Really, the disqualification is probably better publicity than winning the award itself. If someone told me some vegan cheese won a “Good Food” award, I would assume it was related to eco- and social-consciousness. Learning that it was so delicious that the dairy industry schemed to take away the award tells me they’re afraid of the competition.
When Seiko beat the Swiss at their own mechanical watch accuracy competitions, they decided to cancel the long running prestigious competition entirely instead of make a better watch.
Capitalism breeds innovation!
Same with Japanese Scotch whiskeys absolutely running the table on ones from Scotland in competitions.
That’s partly because “Scotch” is a protected label. You can only call a Whisky Scotch if it was distilled with a certain technique, from certain grains, by certain companies, and matured in certain casks for a certain amount of time. All of it is regulated.
Japanese whisky doesn’t have these limitations. They can just do whatever makes it taste good.
If it doesn’t come from loch ness it’s just sparkling whisky
Scotch whisky must be made in Scotland. Similar story with bourbon, bourbon must be made in the United States. In many places you can follow the same recipes and processes as those products, but you may not label them with those terms.
Yes, but being made in Scotland isn’t enough to call your whisky Scotch. There’s a whole rulebook.
Yes, and being distilled and aged in Scotland are both rules in that rule book. Again, same for bourbon, not all American whiskies are eligible to be labeled as bourbon.
I’m an American, and we just don’t really buy into the whole “you must be from this region to be called this item”. All sparkling wine is champagne, all peaty whiskey is scotch, and all rice liqur is sake.
You can make whiskey, though. According to the EU, if you have a product distilled from grain mash and stored, at full undiluted strength, in wood casks for at least three years, you can call it whiskey. You can produce a Single Malt Whiskey, or a Rye Whiskey, anywhere you want and in fact some German Korn would qualify as whiskey as it’s aged long enough.
Side note: Whisky wasn’t always aged. Originally it pretty much resembled Korn (though German noses have some rather strict standards when it comes to fusel alcohols that Whisky and Vodka producers don’t tend to have), then the UK prohibition came along and distillers had no choice but to let the stuff age in its casks while they fought the legislation, then they were allowed to sell the aged stuff, aged much longer than was previously common, and the rest is history.
The Japanese distilleries are following all the rules. They are just doing it in Japan and better.
Oh she’s sweet but she’s Seiko, a little bit Seiko
Misread as Sekiro, was confused about sword fighting and watches, but interested.
To be fair, a crystal clock is just going to be more accurate than a movement based watch. Even the biggest watch fanboys admit that a $30
SeikoCasio outperforms the majority of mechanicals on raw accuracy.Seiko makes mechanical watches that cost under $100 and are just as precise and long-lasting as a Swiss watch.
You’re probably thinking of Casio.Ahhhhh you’re right I mixed them up :/
So… The existing market leader chose to flip the table instead of admitting that their position was weaker and lower value.
Yep, that sure sounds like the pursuit of capital instead of… innovation, quality, or any of the other attributes capitalism attempts to associate itself with.
The Neuchâtel Observatory is a publicly funded institution that certifies movements with high accuracy as chronometers. Not a private body, or a marketing tool used by a watchmaker. The same ‘competition’ is done by other observatories, all giving their own rating of a timepiece’s accuracy against a reference chronometer kept at the observatory.
A quick search could have brought you that information_ Quartz movements beat the pants off mechanical movements, and they’re far cheaper to make, allowing the non-rich to have a decent watch with good battery life and serious accuracy. Cheap and normal mechanical watches regularly drift and lose a few seconds time over days and weeks - quartz drifts between 1-110 seconds over a year.
They aren’t talking about quartz watches though. Seiko makes mechanical watches that were being compared to swiss mechanical watches costing way more.
So funnily enough, the very first movement they submitted to the contest in 1963 was a quartz, and it placed tenth overall. They went with mechanical movements for subsequent competitions, and didn’t actually start placing high again until 1966 when they placed ninth overall. In ‘67 they did even better, placing fourth, but then the contest was canceled for good the next year.
Indeed, and while they might have been initially furious at the snub, this is going to wind up being VERY good for business. Now they have an incredible story to tell, complete with mystery and intrigue that consumers love. Their marketing department must be salivating right now.
Right, first thing I thought when I read this is “where can I get some of that ‘cheese’”
Yeah, well, you can’t. It’s only available to restaurants, and isn’t ready for retail. That’s one of the stupid reasons they can’t have their stupid award. Stupid sexy cheesish.
The username, the grumpy desire for vegan cheese. Perfect.
I could have never known this award even existed if not for this news. I don’t care at all for cheese and now I’m curious to try it.
Same
A Midwesterner that doesn’t care for cheese? Doubt.
You’re right, but it’s understandable why the dairy industry shat themselves. They fucked up by allowing things to be named “oat milk” or “whatever milk”, so they damn sure aren’t going to let their “cheese” territory get encroached on.
The problem with restricting the use of the term “milk” is that people have been using the term “milk” to describe non-dairy liquids for longer than there have been trademarks. The word hasn’t ever been used exclusively to describe dairy.
Here’s a dictionary entry for “milk” from 1755:
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/1755/milk_ns
Note that it includes almond and pistachio milks.
Milk of the poppy.
Milk of Magnesia
“Our cheese is so good they had to disqualify us” would be my new slogan so fast.
Wasnt that what they did with monty python’s holy grial when it was banned in norway*?
I’m closer to a carnivore than a vegan, but if something is good, it’s good. I’m not going to hate on something delicious because I feel threatened by someone else’s life choices.
Don’t worry, farmers; if I start eating vegan cheese I promise I’ll make up for it in beef consumption.
A lot of vegan “alternatives” are actually really good when you know what you’re doing with them. I will take tofu or mushrooms over meat any day tbh. Problem is some people don’t know that and will just prepare tofu like it’s meat, and then wonder why their tofu tastes like shit.
I tried tofu multiple times in different meals as a alternative for meat, but sadly all were disappointing. Do you have recipes that you can recommend? I am eager to find one.
Stir fry
A lot of times I think the problem is trying to substitute the protein in a dish with tofu or something vegan. It’s always going to be compared to the meat version. Should just try to find recipes that were tofu based to begin with, like mapo tofu.
I love meat, but some do the best dishes my partner and I have ever made are vegan, and fried tofu is a staple.
We have friends who are vegan or have very strange allergies and have to cook for a mixed crowd
Banger meals, seriously
I tried different recipes, but most of them were underwhelming, like the meal would be kinda the same without.
Stir fry how? Which type of tofu, pressed? And probably dipped in cornstarch?
Tofu doesn’t really bring taste, just texture so that’s kinda to be expected. That’s why I typically get firm or extra firm. I like those textures over softer ones.
I’m not sure what you mean by pressed as all tofu is pressed. That’s how tofu is made. I’ve never tried dipping it in cornstarch so IDK how that would turn out. I don’t typically do anything other than cut it up and cook it.
As for how to stir fry; I suggest looking that up. You mostly just use whatever veg and protein you want and add some stir fry sauce at the end. I haven’t really found one I prefer. I don’t do stir fry all that often. I really should since it’s super simple.
Extra firm+fried in oil has never NOT been a hit for me! Generally sesame or strangely peanut butter has killed it among my non-veg friends, trying to make a dish for both non-veg and vegan friends.
“Pressed” tofu usually refers to firm or extra firm tofu that is then put under much higher pressure to expel not only more water but also most of the air, and has a completely different texture.
Usually using something like this
Im both a meat eater and tofu lover. Mapo tofu is probably one of my favorite dishes.
This is the recipe I sort of follow https://thewoksoflife.com/ma-po-tofu-real-deal/
They’re not mutually exclusive. For those too lazy to follow the link - traditional mapo tofu (like many Chinese tofu recipes) isn’t vegetarian . Tofu as a total replacement for meat is a Western idea - in most Eastern cultures that use it, tofu is just another ingredient and often used along with meat and animal based broths. The same is true of soy milk.
That’s a really dumb argument. Sorry but literally every food is really good when you know what you are doing with it.
It is not even a question of quality… some of the tastiest food is terrible quality used with great effect.
That doesn’t even take into account personal preference, which is majorly just familiarity.
The awards world is filled with awards that would never be given if there wasnt a story to go with it. This vegan cheese is an example of this as well.
Problem is some people don’t know that and will just prepare tofu like it’s meat, and then wonder why their tofu tastes like shit.
You arent even wrong about this, but you could say the exact same thing about damned near anything that has more than a single opinion on.
Like literally exchange in what i quoted tofu to a burger patty and instead of “like its meat” change it to some aspect of the experience. Whether its what temperature to cook it or how thin or thick it is.
Same exact argument based on different peoples familiarity. Many people dont have just dont care that much and also some people are really bad at cooking.
To sum up my point, you are making a statement that is so broad it is useless
Would you consider reducing according to carbon footprint?
I live mostly on beer, so I’m doing my part.
Might want to switch to other animals, beef is questionable ATM.
Has it been confirmed that Bird Flu is transferable via beef? Legit question, I just haven’t seen any news about that recently.
Imagine the crisis that a public health bulletin stating “red meat should be cooked thoroughly” would cause. Heh heh heh
“Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness" has been the standard disclaimer since 2016, but nobody’s thrown a fit, even though there’s a big difference between a rare steak and rare burger (the interior of the ground beef has been exposed, the interior of the steak has not).
Remnants of bird flu have been found in bovine milk and recently sampled in 20% of milk in grocery stores. So far, it’s been determined to just be “genetic material” - not live or infectious. Milk is pasteurized in the US so it’s reasonably safe to keep drinking. I don’t believe this would impact beef consumption, certainly not cooked beef.
Beth Mole at Ars Technica has been covering it https://arstechnica.com/author/beth/
The CDC is reporting at least one dairy worker has been infected https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0401-avian-flu.htmlI haven’t heard anything about it, only that it’s been detected in milk and pasteurization kills it. Cooking should kill it if it’s in meat anyway. At least to medium, preferably to full doneness.
I don’t think it’s been confirmed. Here’s your chance to be #1.
Patient zero.
I think only prions can spread through meat
Edit: I’m obviously wrong, salmonella exists. Also a quick Google search says viruses can also be transferred through meat
All of my beef is in my freezer from a local farmer about two months ago. Hopefully it’s clear.
yolo
Same. I had some green Thai curry “duck” at a vegan restaurant once and it was the bomb!
I mean if you put Thai curry on anything, it’s going to taste awesome. Panang for life.
Panang gang, rise up!!
I’m also a meat eater but Impossible burgers hold a special place in my heart. If I’m craving a whopper I’ll always go for the Impossible whopper instead - it’s just so much more satisfying.
Similarly, the meat quality at my local Chinese spots is questionable so I always get tofu instead.
I’m down to only eating meat half of days, and only for dinner, vs eating meat with every meal every day. My wallet and waistline have thanked me.
from personal experience, veggie burgers make excellent topping-condiments to regular burgers
they have all the flavors a burger wants
I like this suggestion. Plus it still ultimately reduces beef consumption because maybe I only eat one of these doubles instead of two burgers.
Damn, who would have thought liking good food would be so controversial xD
Every time I eat vegan cheese my mouth says this ain’t quite right. But the taste is usually fine.
I think attitudes like this are borderline psychopathic and I bet you’ve never rendered an animal in your entire life.
Notwithstanding the fact that the comment was obviously made in jest, why would it matter whether a consumer had anything to do with the preparation of the food? I don’t think anyone is genuinely ignorant of where meat comes from.
and I bet you’ve never rendered
Red flag. No native English speaker talks like this.
I was born in Boston you shitheel.
Ah that’s fair. Never heard anyone use terms like that. Chop the mofos, smash the mofos, grind the mofos, etc.
“I’m so fun at parties people can’t even handle me”
Let me see if I get this right: they get disqualified for containing an ingredient that hasn’t been certified as edible (kokum butter) and is usually used in cosmetics, and there is no evidence of Big Cheese being the reason for the disqualification, other than the owner of the company saying it.
But it is still Big Cheese’ fault?
It’s even worse than that. The makers aren’t even sure what was in their product to begin with.
Zahn says the kokum butter shouldn’t be an issue anyway: The company has since replaced it with cocoa butter, which does have GRAS certification. Initially, he told the Post the cocoa butter version was what he submitted for the awards, but after this story was published he said he determined that it was in fact the kokum butter version. (According to Weiner, Climax submitted an ingredient list that included kokum.)
So it might have been labeled with having kokum butter, it might not. Who knows? Seems to depends what answer is needed at the time.
Also,
Climax, it turns out, wasn’t just a finalist — it was set to win the award, a fact that all parties are asked to keep confidential until the official ceremony in Portland, Ore., but was revealed in an email the foundation sent to Climax in January.
If I’m reading this correctly, out of all the contestants, only they knew they won. Makes it a further stretch that it was a dairy company that “out” them as they wouldn’t have known that the vegan cheese won.
My guess for the change about GRAS was it most likely was assumed everyone would only submit GRAS items, and since someone broke that non-spoken rule then they had to make it a clarified rule. It is something you’d just assume everyone made sure their food was most or less FDA approved (which is a logical assumption).
The Washington Post article is much clearer about this whole issue (which is linked to in this badly written Boingbonk article.)
Gift link for access: https://wapo.st/3xQCcYX
According to WebMD and the millions of people that eat kokum butter, it’s safe.
People used to use makeup with arsenic in it. I dont trust democracy on this one.
WebMD isn’t the FDA, neither are the millions who eat it.
Only the FDA can say if something is GRAS or not. No one else matters in this context. And this contest wants to follow the FDA guidelines.
Kokum butter is edible and occasionally used to make chocolates and other confections.
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None of them care about that. They only care about arguing against vegan foods.
Here are more details (and more context is in the article):
"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).
The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.
“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php
There are innumerable horror stories from cottage vendors bumping up against the money and strict gatekeeping of the nationally established conglomerates. This was in the US, but I know Canada also has, new, laws on the books to specifically prevent plant based cheeses from referring to their product as “cheese,” despite being the exact same process and a final product that you wouldn’t know side by side to the dairy version.
I’m not a vegan, but this is the just same ole regulatory capture bullshit that we’re seeing w ev cars, good imported rum, net neutrality and everything else
It was disqualified for having an ingredient that was not GRAS(generally regarded as safe). Even GRAS is a pretty low bar for food safety.
Huh, turns out asbestos is actually delicious too
I mean, asbestos is dangerous if broken down and inhaled, so as long as you just eat it and you don’t choke on it…
Ground chests are also probably not okay to inhale, but here we are eating them whole. Why not dip some of that 'bestos in guac? Should solve all issues tbh.
Here are more details (and more context is in the article):
"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).
The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.
“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php
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Not true. It’s considered safe by WebMD, and it’s been studied as a food for a long time. It is chemically similar to cocoa butter.
So it’s been approved by more reputable organizations than the FDA.
Web MD is crap. Also GRAS is a term that only the FDA can bestow. So yeah it’s not GRAS.
Holy shit, there’s a decent vegan cheese? I like my meat but I understand that the current status quo isn’t sustainable, and cheese is the number two thing the vegan industry has been struggling with making a good substitute for (number one being bacon.)
Yeah but it’s blue cheese
The best kind next to feta
I love you.
Blue cheese is a bit strong for most people, I can respect that, I’m one of those people. The trick is knowing what to pair with blue cheese to help balance it out a bit.
You want my recommendation for how to enjoy some store-bought blue cheese? Try it on a burger, with some sliced avocado instead of lettuce. The meat and the dense fruit balance out the blue beautifully, you get all the nice taste of a blue cheese without feeling like your mouth got nuked from orbit by smelly cheese.
I also hate avocado.
Avocado’s a silly thing to try to sell blue cheese to a blue cheese hater with anyway, it’s almost completely flavorless. What you want is a bright, tart fruit, like a strawberry or an apricot. The sugar and tang of the fruit kind of countersthe funkiness and complements the creaminess of the cheese. Could be fresh fruit or in a jam/compote or whatever. Throw that shit on a cracker and enjoy the ride! Or continue to hate it, lol, that’s also acceptable.
Or a fig! Figs are great with any flavourful cheese!
A slice of pear might work. Or even apple but you’d have to fry it first
I don’t hate it, I just don’t get it. It just tastes like plant.
It being strong is not the only reason it is disliked. Usually its the taste that people dont like
Win win
Yeah. I’m a vegetarian and the only things preventing me from being full vegan are cheese and ice cream. Once I can tackle those addictions, I’ll be very happy going full vegan.
I get the cheese argument, but the dairy-free ice cream these days is wild. Oatly, and a few others have some incredible offerings.
It’s been a few years since I tried any. Thanks for the suggestion!
The vegan market is thriving atm, go try!
Oh boy have I got an ice cream for you. wicked kitchen
That looks good! Thanks!
I just wish the US government would shift subsidies from meat and dairy to alternatives. The modern stuff is very good, it just costs like twice as much! Last time I went grocery shopping, the oat milk was almost the same price as the cow milk, so I bought two gallons, because it also keeps much longer than cow milk.
Yeah something about the economics doesn’t make sense, especially comparing the price of, say, dry beans, to a box of plant-based burger patties.
I’ve had vegan ice cream before that was so much better than any ice cream I’ve had before but I don’t remember which brand it was and I’m so mad about it. It had this really nice chewy bouncy texture. So good vegan ice cream exists. Now if only I can find it again.
My local store had five different brands of mint chip vegan ice cream. I’ve still only tried two and I think they’re great.
Have I got a book for you - Artisan Vegan Cheese
Holy shit, there’s a decent vegan cheese?
Yeah, try the Follow Your Heart brand. I think the name is pretty cheesy (pun intended) and it usually costs more than common brands like Daiya, but it tastes significantly better and melts more like actual cheese.
If you skip the mass produced stuff, there are plenty of great naturally fermented plant-based cheeses. But in my experience it always feels like something is missing, which probably has to do with dairy’s addictiveness. How do you compete with drugs?
Better drugs. We need to start putting crack in the vegan cheese it’ll still be plant based after all.
Cr…cregan?
psilocybe-infused artisinal almond cheese. 🧑🍳🤌
Shredded cheese substitutes aren’t bad, especially if you plan on just melting it anyway. I’m not sure i would be willing to use vegan cheese on a cheese and cracker plate, but plenty of the stuff out there is suitable for melting on top of a sandwich, or in potatoes.
The dairy and meat lobbies are something else. It’s like smoking in the fifties.
It’s well established that there are serious health concerns when you consume animal produce (not to mention environmental and animal welfare ones), yet the industry keeps pushing back on plant-based alternatives.
I’ve heard of potential health issues from red meat consumption, but all animal products? That’s a first for me. Do you have any sources to share on this?
Technically it can’t be all animal products, since honey is about 98% sugar, and despite the hate campaign currently hitting carbs, sugar is not quite as harmful (in and of itself) as it’s made out to be.
But if we’re referring to all animal products in the sense of meat, dairy, and eggs - those three foods have nutritional properties that are all very similar and they do have some overlap in terms of health issues.
The biggest thing they have in common is being a package deal with high amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol. Heart disease is generally the industrialized world’s number one killer, and all three animal foods initiate the onset and progress the state of heart disease.
Then there are issues that are less settled, like to what degree do these foods cause various cancers?
And then this one is even more in need of further study, but there might be a link between these foods and autoimmune disorders.
https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/meat-bad-you-and-environment
https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/processed-meat
https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/health-concerns-about-dairy
https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/health-concerns-with-eggs
I’m aware that there’s evidence of saturated fats having undesirable effects on your health. But plenty of meats are low in saturated fats (e.g. skinless chicken breast, or fish).
Relatively low if you compare it only to other meats or animal products. So while you can choose animal products that might progress these chronic metabolic diseases slower, you are still advancing them. But there are lots of factors that complicate things. For example the health impacts of animal products also depend on how you cook them, and what you eat them with. Cured meats are unanimously considered one of the worst things you can consume, right up there with smoking. Steamed fish would probably be about the least harmful (except that fish have some of the highest levels of bioaccumulated toxins and heavy metals). Actually, bugs are likely the least harmful, for those who are comfortable with that. Eating a source of fiber mitigates some of the harm from animal products as shown in this video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C08mqjMuwyY
Further complicating things is that single nutrients often behave differently depending on context. For example antioxidants other than some of the essential vitamins have never been shown to produce their purported effects outside of laboratory conditions, and some supplemented sources of antioxidants have even been shown to be a little harmful. But when we test the whole foods that contain those antioxidants, we get data like how increasing leafy green consumption has been correlated with a longer life expectancy.
And it’s similar for saturated fats and animal products. In the most established science on the matter you’ll see they don’t just talk about saturated fat alone - the science appears to show a relationship between the ratio of saturated and unsaturated fats consumed, particularly polyunsaturated fats. This book describes that science quite well-
https://www.redpenreviews.org/reviews/eat-drink-and-be-healthy/
But going back to that nutrients vs whole foods, there might be more than just the fats at play. This piece by Colin Campbell is a bit of a manifesto against nutritional reductionism, and suggests that the animal proteins themselves might play more of a role than we had thought:
https://nutritionstudies.org/is-saturated-fat-really-that-bad/
When you put whole diets to the test, what starts to become most consistent is how the most whole-plant-dominant diets by far achieve the most remarkable results. It’s apparent in the Adventist Health Studies, the Esselstyn Heart Disease Reversal diet, as well as Dean Ornishes full lifestyle intervention program. The latter two claim they can reverse heart disease, which is a controversial claim. More study is needed to prove whether that’s true or false, but regardless it’s still apparent that these fully plant-based dietary interventions do more than any others to restore people to good health.
And it’s a thing where science and personal experience match. If you check out the online whole-food plant-based support communities, you see people routinely report almost miraculous changes to their health and wellbeing in a matter of weeks or even days. It’s the kind of thing that once you experience it fully enough, you don’t want to go back.
https://adventisthealthstudy.org/studies/AHS-2/findings-lifestyle-diet-disease
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/departments/wellness/integrative/esselstyn-program
Try watching the documentary “You are what you eat” on Netflix, it’s a good intro that covers the health risks of other animal products as well.
I don’t get much time to watch videos these days so I’m not going through the Netflix series. Though it looks like it’s based off this paper, and that I can look through.
They studied 22 pairs of twins, intervened by changing their diets so that one gets a vegan diet and the other an omnivore diet, then measured a bunch of stuff via blood and stool samples. I don’t see mention of how they correct for multiple hypotheses, but I’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt here.
They found statistical significance in two places
- LDL-C: Participants all start out in a healthy range, and they stay in a healthy range. So while the vegans improved on this measure, it also tells us that omnivores are perfectly healthy as well.
- Fasting insulin levels: Same as LDL-C. Start off healthy, ended up healthy. We see the vegans having lower fasting insulin, but we don’t know if that’s a good thing or not when they’re already starting at 12.7 μIU/mL.
So basically, the conclusion from the paper is that vegan and omnivore diets are both perfectly healthy, but you might gain slight benefits from going vegan.
Thanks for looking that up. I’m no dietician or medical expert myself, so I have to go by the more easily digestible media. That does run the risk of being more sensationalised.
One thing I did take away from the Netflix series was that both the omnivore diet and vegan one were designed to be well-balanced. Everything in moderation works well, I suppose.
Vegan blue cheese
So just the mold without the dairy? 🤔
The article suggests it’s bacteria creating the milk from plants rather than cows and then normal cheese past that
However the article also says the dairy industry wasn’t the one complaining about it
“The plant constituents of that product, a vegan blue cheese, are hardly exotic. The top four ingredients are pumpkin seeds, coconut oil, lima beans, and hemp protein powder. And yet Dominique Crenn, a Michelin-starred chef, described it as “soft, buttery, and surprisingly rich—beyond imagination for a vegan cheese.””
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I’m surprised, I’ve had all sorts of vegan cheeses and they all taste like murder
I’ve had a few good vegan cheeses. Not all of it is 1 to 1 with the real deal, but a lot ends up being good in its own way. Just wish it wasn’t so damn expensive. Hopefully that changes over time. Lactose doesn’t agree with me so the more (affordable) non-dairy options there are, the happier I am.
This is blue cheese, so that tracks
The point of vegan cheese is that they most certainly do not taste like murder. 😁
Genuine question: how would cheese be considered “murder” in this sense (unless you’re just going along with the original comment), I guess another way to weird it would be how is cheese bad, according to veganism and vegetarianism?
As far as the murder part goes, dairy cows are mostly all killed very quickly after they stop producing milk. They are almost never allowed to live out their full lives. Especially, none of the cows in the larger dairy industry. The calves produced in the process are also just raised to be slaughtered. Besides the murder, The act of farming dairy products is also just cruel and inhumane in practice.
To produce milk, cows have to be kept in a pretty much constant state of pregnancy. Once the calves are born, they are immediately taken from the mother, and it is known that cows have maternal instincts that makes this painful for them. They have to be taken away, because otherwise they will drink the milk we are trying to steal from the process. Then the calf’s are raised in isolation for the first few months of their life on a milk substitute.
That is the bare minimum amount of cruelty needed to produce milk. Obviously, our modern capitalist driven dairy industry ramps up the cruelty in many other ways to increase productivity and efficiency.
Add to the fact that the dairy industry feeds into the veal industry.
In addition to the above, there’s also the use of animal rennet made from calf stomach linings
Because you can’t get consent from the animal you’re milking.
Cheese isn’t bad in vegetarianism only veganism. One says “I won’t eat animals” the other is “I won’t eat anything made by animals or the animals themelves.”
Technically some cheeses, like Parmesan, are not vegan due to the rennet, as that requires a calves stomach (removed from the calf)
thats like saying that the point of buying non nestle water is so that it doesnt taste like nestle water. (yes they all taste a little different, i mostly attribute that to secondary factors though)
Also you can make cheese without murdering cows im pretty sure?
also weird off topic question, im curious about this. But would consuming breast milk as a child be considered non vegan? I realize at this point it doesn’t really matter since you have no autonomy as a person, but i’m curious about the ethics in application to humans.
You technically could make cheese without murdering a cow but you won’t find any made that way. Cows only produce milk for their young. To make milk they need to be repeatedly impregnated over and over again. Lifespan of a cow can be 20 years, though they are usually killed after about 5 as their milk output drops. Half of the cows they give birth to will be male and almost all killed as they don’t produce milk. Some of the females may be killed too as you’ll end up with more cows than you have room for it you keep them all.
As for a human child, drinking human breast milk is considered vegan as long as it was given consensually. If you kidnap someone and tie them up in your basement then it wouldn’t be.
sounds about like what i expect from industrialized farming to me.
A baby human consuming their mother’s breast milk is vegan, because the mother is consenting to it. A cow cannot consent to being forcibly, artificially impregnated for the sake of producing milk. They don’t consent to having their horns chopped off. Nor do they consent to their children being stolen from them almost immediately after birth to be butchered for veal.
Yes plant-based cheeses are intended to mimic animal cheeses. But that doesn’t mean they have to be identical. Guilt puts a tint on the things we experience, and the way we feel can be considered a dimension of flavor. I would imagine a lot of people would argue they don’t feel guilty about consuming animals or their secretions, but that’s only because they’ve never experienced any time without that guilt. If you’re used to feeling a certain way every day, you start to forget about the feeling all together, even though it’s still effecting you in the background.
The idea with plant-based alternatives is to have all of the good properties of their animal-counterparts, and none of the bad. Cheese that’s free of the shame and guilt of causing unnecessary harm and suffering to thinking, feeling, sentient beings inherently tastes better.
A baby human consuming their mother’s breast milk is vegan, because the mother is consenting to it. A cow cannot consent to being forcibly, artificially impregnated for the sake of producing milk. They don’t consent to having their horns chopped off. Nor do they consent to their children being stolen from them almost immediately after birth to be butchered for veal.
i suppose that makes sense, so hypothetically if we solved all of those problems, it would be vegan? That sounds about right to me. And if it’s consent based, then what if the mother is forced to bear a child for example, surely that would no longer be vegan?
Yes plant-based cheeses are intended to mimic animal cheeses. But that doesn’t mean they have to be identical.
Yeah, but then you should probably not name it, or base it directly off of an existing cheese, in which case, fine by me. Don’t pull up with some shit that is explicitly not “blue cheese” and then call it “blue cheese” though. That’s just lying.
The idea with plant-based alternatives is to have all of the good properties of their animal-counterparts, and none of the bad. Cheese that’s free of the shame and guilt of causing unnecessary harm and suffering to thinking, feeling, sentient beings inherently tastes better.
i mean, i guess so, but then at that point we start getting into philosophy and nihilistic shit starts to crop up. But any improvement is a potential improvement i suppose. It’s incredibly hard, if not impossible, to live a truly “net zero” lifestyle. Even monks don’t do it, and they don’t do shit.
Only replying to your last point, and on that I only have to say that perfection is the enemy of greatness. The vegan philosophy is about doing the best we can, within practical limits. I can’t stop myself from breathing or my mere existence causing harm to beings I can’t even see, but doing more feasible actions like abstaining from animal consumption and electing not to purchase or use other animal products has substantial benefits that are felt.
yeah that’s fair enough. But then again it is called veganism for a reason. I suppose i would probably rather it be called something more broad, if it’s actually less about the actual consumption, and more about the morals and technicalities of how things work.
I do think the name itself is problematic. To anyone unfamiliar to the ideas, the word hints at something to do with vegetables, and yes that currently plays a role, but it’s not the point. It’s more of an animal rights milieu, and plants are only relevant at this point in time because it’s the least harmful way humans can sustain themselves for now. But that ignores that animal rights go far beyond diet, and that fact tends to get lost during any outreach since all most people are thinking about is the foods they dread to give up.
Crows are friends not food!
What the hell kind of cheese are you eating?
Parmesan and some other varieties of cheese involve rennet, which is sometimes* made from the stomach lining of young cows.
I was actually just teasing him about a typo that makes it sound like he’s eating bird cheese.
fight cheese 💪🏼 🐦⬛ 💪🏼 the first alcoholic, dairy-based protein cheese for bodyguards by bodyguards 💥🐄
Many have gotten super good in the last few years. I’ve had some people who are very hard to get to admit to liking anything vegan ask what brand and where to buy it after they tasted it. Everything from blue cheese and brie to feta, smoked cheddar, parmesan and mozzarella. There are also many really good, both simple and more complicated recipes online to make your own of basically any kind.
Anyone got the actual link to buy this cheese?
While we’re at it, I need recommendations for decent Mozzarella, Parmesan, and Asiago with a melting point below 300F.
I make a lot of Focaccia stuffed with cheese and jalapenos, as well as pizza, but it would be nice to be able to serve a guilt free option to my more discerning guests.
Parmesan - Follow your heart (https://followyourheart.com/products/dairy-free-parmesan-shredded) It does take a bit but low and slow works for us.
Mozzarella (Try it before you dismiss it, I know its a WTF moment) - https://www.miyokos.com/products/pourable-plant-milk-mozzarella I kid you not the promo images of the pizza is actually how it ends up, melts great and blends well. I actually use it in my eggs and my Wife’s “JUST egg” as I cook them and it ends up being amazing.
Sorry I don’t have an Asiago for you. If you ever find one please let me know.
If you don’t mind a little extra effort, Miyoko Schinner (founder if that “Miyoko’s Creamery” brand) also has a book out - Artisan Vegan Cheese with an excellent meltable (not pourable) soy/cashew yogurt based mozzarella recipe.
Ohh that sounds great! Thanks for the heads up!
No problem. Depending on your time/money balance, the recipes should work just as well starting with a commercial soy or almond plain yogurt base. I’d avoid coconut milk based yogurts, since the coconut flavor tends to carry through to the yogurt and presumably to the cheese as well.
Miyokos is legit. My local grocery store just started carrying them, and I use their vegan butter in creamy pasta dishes
Since it was actually disqualified for being made from an ingredient that’s not approved for human consumption by the FDA you might not want to buy it.
It was disqualified before the announcement was made. Dairy farmers didn’t even know it was going to win.
That’s not true. There’s no reason to believe kokum requires GRAS affirmation since it’s been historically and widely consumed on the Indian subcontinent. That means it’s grandfathered in as GRAS by default even if it’s not included in their lists.
The FDA not yet giving it GRAS affirmation is not the same as it not being approved for human consumption. Specifically, the FDA did not raise any concerns to a GRAS notice that it has already received for kokum butter as a cocoa butter substitute.
A substance used in food prior to January 1, 1958, may be generally recognized as safe through experience based on its common use in food when that use occurred exclusively or primarily outside of the United States if the information about the experience establishes that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use within the meaning of section 201(u) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
A quick search: https://climax.bio/ and https://climax.bio/findus/
Really limited information on the actual products. Zero ingredients information too.
Looks like you gotta go to a restaurant to taste it. Meh. I just want some bean tacos when I’m back from work that have cheese in them.
🤨📷
It’s not available yet, but here’s their home page.
Big Milk will not accept any threat to their cash cow! This is outrages!
Aren’t they dairy cows?
I just wanna try this cheese.
I dunno, I think I’m on the side of “it might taste great but if it’s vegan it doesn’t meet the definition of cheese.”
So I don’t necessarily agree in general, it depends on how you define milk… If you curdle a liquid and it becomes cheese like, it’s probably cheese? Unless milk can only come from mammals/animals.
I would, in fact, definite milk as only coming from a mammal. Coconut milk or soy milk or nut milk or whatever else may superficially resemble milk but they’re pretty fundamentally not the same sort of substance as milk.
There are texts going back to the 8th century talking about almond milk. That ship sailed before Columbus.
Just because it’s called the same, doesn’t mean it generally is. In Germany we have something called “Scheuermilch”, which literally translates into “abrasion milk”. The only property it shares with milk or even plant-milk is its colour. It’s a cleaning product. You could of course define milk more broadly as “white liquid”…
Fun fact on the side: almond milk & co. are not allowed to be called milk on the packaging in germany. They’re usually called something along the lines of “almond drink”. Reason being because it might confuse the buyer. Scheuermilch is still allowed to be called Scheuermilch though and coconut milk is still coconut milk. So according to our government, apparently, milk can be any white liquid unless it’s a plant based substitute for cow milk. Then it’s something entirely different.
So it’s arbitrary except for the whitish color. So who do you think is pushing for the name changes, because we’ve been doing this for 1200 years now. I expect someone doesn’t want to have to put dairy or cow on their labels. Goat milk, after all, is still unquestionably milk and is still called goat milk.
We’ve called those liquids “milk” for over a thousand years
Magnesium hydroxide is also known as “milk of magnesia”. Must be milk!
There was a time when the “definition” of marriage was a union between only one amab and afab person. Definitions change.
Bro, come on man. I don’t give a fuck what you call cheese but likening dairy to sexual preference discrimination is a bit much.
didn’t you know that vegans are an oppressed minority? the dairy industry is their oppressor?
There are forms of discrimination that happen to vegans, but more importantly, it’s the non-human animals who are being oppressed.
Just noticed the name and lmao
Not its a good comparison.
The lgbtq+ communities and vegans are both seeking justice in their own areas of concern, so it’s most definitely not extreme to compare the two.
It’s extreme. The fact that you can’t see that it is undermines your entire argument. You’re not doing yourself any favors by saying that vegan cheese is as oppressed as gay people have been. No one’s being dragged behind a truck because they presented vegan cheese as a dairy product. No one’s shouting slurs at you.
You alienate people who might otherwise have agreed with you.
As an example, look at the other end of the spectrum using exactly the same, ridiculous logic. Selling vegan cheese is legal. Selling people was also once legal.
You really believe in veganism and that’s great. I’m happy for you. But punch in your weight class my dude. Some people think vegan blue cheese is better, but it lost a competition for not technically being cheese. Some people think chili has beans, but since 1967 beans have been strictly forbidden from ICS cookoffs but the people’s choice competitions strictly require them. There are reasonable parallels to be drawn there.
There is no reasonable parallel between vegan cheese in a cheese cookoff, and actual hatred of LGBTQ+ people
You’re straw manning their argument. They aren’t comparing the oppression of LGBTQIA+ folk to the oppression of cheese. The comparison is to the oppression of animals - who most definitely are being dragged behind the truck.
You can, and probably would, make the argument that animals don’t deserve the same level of moral consideration as LGBTQIA+ humans, but the vegan argument is that non-human animals experience pain and suffering and deserve the same right to life and non-exploitation for the same reason that any human (LGBTQIA+ or not) does.
This, thank you.
How incredibly privileged of you.
And I suppose it is up to the organizers of a contest over cheese to define the parameters of what constitutes cheese. But milk seems like a reasonable starting point. It is, after all, a dairy product.
Plant-based cheeses are allowed in their competition. They technically got disqualified because one of the ingredients is some type of fat that currently doesn’t have GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status. Except they only made it an issue after the plant-based cheese had won.
The whole resistance to reinterpreting culinary language is just nothing but anti-competitiveness.
That actually strikes me as a extremely reasonable justification for disqualifying it. The fact that they only noticed after it won is also not particularly suspicious.
Edit: how many alt accounts are down voting me for saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to enter in a food with potentially unsafe ingredients?
I’ll just copy and paste the same thing I replied with, above:
Here are more details (and more context is in the article):
"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).
The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.
“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php
Maybe they didn’t make it an issue until after because it was under their radar? Once it became the center of attention they might have thought safety of the winner was important? The vast majority of the comments in this thread don’t even seem to know why it was disqualified.
This whole thread strikes me as odd.
Here are more details (and more context is in the article):
"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).
The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.
“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php
If we can define plant products as milk then we could also define cows as plants. It would make vegan chili contests more interesting.
Good luck with that.
Likewise, good luck with vegan “cheese”.
Clearly it doesn’t need luck - it’s already winning awards despite underhanded tricks.
According to the article, they didn’t win.
EDIT:
Actually I guess they did, see below.
They were slated to win, close enough.
The dairy industry is so pathetic.
Maybe. But nothing in this story suggests that as “the dairy industry” did nothing more than disqualify a cheese made using non-GRAS ingredients.
What’s pathetic is Big Vegan telling lies to try and discredit an ancient and valuable industry.
Lmao you’re calling me one vegan big compared to a multi billion dollar industry assaulting and separating mothers from babies.
There’s nothing ancient or valuable about a relatively new industry that’s built on lies and unnecessary suffering and death for all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=roIWg4ntj9k&pp=ygUTZGFpcnkgaW5kdXN0cnkgbGllcw%3D%3D
In the first 45 seconds of that video it says we’ve been consuming milk for 10,000 years - and yet you say it’s not ancient?
Compared to the other 90% of our evolutionary history? Not by a longshot.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/flashback-friday-the-problem-with-the-paleo-diet-argument/
I meant ancient as in ancient Greeks, not whatever obscure meaning of the word you’re using.
Agreed.
They need to moooove over
Now I have this goddamn commercial in my head, thirty years since I last heard it. Thanks.
Unbelievably shitty ragebait journalism.
The traditional cheesemaking company is freaking out (really?) about Climax Blue, especially because the vegan cheese was so delicious that it had slated (it had slated did it?) to win the overall competition
Though yes, there is a bit of controversy here, but at least the Washington Post tries to explain it in a less incredibly-biased way - https://wapo.st/3xQCcYX
