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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

#331

Post by captainredbeard »

ben_w wrote: post #201
captainredbeard wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 co…

> Most functioning adults can keep quiet about a simple preference but morals don’t work the same.

Handling difficult feelings without acting out is one of the definitions of being a functional adult. You may have that backwards, though it is very consistent with the pop culture moral / philosophical (behavioral?) flavor of late.

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

#332

Post by whimsicalism »

dukeyukey wrote: post #313
fader wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 havin…

For me most imitation meats just don't hit the same notes. One of the mainstays of my childhood was a lamb and leek stew called cawl. I've tried different meat substitutes but none get the right flavour there. Ironically, the closest I've gotten is to skip meat replacements and just put some butter in, it produces the same creamy, fatty taste lamb meat does.

I think lamb is also one that is particularly hard to substitute, IMO.

I feel like you can get a good portion of the texture of beef with some good seitan, for instance. Otherwise, most of them are only really approximate substitutes, in the sense that they substitute what you would use meat for in the meal, not that they substitute directly for a given meat.

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

#333

Post by bromley »

balls187 wrote: post #323
bromley wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: because you love cheese but you also love animals and so don't want to contribute to their suffering. In my experience people tend to become vegan: 1. for the animals; and/or 2. for the planet; and/or 3. for health. I have never heard another vegan say they became vegan because they didn't like the taste of cheese.

Here is another: you love cheese and are allergic to casein. Not me, but the gal I am dating is allergic to dairy, and so we had some fun finding vegan cheeses that did not have casein. It was nice to make a dish that typically has cheese, that we both could enjoy.

Good point! Vegan cheeses are so much better now than they used to be, there's never been a better time to have a casein allergy :D

Honestly if it weren't for all the amazing fake meats, milks, and cheeses, I would find it a lot harder to be a vegan. As it is though, it's a piece of (vegan) cake :)

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

#334

Post by bromley »

himinlomax wrote: post #327
bromley wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: because you love cheese but you also love animals and so don't want to contribute to their suffering. In my experience people tend to become vegan: 1. for the animals; and/or 2. for the planet; and/or 3. for health. I have never heard another vegan say they became vegan because they didn't like the taste of cheese.

Animals suffer from predators, parasites, hunger and thirst in the wild. The only way to end all this suffering is a good nuclear armageddon.

Humans suffer from similar things. But I don't think that's a reasonable excuse for us to kill each other.

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

#335

Post by roland35 »

cheese_goddess wrote: post #263

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…

I would eat cheese if I wasn't lactose intolerant! These vegan cheeses aren't perfect but they work well enough for some things!

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

#336

Post by blacksmith_tb »

froh wrote: post #262
raffraffraff wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Depends a little on how puritanical you are - Trader Joe's makes a decent 'Mozarella Style' shredded cheese that's mostly almonds, but has casein from real cheese (to make it melt) and some flavor from parmesan. 40g of protein in a bag, not terrible, but not vegan, just less-dairy.

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

#337

Post by cheese_goddess »

hjek wrote: post #311
cheese_goddess wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stan…

> For me, anyone who eats pretend-meat or pretend-dairy is a pretend-vegan. I love that you can get all the taste without the violence and suffering. Eating is not always a single-person activity, so having vegan substitutes for meat and cheese is great when eating together with non-vegans who may be wary of falafels. There are very few vegans who are vegans because of taste. Many are worried about the environmental…

You're asking me whether I think two big-name vegans who make movies and give TED talks about veganism are pretend-vegans? For pushing pretend-animal products? Yes! Yes they are! It's like asking me if the Pope is a pretend-Christian for pushing pretend-faith and pretend-salvation if you just do what he says. Sure he is!

You want to be like saint in the world and reduce harm? Then don't go baptising nut mush as "cheese" so you can enjoy what you have sworn off and are pontificating against, like the apocryphal stories of Catholic monks baptising their meat "fish" so they could eat it on Wednesday. Stop advertising meat and dairy with your actions, contrary to your words. Stick to your principles and then come to preach to me about mine.

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

#338

Post by amusedcyclist »

captainredbeard wrote: post #160
ccmonnett wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

How is the presence of vegan cheese forced veganism ? Let us incorporate the true environmental cost of animal products into the price at the supermarket and have them compete fairly.

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

#339

Post by robrenaud »

js2 wrote: post #81
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…

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 lef…

As someone who has drank 3,000+ different commercial beers, and has brewed a few hundred gallons of homebrew (alcoholic) beer, I'd highly recommend giving athletic brewing companies non-alcoholic beers a shot.

This beer is better than the median alcoholic coffee porter. https://athleticbrewing.com/products/first-ride-coffee-porte...

Their IPAs aren't as good as say, Founder's All Day IPA, but they aren't substantially worse, and they have 1/10th the alcohol.

If you want to drink something for 100 calories, these compare favorably in taste to just about everything, IMO.

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

#340

Post by amusedcyclist »

xdennis wrote: post #161
ben_w wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re clearly using the word in the moral sense rather than the legal sense.

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.

A 'squeamishness' that comes from the reality that we don't need to kill animals to live comfortably anymore. The morality of a rich society is naturally different from the morality of poor country.
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