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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

#141

Post by ben_w »

danans wrote: post #71
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…

Rügenwalder Mühle 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 Rügenwalder Mühle in the US, but it seems like they don't export. https://www.ruegenwalder.de/vegetarische-und-vegane-produkte

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.

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

#142

Post by steviedotboston »

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 bet a huge percentage of vegan cheese sales are first time customers giving it a try. That will drop off real fast.

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

#143

Post by phonypc »

adeelk93 wrote: post #120
underseacables wrote: post #100

I’ve always found it interesting that vegan “cheese” is still considered cheese. Should it be cheese-food? or imitation cheese?

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

There's no real debate about those products. They're not cheese and can't be labeled as such.

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

#144

Post by danans »

ben_w wrote: post #141
danans wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rügenwalder Mühle 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 Rügenwalder Mühle in the US, but it seems like they don't export. https://www.ruegenwalder.de/vegetarische-und-vegane-produkte

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.

Quorn doesn't make cheese as far as I've seen though.

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

#145

Post by swiley »

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.

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

#146

Post by chevill »

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 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.

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

#147

Post by DogOnTheWeb »

underseacables wrote: post #100

I’ve always found it interesting that vegan “cheese” is still considered cheese. Should it be cheese-food? or imitation cheese?

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.

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

#148

Post by vnorilo »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #119
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…

>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).

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.

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

#149

Post by ben_w »

xdennis wrote: post #137
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.

> murder Please show me the law.

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

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

#150

Post by fooblat »

rusk wrote: post #117
fooblat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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=588638a6-879c...

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