Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves

eater.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 492 posts

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

#81

Post by js2 »

derbOac wrote: post #55
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…

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 chee…

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.

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

#82

Post by Pfhreak »

endisneigh wrote: post #6

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?

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.

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

#83

Post by raffraffraff »

jchanimal wrote: post #36
jjcon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

#84

Post by CoastalCoder »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #54
willcipriano wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fig…

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.

Are you sure there's really such a trend in HN discussions? I've never noticed it.

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

#85

Post by pharmakom »

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.

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

#86

Post by distribot »

mssundaram wrote: post #58
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…

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.

+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.

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

#87

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ulimn wrote: post #4

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.

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.

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

#88

Post by Pfhreak »

Shadonototro wrote: post #69

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 on…

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.

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

#89

Post by ianai »

redisman wrote: post #51
ben_w wrote: post #11

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…

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

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.

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

#90

Post by fooblat »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #72
derbOac wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 chee…

> 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…

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.

Post reply on HN