) is
| a valid way to make a new food, and that food should be
| judged on its own merits. I don't like "imitation meats"
| that are just pure saitan for the most part, but I'm fine
| with other imitation meats. It's not the imitation bit that
| matters, it's the quality of the thing itself, taken
| standalone.
| [deleted]
| Ma8ee wrote:
| We drink a lot of non alcoholic beer. I want something more
| exiting than water even on work day lunches and I don't
| like sweet drinks and I'm trying to reduce my caffeine
| intake. Not that much left to choose from then.
| scarmig wrote:
| There's a product called Hop Water that hits a perfect
| spot for me. No alcohol or calories in it, and it is
| refreshing and hoppy enough to drink either by itself or
| to cut the oilyness of many bar-type foods.
| fader wrote:
| I hear this sort of thing a lot but don't quite understand
| it.
|
| I've been a vegetarian for eight years, but I eat meat
| substitute products. I have ethical issues with eating meat
| and I feel considerably better physically when I don't eat
| meat, but that doesn't mean that meat doesn't taste good.
|
| I'm quite happy to be able to pop some Quorn mycoprotein
| into a casserole and eat comfort foods of my childhood
| without having to kill an animal to do it.
|
| (I have to agree about Tofurky though. I'll generally go
| hungry voluntarily if that's the vegetarian option.)
| mywittyname wrote:
| It comes down to personal preference. I'm with the GP
| comment for the exact reasons: I don't like
| vegan/vegetarian products that imitate animal products
| because they never actually hit the mark.
|
| This attitude isn't limited to animal products either,
| almost every ersatz product is worse than what it is
| trying to imitate. People generally don't like chicory &
| roasted rye in place of coffee, or teas made from roasted
| barley & catnip. Some people do, but it's not the norm.
|
| However, if you make a product which is intended to stand
| on its own, rather than imitate something else, then you
| can often create something pretty good. Think Nutella,
| which was designed to stretch cocoa, not replace it.
| smhenderson wrote:
| I agree completely but one exception for me is using Boca
| burger as a sub for ground beef. If I chop them up, season
| them and then use the result in chili or something it
| really does give it, to me anyway, the "taste" and
| "texture" of ground beef.
|
| I know I'm tasting the seasoning I used and the infusion of
| other flavors from the chili more than the taste of the soy
| burger but my stomach doesn't care, to me it's just as
| satisfying as chili (or stew, etc.) made with beef.
| js2 wrote:
| Here's an easy vegetarian chili recipe we've been using
| for years in my house:
|
| https://pastebin.com/84cwiJ02
| CobsterLock wrote:
| Thank you! I'll have to try this. weird that it uses a
| less chili powder than I usually use in my meat chili
| (roughly 3 tbs for 2lbs of meat and a can of beans).
| Maybe I'm just used to a ton more spice. I could have
| been amping it up after going away from red meat
| ENIanDEM wrote:
| That could be because the chili molecule has polarity and
| clumps together in fatty environments, like meat sauces
| and yoghurt. Conversely it gets dispersed by water. That
| recipe probably has a bit less fat than what your usual
| meaty one has, so less chili goes further :)
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >Why can't it just be treated as a food in itself?
|
| Exactly. Maybe the main problem is that it's hard to market
| 'Soylent Yellow'.
|
| If I were to become a vegetarian, I think I'd just buy a
| bunch of Indian cookbooks and stay away from
| IncrediblyMeatyPlantBasedBurger(tm).
| darkwater wrote:
| Or ultra-processed junk food in general. Being a vegetarian
| is a good "excuse" (or side effect if you prefer) to avoid
| that kind of food but all those surrogates are basically
| following the trails of junk food. I understand their
| "gateway drug" behavior but still...
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I agree, and that is an odd thing.
|
| Our local way-overpriced health grocery story, which is
| always packed with people, is completely stuffed with
| health potato chips and health dessert items and health
| pre-made stuff with long ingredient lists.
|
| Maybe it's just the beauty of a free market, you can
| always make money on social behavior.
| vnorilo wrote:
| This. As a flexitarian trying to increase veg protein to
| decrease my footprint I find I enjoy cooking with tofu,
| dried soy crumbs, chicpeas and home made seitan the most.
| They are also very versatile and do not introduce seven
| conflicting flavors and colors out of the box. Simple and
| been on the shelves since forever. Fake meats can be
| impressive as engineering but before long tend to feel
| weird, off and/or boring.
|
| Impossible does a great job of imitating meat, primarily
| the flavor of blood. But as I'm eating less meat, I'm
| tasting the blood more distinctly and find I actually don't
| enjoy it at all.
| chevill wrote:
| >I guess I just see it as a fool's errand to try to approach
| vegan cheeses as imitations.
|
| I don't really think its a fool's errand for consumers to
| approach food as an imitation when its literally developed
| and marketed as an imitation/replacement.
|
| Eventually the imitations and/or authentic lab grown food
| might get it right. Until then people will rightfully
| complain about them when they are disappointed.
|
| Personally If I wanted to eat less animal products I'd just
| eat more fruit/vegetables/grains/rice prepared in traditional
| ways. They are delicious and likely to remain better than
| anything artificial at least for several more decades.
| asdf3243245q wrote:
| It's because people are working with existing recipes they
| know and dishes they grew up on and have fond memories of.
| Thus having a good vegan version of those recipes often
| relies on having a reasonable ingredient substitution.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Why can 't it just be treated as a food in itself?_
|
| The producers of this stuff don't need to market to informed
| consumers like yourself. They need to go after the people
| who, while looking at items on a super market shelf, have no
| idea what to do with "cultured nut butter" but might have an
| idea about what "cashew _cheese_ " is.
| auiya wrote:
| >I'm not saying it's all terrible
|
| I'll say it then - it's all terrible. There's so many great
| vegan foods out there, fake cheese is not one of them.
| mssundaram wrote:
| I'm tired of this laziness. I don't care about vegan cheese - I
| am vegan because it's better for me, the planet, and animals.
| Boohoo if I can't find some cheese that tastes exactly like
| cultured milk from a suffering animal.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Unfortunately, the number of cheese eaters who'll be swayed
| by this sort of argument and who aren't already ethically
| vegan is probably close to zero.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Be careful thinking just going vegan is better for the
| planet.
|
| "The vegan diet is widely regarded to be better for the
| planet than those that include animal products, but not all
| plant-based foodstuffs have a small environmental footprint."
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-
| di...
| maccard wrote:
| From your link, asparagus "the largest environmental
| footprint of any of the 56 vegetables they looked at,
| including its land use and water use", with 5.3kg of CO2
| per kg of Asparagus. According to [0], "The average
| footprint of beef, excluding methane, is 36 kilograms of
| CO2eq per kilogram" - so even the worst vegetable imported
| from the farthest part of the world is 10x better per kg
| than beef.
|
| Also, I think that article you've shared is pretty clear
| that going vegan is better, it's just not 0 cost to the
| planet.
|
| [0] https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-
| methane [1] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-
| eating-local
| morsch wrote:
| They get 5.3 kg CO2eq for asparagus because they are
| looking at asparagus air shipped from Peru. Of course
| that's terrible. Don't buy fruits and vegetables shipped
| via air.
|
| If you buy locally grown asparagus -- where I live, that
| means around four weeks every year -- it's fine.
|
| Stuff that gets put on a boat is in-between; no idea if
| that's viable for asparagus, it never occured to me to
| buy it out of season.
| mizzack wrote:
| ...conveniently ignoring that beef is 10x as calorically
| dense as asparagus.
| maccard wrote:
| Sweet potato is ~30% the calorie density of beef, and
| causes 0.01kg co2 per kg according to [0]. I didn't
| ignore the calorie density,I used the worst case
| comparison from the article the parent shared, and
| compared it against the worst case of meat.
|
| [0] https://cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/vi
| ew/3461
| morsch wrote:
| Who the hell eats asparagus for its caloric density? You
| get plenty of calories from the hollandaise sauce and the
| potatoes. Given our sedentary lifestyle, low caloric
| density seems like an advantage, if anything.
| mizzack wrote:
| We were comparing carbon input to food output, gram for
| gram. Caloric/nutrient density is completely relevant.
|
| You've thrown that basis out the window by adding
| additional foods and reframing the argument.
| morsch wrote:
| And yet you have merely restated that caloric density is
| relevant, not explained why it would be. (Nutrient
| density wasn't your original point.) Asparagus is not
| grown or eaten for it's calories.
| distribot wrote:
| +1
|
| I've been vegan half my life and my recollection of cheese
| has mostly been replaced by the plant based alternatives. But
| I still think they've come light years from what we had back
| in '08.
|
| I think a key to being able to enjoy plant based facsimiles
| is to _not_ judge it based it on how closely it approximates
| the dish, but rather how good it is on its own as a cousin.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Indeed good cheese is hard to find as much American cheese has
| a plasticky texture and bland taste. I've only had success with
| small dairy farms and stuff imported from Europe. Mount Tam is
| good.
| armoredkitten wrote:
| I find the meltiness is really what kills it for me, in most
| cases. If you're wanting something to add to a charcuterie
| board or to put out with your appetizers, there are a lot of
| great cashew-based cheeses that do a pretty good job at
| mimicking softer cheeses. They're a bit pricey, but probably
| close to the price you'd spend on a quality dairy cheese.
|
| But once you start trying to melt vegan cheese...things get a
| little wonky. The consistency is just still not there, and yes,
| sometimes the aftertaste is pretty bad. I've found some that
| are bearable, but for the most part....I've just embraced
| cuisines that don't rely on cheese. Maybe some day we'll crack
| that (hazel?)nut, but we're still not there.
| qudat wrote:
| > If you're wanting something to add to a charcuterie board
| or to put out with your appetizers, there are a lot of great
| cashew-based cheeses that do a pretty good job at mimicking
| softer cheeses.
|
| Agreed! They are different but equally delicious.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Great, but for lots of people that are lactose intolerant or
| allergic, it can be good enough. Some are better than others. I
| am not fond of Daiya, and prefer Violife. You also want to use
| less of it, and choose or modify recipes accordingly.
|
| Most of the grocery store available ones are more appropriate
| for ingredient substitution. Cultured products like Rind or
| Reine that are more appropriate for eating on their own are
| less available.
|
| In general, they are not cheese and it's not best to approach
| them as cheese as you would use dairy cheese.
| jandrese wrote:
| I tried a sample of Vegan Cheese once and it immediately
| brought to mind Arthur Dent trying to get Tea out of the
| Nutrimatic. It was something almost but not quite completely
| unlike cheese. It made me wonder if the person who invented it
| had ever tasted cheese before or had just read about it in a
| book or something.
|
| If it had been something I bought from the store I might have
| thought it just had a short shelf life, but this was a sample
| from the vendor at a trade show. I tried it on the spot.
| Presumably it was as good as it was going to get. Also, that
| vendor was a complete jerk and set up their booth as far away
| from the water fountains as possible, so I was forced to hold
| that horrendous not-cheese taste in my mouth for several
| minutes while I rushed across the floor.
| king_magic wrote:
| Yep, they are all atrocious at this stage.
|
| Orders of magnitude worse than Beyond Beef* / Impossible* (as
| compared to actual meat).
|
| *just to be clear, I actually love both Beyond & Impossible's
| products. Extremely close to real meat IMO.
| novok wrote:
| I really don't get how people think impossible burger tastes
| like meat. It has the texture of a lentil patty with blood
| flavoring added.
| dagw wrote:
| It depends what you are comparing it against. I've had the
| Burger King meatless Whopper and found it was no worse than
| the normal Whopper. If you didn't tell me and I wasn't
| paying attention might not even notice. But eaten 'naked'
| side by side with a real high quality meat patty, there is
| no way you can confuse one for the other.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I mean, so do garbage fast food burgers, so maybe that's
| the bar they are comparing against?
| novok wrote:
| My personal example was a $15 restaurant where I tried
| out the impossible burger. Maybe it wasn't an actual
| 'impossible' burger or some early version.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I didn't care for the first iteration of the Impossible
| burger either. I thought it tasted just like a Morning
| Star Farms Grillers Prime, making it nothing special in
| veggie-burger land.
|
| However, it seems to have improved significantly, to the
| point that twice now I've thought they accidentally gave
| me real beef, had a meet-eating friend confirm, and after
| talking to the waiter and cook and taking a much closer
| look decided I was wrong.
|
| I love Beyond burgers too, but they are more distinct
| from real beef as far as my >10yr vegetarian tongue can
| tell.
| eropple wrote:
| Maybe give it another try, at least in some contexts.
| These days it's gotten into fast food, and IMO? I can
| tell the difference between an Impossible Whopper and a
| regular one, but both are about as good to me. I wouldn't
| miss it if the regular one went away.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| In a blind taste test put on for friends people thought the
| Impossible was actually the real deal and the beef burger
| was the fake "meat" product.
|
| Both burgers were made with the same spices and were
| grilled on a charcoal grill.
|
| People are happier to replace their hamburger meat with
| Impossible instead. Beyond Meat has slightly different
| flavor that people were able to pick out as "fake meat".
| phonypc wrote:
| What were you using for the "real deal" though? If it was
| a frozen patty that included textured vegetable protein
| and other things alongside beef, as so many do, I can
| understand. I can't understand mixing up an Impossible
| burger with a decently cooked 100% beef patty.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I have eaten some that will easily surpass anything you will
| find in an American convenience store. Sure they aren't for
| aficionados but that pass for accompaniment on wraps etc.
| sarsway wrote:
| Not a fan of the substitutes either. Vegan meat is okay-ish,
| but it's obviously not meat and it doesn't have animal fats so
| it's never gonna be meat really. Also your just fooling your
| sense of taste, it will adjust eventually, and it seems the
| more fake meat you eat, the less tasty it becomes.
|
| I wish instead of pushing all these fake meat/dairy, we'd get a
| real vegetarian/vegan cuisine, like Indian/Oriental cooking,
| complex meals with lots of natural ingredients and spices, and
| have that become prevalent, as fast food, at the gas station
| and so on.
| goseeastarwar wrote:
| We suspected my 2 y/o son had a dairy allergy, so we started
| buying pizzas with vegan cheese to see if that relieved any of
| his symptoms. I thought the flavor was horrid, but my son
| happily devoured the pizza.
|
| Perhaps the best short-term solution is to stop trying to
| convince people these products are direct replacements. Maybe
| school lunches for kids that don't know any better? I have no
| doubt it's only a matter of time these companies develop vegan
| food on par with their meat counterparts, but we need to stop
| acting like they've unlocked the secret formula.
| fillskills wrote:
| I am not vegan, but lactose intolerant. Vegan cheese has
| changed my life. Mind you that I was not lactose intolerant
| till about 18yrs. So I have certainly tried most versions of
| dairy cheese. I love them both. Sometimes Vegan cheese' flavor
| and texture is suited and in other cases I would have preferred
| regular cheese. The fail case happens for me when I try to
| compare these new vegan X with original X at every single
| detail instead of judging each of them on their own merit.
| thehappypm wrote:
| On the contrary to most of these opinions, there's one vegan
| shredded cheese out there that makes delicious nachos. I can't
| recall the brand but it takes just like the gooey nacho cheese
| of my youth. Probably low-end nacho cheese didn't have any
| dairy to begin with :)
| tartoran wrote:
| > The answer is no, it's not even close to ready. It might pass
| an initial taste test where you say, that's not so bad, but
| then you pick up on all the things it's missing.
|
| I tried these and agree. My wife is vegetarian and I started to
| rarely eat meat but cheeses are still a staple in our house.
| However, vegetarian burgers are ready for prime time. They are
| my new thing, if you didn't tell I'm eating vegetarian burgers
| I would swear I'm eating meat.
| qudat wrote:
| > However, vegetarian burgers are ready for prime time.
|
| Agreed. I eat meat but love veggie burgers.
| redisman wrote:
| I'm also all in on the fake veggie meats but have not had a
| good cheese experience even in vegan restaurants. It's always
| some strange bean sludge/mat.
|
| Would love to be proven wrong!
| steviedotboston wrote:
| I bet a huge percentage of vegan cheese sales are first time
| customers giving it a try. That will drop off real fast.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Which brands have you tried? There's a wild diversity, and I
| suspect even with dairy cheeses you could try many kinds and
| think it's "missing" something (compared to another type of
| cheese, or even the same cheese from a different producer)
|
| For example, a (dairy) farmer's cheese is going to be
| completely different from a blue cheese, which is completely
| different from a sharp cheddar. Each of those is "missing"
| something compared to the others. Quality vegan cheeses often
| try to mimic characteristics of different kinds of dairy
| cheeses, and often come _very_ close. For some kinds of cheese,
| people actually find them indistinguishable from the classic
| dairy versions; for example, if you tried 5 kinds of Blue
| Cheese, you 'd likely find differences between them, and might
| not even be able to identify which one was vegan.
| jjcon wrote:
| > Which brands have you tried?
|
| More than I could possibly recall. Violife, chao, follow your
| heart, miyokos, daiya, parmellas, go veggie, kite hill,
| Trader Joe's brand
|
| > For some kinds of cheese, people actually find them
| indistinguishable from the classic dairy versions
|
| Not a chance that I believe this. Maybe as a minor ingredient
| in a larger meal but certainly not as a main ingredient or on
| its own.
| jviotti wrote:
| It might be a matter of taste and also certain kind of
| cheese might be harder to replicate. My partner and I also
| tried a lot of vegan brands, and while we disliked most
| (they were fine but not comparable), we both found the
| "original" Violife line to be really good.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| Mrrweelll... to be fair, the kind of mass-produced cheese
| most people recognise as "cheese" these days is not that
| great either. And most commercial cheese basically tastes
| the same, no matter what it says it is. That's because it's
| made with the same industriallly produced lyophilised
| lactic acid bacteria cultures. The job of those cultures is
| to give cheese its tastes and flavours and since everyone
| buys the same brands from the same few makers, everybody's
| cheese tastes the same.
| jchanimal wrote:
| Agree. However a homemade "cashew cheese" (flavor from
| nutritional yeast, cayenne, and turmeric) can be yummier
| than cheese, if not totally realistic. Why the store brands
| can't meet that quality I don't know.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Cashew cheese is really good, but it isn't at all cheese.
| It can be used in a few applications where cheese is
| normally used, but not in the vast majority of them.
| Spivak wrote:
| Cashew cheese is so freaking food. It's got the perfect
| texture for nacho cheese dip and buffalo chicken dip. I
| honestly think it's better than dairy as the base for
| creamy soups.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Anything that tries to be like actual cheese fails
| miserably and trends to be mostly fat (coconut) and
| starch with flavour added. Nutritionally terrible,
| usually very low protein compared with real cheese. At
| least with cashew cheese you are eating (mostly) cashews
| with some flavour added. Still higher in fat and lower in
| protein than a low fat cheese, but at least it isn't just
| starch and fat.
|
| I use the liquid from sauerkraut or picked gherkins,
| garlic, onion powder and some salt, with the obligatory
| nutritional yeast. Just think of it as a nice pate.
| froh wrote:
| Yes, and the lack of protein is horrible. When you are
| vegetarian, you partially substitute meat with cheese ---
| no way with these vegan look-like-cheese-somewhat
| products.
|
| it's like 1.3g of protein per 100g (pseudo pasta
| 'cheese') vs 32g per 100g (Parmigiano-Reggiano) or 23g
| per 100g for Emmental cheese.
| asdf3243245q wrote:
| I find Violife feta cheese to be more delicious than real
| feta for snacking, and can devour a pack in one sitting if
| I'm not paying attention. It's a bit different from real
| feta, in that it's a lot less briny. Thus in recipes like
| Greek salad real feta is still better.
| na85 wrote:
| >For some kinds of cheese, people actually find them
| indistinguishable from the classic dairy versions; for
| example, if you tried 5 kinds of Blue Cheese, you'd likely
| find differences between them, and might not even be able to
| identify which one was vegan.
|
| Maybe for some people, in the same way that smokers drink Tim
| Hortons because they can't taste the difference. But plenty
| of us can tell the difference and for us, vegan cheeses taste
| horrendous.
| La1n wrote:
| >Maybe for some people, in the same way that smokers drink
| Tim Hortons because they can't taste the difference.
|
| Or maybe it's more like beer, most don't like it the first
| time but after a while you can start appreciating it?
| dfgasdgsd wrote:
| (partner is also vegan) - Miyoko Garlic Herb is the only one
| I've ever had that is "good" in my opinion. It's definitely not
| cheese, but as a picnic cheese/crackers situation I actually
| might like it more than a cheese version.
| novok wrote:
| If you removed the garlic and herbs would it taste any good?
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| Miyoko's mozzarella is delicious, both cold and put on
| pizza. It doesn't have any herbs added to it.
| sevencolors wrote:
| Agreed, Miyoko's is the closest to a real soft cheese. Makes
| sense as they age them to get those fermentation flavors
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Miyako's Mozzarella is good enough.
| leadingthenet wrote:
| > [...] is good enough
|
| There is no such thing when it comes to cheese. Cheese is
| love, cheese is life.
| jjcon wrote:
| Totally agree on miyoko - the best tasting I've had and good
| in its own right kinda as it's own thing
| willcipriano wrote:
| Wanted to make pizza with my two year old daughter a couple of
| weeks ago. Picked up some mozzarella at the store and when I
| went to use it noticed the well hidden plant logo and "plant
| based" text that was almost the same color as the packaging.
| Figured I'd give it a shot. It was inedible, completely ruined
| the pizza. My daughter took a bite and said "no, dad" I agreed
| and we threw it away and got a happy meal.
|
| I figure once everyone gets fooled once like I have it will
| stop selling.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| i am not liking the way many of this is packaged. any other
| product and hackernews would be angry for the "deceptive
| packaging", but because the hackernews like this product,
| they are give it a freepass.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| have yet to read a comment that likes it :shrug:
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I'll chime in as liking it. Or at least, I like the ones
| that are made from fermented nuts. So, brands like
| Miyoko's and Treeline. I even make my own fake cheese in
| that genre at home sometimes.
|
| Others, like Daiya, I won't object to if someone else
| wants to put it on whatever we're cooking. I'm pretty
| lactose intolerant, so I can't speak to how it compares
| to dairy cheese; my personal take from the few times
| where I'll pop a Lactaid in order to participate in a
| pizza party is that, while Daiya fake mozzarella is meh,
| the stuff it's intended to mimic is even worse. I
| occasionally wonder if there is something to that
| casomorphin theory that the article mentions, and people
| who regularly consume dairy largely like it for
| approximately the same reason smokers like the taste of
| tobacco smoke.
|
| And then there are some brands, generally of more of a
| 1990s vintage, that are legitimately gross.
| Unfortunately, those seem to be the ones that are most
| commonly stocked in grocery stores, for Heaven knows what
| reason.
| [deleted]
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Are you sure there's really such a trend in HN discussions?
| I've never noticed it.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I'm curious, which brand was it? Can you find a picture of
| the packaging? I'm morbidly curious to see what this alleged
| train wreck looks like. I've honestly never noticed a brand
| that I thought was hard to identify. They usually prominently
| feature language like "alternative" or "-style shreds" or
| whatever.
|
| I'm not even sure why one of these companies would try to
| make the nature of the product well-hidden. Their goal isn't
| to trick people who eat dairy, it's to sell a product to
| people who are looking to avoid dairy. Why would a company
| actively hide from their target market?
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| I don't know about OP, but I've been fooled into buying one
| of these margarine products instead of butter:
|
| https://www.vitam.gr/proionta
|
| And I was very annoyed. Mostly at myself.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Looks like they updated the package:
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Plant-Based-
| Mozzarell...
|
| The one I had that plant based logo was a quarter of the
| size and it did not have leaves like that on the front.
| Also that white plant based text was a few shades lighter
| than the background (that was previously sky blue) making
| it hard to read. Admittedly I should've seen the "style"
| part and looked further, also I should've questioned why it
| was the one of the only shredded cheese left in the fridge.
| It isn't like I was defrauded but that certainly wasn't
| what I intended to buy, good on them for fixing it.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Ha. Even the current packaging isn't that hot.
|
| Leave it to Wal-Mart to screw that up. I bet they were so
| focused on sticking to the "Great Value" graphic design
| manual that they ended up deciding that clearly conveying
| all the critical information on the label would have
| ruined their branding consistency.
|
| For what it's worth, I can tell just by the ingredients
| label that that stuff is gross. Potato starch, coconut
| oil, and some unspecified "natural flavor" that's somehow
| more than 2% of the ingredient bill? No thanks.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "Why would a company actively hide from their target
| market?"
|
| Much cheaper to make. Maybe their target market is "people
| who buy it by accident and throw it away".
| smt88 wrote:
| I'm not a vegan and have enjoyed vegan cheese on breakfast
| sandwiches. It works for me when it's not the only flavor.
| Spivak wrote:
| Yeah I don't think any substitute foods will fare well when
| eaten on their own but they shine when they're part of a
| larger dish. And if you're only eating real cheese when its
| by itself like on a charcuterie board that's already a huge
| improvement!
| ashes-of-sol wrote:
| I think saying it's "not even close to ready" is way over the
| top. I've been vegan for two years and was a cheese lover prior
| to that, and I'm happy with the selection there is for doing
| things like mac and cheese, pizza, a slice on sandwiches etc.
|
| Is it a perfect stand in? No. Does it serve the purpose?
| Absolutely
| octopoc wrote:
| Yep I eat vegan 80% of the time and I have to agree. For some
| reason, delicious fake meat is a lot easier to make than
| delicious fake cheese.
| chronicsunshine wrote:
| In Minneapolis, MN the Herbivorous Butcher makes vegan cheeses
| that are better than normal cheese. Unfortunately they also are
| expensive.
| RacfeelBudkind wrote:
| > Sometimes the aftertaste is terrible, sometimes the texture
| or versatility.
|
| These are both true of dairy cheeses too.
| octopoc wrote:
| I think what they're saying is that, unlike real cheese,
| there's _always_ something wrong with the taste of dairy-free
| cheese. FWIW my experience has been the same.
| RacfeelBudkind wrote:
| What I'm saying is there's _always_ something wrong with
| the taste of dairy cheese. Although, it 's subtle, and you
| get used to it if you eat it enough.
| tbwriting wrote:
| Heavily-subsidized dairy takes up multiple grocery store aisles:
| _crickets_
|
| Vegan cheese simply appears: "we've been INFILTRATED"
| barbazoo wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| On the topic of grocery store real estate. It blows my mind how
| much space meat products take up. Huge shelves of beef, pork,
| chicken in all forms and stages of processing. It's crazy to me
| the degree of reliance and attachment to animal products we've
| been coerced into.
| shigawire wrote:
| Aren't humans omnivores? I don't think we've been coerced
| into animal consumption so much as that is the default state
| (if available).
| pstuart wrote:
| This project is promising: https://www.realvegancheese.org/
|
| I think they've gotten to casein protein production but the site
| is kind of light on progress details.
| chmod600 wrote:
| A lot of the time I feel like health food is really just a way
| for manufacturers to cheap out and then sell something at a
| premium.
|
| Margarine is vegan, but it was always just marketed as "cheap".
| Discerning or well-to-do consumers would just pass it up.
|
| Now, people will put up with things that are very cheap to make,
| taste horrible, and are very expensive to buy.
|
| That creates a problem: the food is becoming about the story and
| not the taste. That's not going to lead to good products; only
| good stories and packaging to tell the story. And bad products
| won't make for wide adoption.
|
| Asking your customers to sacrifice gets you a small band of loyal
| customers, like a cult. But good products stand on their own and
| don't ask for sacrifice... think Tesla.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| A lot of "health food" is a scam, and isn't even healthy. It's
| actually kind of absurd how if you look at even the junk food
| aisle, you'll see tons of advertisements for "all-natural",
| "organic", "30% less sugar", "with vitamin B".
|
| The vegan cheese isn't an exception: some of them are actually
| pretty good, but most are really processed with a lot of added
| oil. Although most vegans do seem to realize and accept this,
| because it still has the benefit of being vegan.
|
| If you want real "healthy" food, get whole foods: vegetables,
| meats (or good vegan meats, look for protein / calories ratio),
| fish, yogurt, beans. Fruits and even grains are ok, as are nuts
| and nut butters - just watch your portions. Even a bit of
| cheese or olive oil is good because they actually have
| nutrients. Ironically, all of these are usually packaged plain
| and don't mention "low-carb" or "good source of vitamin B12".
| RacfeelBudkind wrote:
| > A lot of the time I feel like health food is really just a
| way for manufacturers to cheap out and then sell something at a
| premium.
|
| Probably, but vegan cheese isn't marketed as health food.
|
| > Margarine is vegan
|
| I wish.
| danShumway wrote:
| > Margarine is vegan
|
| Some of it is, it's just not safe to assume it always is
| unless you check the ingredients.
|
| But that's the case for a lot of foods that fall into the
| sometimes-but-not-always-vegan category.
| 7steps2much wrote:
| > > Margarine is vegan > >I wish.
|
| While not all margarine is vegan quite a lot of them are.
| Though you have to look out and read the packaging to make
| sure you don't missgrab.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| >> A coagulant is typically added to turn the milk proteins into
| solid curds -- in many cheeses, that coagulant is an enzyme
| called rennet, which is traditionally taken from an unweaned
| calf's stomach lining, although vegetarian rennet, derived from
| molds or plants, is used in some cases.
|
| "Traditionally" rennet was taken from an unweaned _milk animal
| 's_ stomach (not just a calf's stomach. Some people make most of
| their cheese from ewe's and goat's milk).
|
| Fast-forward a couple thousand years and in modern times, most
| rennet in commercial cheeses is the product of fermentation by
| cute little bacteria cultured in cute little bacteria incubators:
|
| ... Because of the above imperfections of microbial and animal
| rennets, many producers sought other replacements of rennet. With
| genetic engineering it became possible to isolate rennet genes
| from animals and introduce them into certain bacteria, fungi, or
| yeasts to make them produce recombinant chymosin during
| fermentation. The genetically modified microorganism is killed
| after fermentation and chymosin isolated from the fermentation
| broth, so that the fermentation-produced chymosin (FPC) used by
| cheese producers does not contain a GMO or any GMO DNA. FPC is
| identical to chymosin made by an animal, but is produced in a
| more efficient way. FPC products have been on the market since
| 1990 and, because the quantity needed per unit of milk can be
| standardized, are commercially viable alternatives to crude
| animal or plant rennets, as well as generally preferred to them
| in industrial production.[12] ...
|
| Source:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet#Fermentation-produced_c...
|
| But, somehow, everytime I read an article about vegan cheese it
| seems to lead with the outdated information that rennet is, like,
| normally, made with the stomach lininig of unweaned calves.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Maybe it's more of a Naissance?
| dang wrote:
| Hmm, we changed the title to "The Vegan Cheese Renaissance" (a
| phrase from the article) in keeping with the site guideline: "
| _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or
| linkbait_ ". But "renaissance" seems to be baity in its own
| right, so I've taken another crack at it above - now using
| language from the subheading.
| rsync wrote:
| I am not a vegan but I do eat vegan meals from time to time ...
|
| I would prefer that we develop and maintain true vegan foodstuffs
| and recipes rather than create vegan versions of animal products.
|
| I am interested in eating an interesting new dish that was
| designed to showcase vegan ingredients. I have no interest in
| eating fake cheese pizzas and fake hamburgers.
| xeromal wrote:
| If you just eat an a local indian restaurant, you can find many
| dishes that are vegetarian from the source.
| retrac wrote:
| Exactly. Fried onion rings will beat fake-mozzarella sticks
| every single time, simply because that dish was designed and
| intended to be vegetable-based from the beginning. Want to make
| classic onion rings full vegan? Substituting vegetable oil for
| lard is far less drastic than trying to come up with a
| substitute for cheese. Pizza? There are many pizza recipes that
| do not involve cheese at all! Try a no-cheese pesto or
| something.
|
| It makes little sense to me. But I suppose I have relatively
| few food cravings. If you're trying to avoid dairy and and
| every week you just _need_ cheese sticks or pizza, then I guess
| that 's the market this is aimed at?
| linuxftw wrote:
| Lots of vegan cheeses are made from Almonds. In the US, most
| Almonds are grown in California using irrigating diverted from
| major waterways.
|
| Don't eat Almonds from California, they are contributing to a
| major ecological disaster in the state.
| ulimn wrote:
| I have dairy allergy and all I can say is that I am so happy that
| these products are getting better and better. Where I live
| (Europe) there are a lot of different ones available and quite a
| few are on the level of a cheap normal cheese.
|
| But in the end: at least it's something.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Same. For me, dairy increase respiratory mucus production which
| makes me feel a little congested and increases the frequency
| amd severity of upper respiratory tract infections.
|
| It also hurts my digestive system.
|
| Both are subtle initially and ramp up with continued dairy
| consumption, so I can tolerate small infrequent amounts.
|
| I suspect many more people have similar issues but don't
| realise.
| outime wrote:
| Yeah I have exactly this. I tolerate small amounts but I
| avoid it on a daily basis. And I do love cheese but ain't
| worth it. Lactose-free (aka adding lactase) helps sligthly
| but it seems it's not the only thing causing trouble to me.
| All in all, we're lucky we have alternatives.
| novok wrote:
| One thing I really don't like about a lot of these meat / dairy
| alternatives is how they use cheap PUFA oils with their bad
| health effects vs something better like coconut or avocado oil. I
| would also put butter / ghee / tallow to the list, but then it's
| not vegan.
| jl6 wrote:
| I have tried all the easily available vegan cheeses and have
| found them tolerable _at best_ , except for one occasion where a
| food truck served a plant-based burger with _smoked_ vegan
| cheese. I don't know which type of vegan cheese it started as or
| how they smoked it, but they did achieve something that was more
| than tolerable. Just.
|
| Until the tech improves I will prefer to stick to burger toppings
| like sliced tomato, avocado and onion. Much, _much_ better. And
| for pizzas, it's better just to go without.
| sova wrote:
| In Colorado, there is a local company making small batches of
| vegan cheese that they also mail out for large enough orders.
| It's not going to melt like normal cheese, but it does a much
| better job than the other ones I have tried. Their cheddar is
| really good. It seems like a hard recipe to crack and this
| company is the closest to it so far in my opinion.
| https://www.peacefulrebelvegancheese.com/
| bioinformatics wrote:
| Also, it's so delicious that you can eat the package for extra
| flavour.
| agogdog wrote:
| I'd be vegan if not for cheese, so I hope they can catch up with
| the beef replacements (which I am 100% happy with at this point).
| IMO they're not there yet, but are getting closer.
| tohnjitor wrote:
| "Vegan" products don't belong with the products they're
| impersonating and marketing them as such is fraud.
| _wldu wrote:
| Prehistoric humans made cheese (and beer). This helped society to
| grow. To call these things 'processed' when they have been made
| by humans using simple things (and have been for ages) is
| disingenuous at best and ideologically driven at worst.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| I don't see that claim made anywhere, unless you're referring
| to "the cheesemaking process".
| margalabargala wrote:
| The article does not call cheese (or beer) processed. That
| adjective is applied exclusively to the vegan cheese
| substitutes.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Leaving aside for a moment the morality of eating meat and dairy
| - is there actually any (health) benefit to the heavily (and I
| mean _heavily_ ) processed dairy alternatives compared to just
| eating regular cheese?
| andor wrote:
| Animal fat and protein cause inflammation, while plant-based
| fat and protein don't. Dairy contains all sorts of hormones and
| other stuff (e.g. _real_ estrogen, antibiotics) that people
| should not consume regularly.
|
| Milk alternatives on the other hand can actually be anti-
| inflammatory because they contain antioxidants. Whether that
| still holds true for processed versions of it... probably
| depends!
|
| The other big risk factor in cheese is saturated fat. I don't
| know if plant-based cheese is generally healthier in that
| respect.
| srswtf123 wrote:
| Citations needed for all of this?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| The first paragraph is just things you'll hear on
| NutritionFacts.org with some research papers you can review
| for yourself. Which was weird to hear in a culture where
| meat and even dairy are heralded for their supposed
| nutritional (like protein) superiority. I think his
| "Evidence Based Weight Loss" video touches on these points
| all in one place if you are interested.
| Accacin wrote:
| I'm vegan, and probably not. I've heard that most vegan
| substitutes are processed heavily so not really more healthy
| (and probably less healthy than non-vegan options).
|
| However, I do still eat them on occasion. Sometimes after a
| 30km run, all I think about is burgers so when I get home and
| sit and have vegan burger with vegan cheese.
|
| It may not be as good as the 'real thing' but it hits the spot
| :)
| barbazoo wrote:
| After 2 years or so of eating vegetarian I don't think that
| meat burgers are actually better. First of all, a burger is
| all about toppings and condiments. And vegetarian patties
| have come such a long way, texture and flavor wise, it blows
| my mind. Compared to the boring and ever the same taste of
| meat it doesn't even come close for me.
| delecti wrote:
| Agreed. I've accidentally gotten a few beef burgers since I
| stopped intentionally eating meat, and at this point I
| prefer impossible burgers over beef. I still haven't found
| a sufficiently satisfying ham (always just tastes like
| bologna) or breakfast sausage (too dry) yet though.
| qudat wrote:
| This is also true for buffalo wings. They aren't actually
| good, they are just a vehicle for buffalo sauce. Fried
| cauliflower with buffalo sauce is just as good if not
| better than wings.
| xeromal wrote:
| Veggie Grill makes some great boneless buffalo wings
| RacfeelBudkind wrote:
| Well, there's no cholesterol at least.
|
| Edit: Also keep in mind that cheese is a processed food too. I
| think it's somewhat subjective whether oil mixed with starch
| and yeast is more processed than milk coagulated with an enzyme
| (rennet, usually from mold), strained, and fermented. Processed
| food isn't inherently unhealthy, but both cheese and vegan
| cheese definitely are.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Milk has quite a bit of sugar, many of the milk replacements
| are higher in protein and lower in sugar, or have different
| macronutrient profiles.
|
| Also, I like the flavor and mouthfeel of things like oatmilk.
|
| I'm also not convinced that milk is not a 'heavily processed'
| commodity. You are just using a pregnant cow to do a lot of the
| processing.
| css wrote:
| > Milk has quite a bit of sugar
|
| Sugar content without regard to glycemic index [0] is
| meaningless. Cow milk contains lactose, which has a very low
| glycemic index. Most milk replacements use maltose, which has
| almost double the glycemic load, making them significantly
| less healthy than actual milk (since they are all basically
| sugar and canola oil [1]).
|
| [0]:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mnfr.201901082
|
| [1]: https://every.to/almanack/oatly-the-new-coke-821556
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Which vegan cheeses have higher protein? In my experience
| they're all lower. Philadelphia lightest has 11% protein,
| 2.5% fat, 4.9% carbs. Violife slices are 0% protein, 23% fat
| (20% saturated) and 20% carbs. Pure trash.
| La1n wrote:
| Not all vegan cheeses are heavily processed, the cashew based
| type mentioned in the article tends to be not processed more
| than a normal cheese would be.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| With a cashew cream & agar agar base its not so hard to make
| a cheese approximation by yourself. Really not a lot of
| advanced processing needed. It gets harder if you want a more
| accurate emulation though
| jandrese wrote:
| It should be noted that cheese is almost all process. It's
| just what it is. Unprocessed cheese is just milk.
| tpoacher wrote:
| Pro tip when it comes to pasta / pizza.
|
| Forget about vegan cheeses on pizza/pasta. They taste crap.
|
| What tastes _really_ good is ground nuts. I sprinkle a mixture of
| ground pine nuts, cashew nuts, and tiny bit of pecan, (- /+
| possibly some macademia nuts) and it tastes great. When ground
| properly in the right proportions, this mixture also has that
| nice fluffy, "cheesy" feel to it (i.e. it's not rough to the
| touch, it's soft and spreadable).
|
| Different experience from actual cheese, but very tasty. Whereas
| whenever I've tried vegan cheese on pizza/pasta, they always
| leave an ugly aftertaste, have a disgusting texture and stick to
| my teeth and throat, and leave me bloated and feeling like crap
| afterwards.
| csours wrote:
| This is what I'm more interested in: Don't try to replace
| animal foods directly, create great plant based foods. I'm not
| vegan or even vegetarian, but I am interested in reducing my
| animal consumption.
| parski wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. Cheeseless pizza is also a lot more
| fresh in my opinion. It's more like a flat focaccia with more
| toppings, in my case hiding under a mountain of arugula.
| dqv wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. When you say grind, do you mean like put it
| through a food processor?
| tpoacher wrote:
| Actually, sorry, I should have said 'grated' instead of
| 'ground'.
|
| When I do it, I actually use a rotary cheesegrater in the
| finest setting (i.e. something like this: www.thebakerskitche
| n.net/images/products/detail/811642026798.jpg). This makes
| the nuts come out soft and flakey.
|
| But, yes, presumably a food processor should be ok too.
| chestervonwinch wrote:
| There are some cashew-based queso dips that are pretty darn
| tasty. Although, it's a bit easier for vegan to compete in that
| context since "real" queso dips are the whey stuff not cheese,
| per se.
|
| Edit: to be clear, I'm commenting as a tangent to the ground
| nut suggestion. I'm not suggesting anyone put queso on pizza,
| unless that sounds good to you :)
| dnhz wrote:
| Miyoko's is good. Available at Whole Foods and even some products
| at Target. Miyoko cheddar-style cheese slices have a nice tang to
| them. The coconut oil and tapioca starch kind of stuff (Daiya,
| etc.) is alright for pizza, but it's not great. It's expensive
| too. This kind of stuff should be cheaper to make than dairy
| cheese. Unfortunately cheese and cheeze are both high in
| calories, sodium, and fat.
| fader wrote:
| I had some bad experiences early on with vegan cheese
| substitutes, so I wrote them off years ago.
|
| Recently I was eating my "standard" sandwich order from a local
| restaurant. It actually tasted so much better than normal that I
| asked if they had changed anything, only to find out that they
| had used their vegan cheese substitute by mistake.
|
| I'll be giving these cheese substitutes another shot in the
| future!
| ashes-of-sol wrote:
| The food science has been coming leaps and bounds year over
| year. I've only been vegan ~2 years and in that span Daiya
| released a new recipe that really closed the gap for great
| meltability
| jfk13 wrote:
| I can't help suspecting this says something about the quality
| of cheese your local place uses.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Is there a good vegan substitute for hard, sharp cheddar cheese,
| or for blue cheese or gorgonzola?
|
| I've never seen anything that comes even remotely close.
| mtlewis wrote:
| Here in the UK, there's a product called Veganzola made by a
| small company called Honestly Tasty. It's incredibly close to
| the cow's milk version.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| No, not yet. Most of the vegan cheeses target shreds/singles. I
| would bet someone is working on it, but that it's probably a
| niche product at best.
|
| I think there are other food items that have that funky, umami
| tang that those cheeses have though. Plenty of cultures have
| built up some interesting flavors in vegan food stuffs with
| lactobacillus.
| werdnapk wrote:
| There has been countless times when I've reached for some cheese
| on the shelf and then finally noticed the words "cheese product"
| on the packaging and realize that I didn't actually grab what I
| intended to... so I put it back and look for one with the correct
| labeling.
|
| So perhaps deceptive marketing/packaging is how it's gaining in
| sales?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| "Cheese product" doesn't necessary mean vegan. It could be that
| it contains cow milk, just not to an extent required to legally
| be sold as "cheese" according to the given country's
| legislation.
| RacfeelBudkind wrote:
| In fact, in the US at least, "Cheese product" nessesarily
| means it _isn 't_ vegan.
|
| Vegan cheese products also tend to be pretty upfront about
| not actually being cheese too, because they're marketing to
| people who don't want cheese.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I strongly doubt that. If the product was inferior, you'd maybe
| see one purchase from someone accidentally buying it, but it
| wouldn't be sustained.
|
| People want this stuff. We've transitioned our house to vegan
| milks because, quite frankly, we like them better and they
| don't have the same awful externalities that milk production
| has.
|
| We still use some butter and cheese, and some vegan
| butter/cheese. There are definitely recipes where it doesn't
| matter which cheese/butter you use, and some where it does.
| ben_w wrote:
| Just before the pandemic, I was thinking about how cheese was
| made from milk and how soy milk could (with the right extras) be
| a pretty decent milk substitute, and wondered if you could make a
| cheese alternative by applying the milk-to-cheese process to soy
| milk.
|
| Then I realised this already exists and is called "tofu".
|
| The smoked tofu I find around Berlin is pretty good even cold,
| tastes similar to some smoked hard cheeses, and works in
| sandwiches. I've not even considered trying it on pizza though.
| danans wrote:
| Rugenwalder Muhle makes vegetarian/vegan cheeses in Germany
| that are quite good when eaten cold, but probably don't melt
| well.
|
| I generally prefer cheese cold or at room temperature anyways,
| and I wish I could get Rugenwalder Muhle in the US, but it
| seems like they don't export.
|
| https://www.ruegenwalder.de/vegetarische-und-vegane-produkte
| ben_w wrote:
| I really like their vegetarian stuff, but their vegan stuff
| doesn't work so well for me.
|
| The closest brand in the U.K. (and, I think, the USA) is
| Quorn, which I've missed since moving here.
| asdf3243245q wrote:
| Quorn products are vegetarian, but many are not vegan -
| many of them have eggs, milk, and cheese in them.
| danans wrote:
| Quorn doesn't make cheese as far as I've seen though.
| redisman wrote:
| Smoked tofu is good- I wish there were more smoked veggie meats
| and cheeses. Definitely not something I'd want on a pizza in
| lieu of mozzarella though
| Spivak wrote:
| I think that's because it's got the wrong melting profile.
| Cashew cheese with either gelatin (if you're okay with that)
| or tapioca starch compares a lot better. And once it sets you
| can smoke it too!
| ianai wrote:
| I really like Miyokos "artisan vegan cheese, smoked English
| farmhouse." It comes as a little round. Ingredients list is
| all recognizable names, too. Does not even attempt to melt
| though. It'll kind of crisp up.
| guyzero wrote:
| I eat a number of different vegan meat substitutes and they're
| all fine but vegan cheese is still much, much further from the
| real thing. That said, I Don't think cheese needs to be a huge
| part of anyone's diet, so simply reducing your intake is fine.
| swiley wrote:
| I'm happy some people want to be vegan and I try to be careful
| and buy cage-free eggs and stuff because the way animals tend to
| be abused on farms can be pretty upsetting.
|
| Please don't lie when you're selling me food though (or play
| games to trick me into buying your stuff.) I tried amazon fresh a
| couple times and accidentally bought the plant based "meat" which
| was pretty much inedible (if I wanted a vegetarian diet I would
| just eat vegetables not some crazy processed garbage.) I no
| longer buy food from Amazon because of this.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| I don't understand why you need to imitate something that isn't
| vegan or vegetarian, when you want to eat vegan or vegetarian.
| There is a metric shitton of vegan and vegetarian dishes from the
| entire world's cuisines that you could be eating right now
| insteaed of a substitute for something you've decided never to
| eat again. Why pretend-eat what you don't want to eat in the
| first place?
|
| That's just mad. Go eat Indian (meaning food from a dozen
| different places in and around India, including Bengali,
| Bangladeshi, etc). Eat a mediterrannean diet. Eat a North African
| diet. But why do you have to eat something vegan and call it
| cheese? That just doesn't make sense.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| Lol why are you so mad that people want to eat vegan cheese.
| Maybe people just enjoy eating vegan cheese.
| isatty wrote:
| Read the username
| screwt wrote:
| Easy! People have lots of different reasons why they may choose
| not to eat meat or dairy. "Not liking the taste" is one
| possible reason. If that particular one isn't your reason, then
| you may still miss the taste/texture of certain foods, so
| having a substitute helps.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| Who said anything about liking or disliking the taste of
| meat? If you're vegan, you don't want to eat meat, for
| whatever reason. What sense does it make to then pretend to
| eat meat anyway?
|
| If you like meat so much you just have to have it, then what
| sense does it make to be vegan? Be flexitarian. Eat meat once
| a year, every Easter Sunday. Eat vegentarian. I don't know!
| But at least accept the fact that you can't stand being vegan
| because you really want to eat meat and dairy.
|
| For me, anyone who eats pretend-meat or pretend-dairy is a
| pretend-vegan. If you're going to go off meat to save the
| planet, or because you think meat is murder, then stick to
| your own morality and go without anything that is in any way
| "like" meat. Otherwise, you're just advertising the need to
| eat meat and justifying everyone else to keep eating it and
| ignore your pleas for the environment and the baby calves.
|
| If you tell me "I'm vegan, but I have to eat something like
| cheese", the easiest thing for me to reply is "I'm not vegan
| and I have to eat cheese". It just makes a joke of the whole
| idea of being vegan.
| missblit wrote:
| I mean maybe they just like the taste?
|
| I don't really understand it either because I'd usually
| rather have tasty veggies than imitation meat, but what
| someone finds tasty is what they find tasty and they don't
| need to justify it.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| You mean maybe they just like the taste of pretend-dairy,
| not as a reminder of the taste of dairy, but as something
| new? Then why call it "vegan cheese"? That just smacks of
| self-deception to me.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| really wanted to post this one again eh
|
| is this an april fool's joke?
| pharmakom wrote:
| Much like vegetarian meat alternatives, I find it depends on how
| critical of a component it is to the meal. Meat substitute
| burgers are pretty good! But you can't fake a steak. Similarly, a
| vegan cheese pizza just isn't up to scratch.
| slicktux wrote:
| I've made vegan Mac-N-Cheese before and I'll tell you it was
| really good!
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