I don’t want to diminish other crimes I just want to say that plant based cheese evokes a primal disgust in me
I felt like I had to change the word vegan to plant based - I apologise if my use of the word vegan caused offence it wasn’t meant to but was ill judged nonetheless - fucking plant based cheese is shit tho and smells and tastes totally disgusting and is basically a criminal act of food production - i stand by this statement
I do not envy
vegans in any way
but I do respect
the level they play at
Absolute hard mode.
I’m not a vegan but normal cheese gives me migraine so vegan cheese is my only option
Is it?
Like plant based milks they’re all really different. The cheap ones you find in most supermarkets are crap. Made of oils. Only (just about) passable for melting on toast.
Decent ones cost about 5-12 pounds. Usually made from cashews. Brands like Kinda, Fauxmangarie and I Am Nut OK are good
The energy required to produce these artificial equivalents is ridiculous. If you are really conscious about food choices, which you presumably should be as vegan, you should stay away from these.
Same goes for the masses of soy based products. You do not need them. It’s just convenience that makes you think so.
All respect to vegans, who at least are not actively rationalizing away cheating on their own rules as some belief systems do. I agree with @B_LD that substitutes are usually counterproductive. Near my Toronto address there is a vegan grocery called Good Rebel that has a big sign in their window saying “100+ VARIETIES OF VEGAN CHEESE”, and I cannot help but tack on a snarky postscript in my mind every time I pass it. I am an omnivore, but if I were to go vegan, I would look to Indian cuisine. They have a few millennia of experience with being vegetarian, there is an incredible variety of regional cuisines, it’s not a cheese culture (except for paneer, tofu works in those dishes) and the use of butter and milk is usually easy to swap out. Vegan baking (apart from bread) also tends to be quite disappointing.
i was vegan for over a decade. also never rich, so i’m not an expert, but plenty of times I had vegan cheese that rivaled diary cheese. yogurt is another matter. never had a vegan yogurt that could compete with the OG.
I know how to deal with it:
Don’t eat it, it’s easy!
FTFY
One of the best cheesecakes ive had in my life was the one with the cashews.
Every vegan alternative becomes the norm once you become vegan. I do not miss anything from my 45 years of non vegan life, I’m happily vegan for four years and counting. Never going to eat ”normal” cheese in my life again.
Just like in everything, there are good vegan cheeses and there are bad vegan cheeses. In between those there are average vegan cheeses. All of them ethically more sound than ”normal” cheese. Progress in vegan products is very fast nowadays.
Turns out well made vegan cheese is something of a delicacy. Maybe our tastes differ but it should be palatable for most. Is this about the cheese or something else?
I’m not vegan or vegetarian but by one of my old apartments there was a vegan restaurant called No Bones that was always poppin. We’d try to go once a month solely for the nachos. The cashew “cheese” or whatever the hell was absolutely divine.
So, #notallvegancheese sucks!
Vegan for about 28 years here. I detest vegan cheese *overall. Especially the stuff that is supposed to melt like “real.” It doesn’t have protein and it tastes bad. That being said, I do like some cashew cheeses that are eaten cold on crackers and the like. It’s more like a spread than a cheese, has protein, and there are some pretty choice brands…
Good thing is, it‘s totally safe to ignore it.
I was never a big cheese fan and am thus not a big vegan cheese fan but I do enjoy a good cashew cheese with crackers plate.
I also really like the Miyokos pizza cheese sauce (not sure how far this spreads outside of the Bay Area - no pun intended).
I am not one for internet fighting but I will casually mention that there is a plethora of research showing the lower carbon footprint of plant based products including vegan cheese.
also as good a place to drop this as any
We have some Miyokos options here in Chicago and I like what I’ve tried