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Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

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Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#21

Post by elliekelly »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #17

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 pro…

If you haven’t seen the Impossible Burger episode of South Park yet I think you’d enjoy it.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#22

Post by gameswithgo »

hvna wrote: post #20
CarelessExpert wrote: post #17

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 pro…

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.

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.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#23

Post by jfk13 »

fader wrote: post #7

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!

I can't help suspecting this says something about the quality of cheese your local place uses.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#24

Post by dundarious »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #17

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 pro…

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.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#25

Post by king_magic »

jjcon wrote: post #2

> 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. Mayb…

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.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#26

Post by Accacin »

hvna wrote: post #20
CarelessExpert wrote: post #17

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 pro…

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.

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.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#27

Post by CarelessExpert »

gameswithgo wrote: post #22
hvna wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#28

Post by sarakayakomzin »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #17

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 pro…

>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"

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#29

Post by wvenable »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #17

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 pro…

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.

Re: Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

#30

Post by na85 »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #8
jjcon wrote: post #2

> 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. Mayb…

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" somet…

>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.

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