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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

#361
If you want to make vegan cheese that actually tastes like cheese, the best approach is going to be to use something like Perfect Day's milk, which synthesizes milk proteins using some sort of genetic engineering or other. This could, in the long-term, enable better cheese production than present techniques, since cheesemakers have greater control over the chemical composition of their dairy.

That said, I think there's potential for plant-based cheese-like products to be delicious in their own right, without trying to perfectly mimic existing cheese products. I don't think the techniques are there yet, but that's to be expected, conventional cheesemaking has been honed by millennia of experience.

As an appreciator of fine cheeses, I'm excited to try the delicious creations of food scientists working with cheese cultures and plant-derived materials. Unfortunately, the vegan cheeses on supermarket shelves are not aiming at the fine cheese market, and instead trying to compete with dirt-cheap sliced/shredded cheese, and that's not what interests me.

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

#362
post #208
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

I’d bet that anyone decrying imitation meat - or, at least, anyone who generally likes real meat decrying imitation meat - hasn’t had good imitation meat.

If you’ve never tried an Impossible burger, it’s an order of magnitude better than anything that came before. It’s a good burger. It does taste and feel like meat. It doesn’t taste like something that’s trying to be something it’s not.

Quorn I’d also put in the “doesn’t taste like something that’s trying to be something it’s not” category. It’s been around for a long time, but has been curiously unsuccessful in the US. Amazon Fresh sells it. The ground variety makes a good chili. The nuggets are a reasonable facsimile of white meat chicken nuggets.

Quorn’s no Impossible burger though. What Impossible has accomplished really is astounding.

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

#363
post #253
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

"Not that much left to choose from then."

If you are happy with non alcoholic beer, stay with that, but have you heard of - Tea?

There are lots and lots of different tea's around, as you can make tea out of allmost anything. So plenty of caffeine-free choices there.

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

#364
My spouse and I cut out dairy and meat products due to health reasons. We are vegan now. Our bad cholesterol dropped over 35% and saved one of us from having to go on heart medication. We were already health conscious millennials but genetics are always pushing their own agenda. We gotten used to good vegan cheeses not Daiya and the previous gen of dairy alternatives. It helps to live in a major metro.

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

#365
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 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…

I suggest looking up the process for making mozzarella at home. Then then process for making tofu at home. Your instructor was accurate on more than a purely nutritional level.

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

#366
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 substantiall…

Seconded. Just finished one less than half an hour ago, in fact, because I'm abstaining for a bit after my second Pfizer shot (apparently alcohol is not ideal for the process). Sometimes low-calorie and/or no-alcohol are desirable traits. When I can I'll still go for a Southern Tier or Allagash product, but Athletic makes some thoroughly decent drinkable beers for a different set of occasions.

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

#367
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 "chee…

I was vegetarian for a while, and stopped because it turned out I wasn't willing to go without meat. Had really good meat substitutes existed at the time, things might very well have panned out differently, and I'd still be a vegetarian to this day.

Lots of people try and fail to become vegetarians because they don't find the substitutes acceptable. If you consider it a purely personal issue it probably doesn't matter, but if you're interested in lowering global animal product consumption, then I think ideological purity is the more morally questionable position than trying to develop a product that can convince the world to take up veganism.

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

#368
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I suggest looking up the process for making mozzarella at home. Then then process for making tofu at home. Your instructor was accurate on more than a purely nutritional level.

Is there a tofu equivalent of something like parmesan or brie? I can see how tofu relates to mozzarella or ricotta and I've reached that conclusion myself before, but there is a wide variety of cheeses.

Apparently vegan-cheese varieties of those exist, but I'm curious if anyone took tofu there.

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

#369
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 agree, vegan and vegetarian food is always best when it's not trying to impersonate other food. The best you can hope for is "yeah I can eat this".

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

#370
post #81
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…

Well if anyplace is going to have a decent vegi-burger it will have to be The Vortex.

I love that place. From the decor, to their f* you set of rules, to their food.

Great place. Makes me miss ATl :(

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