Vegan cheese is a non-dairy product made from ingredients like soy, rice, almonds, and nutritional yeast. It is marketed based on its dairy counterpart, but may not melt or taste the same. Some vegans object to the use of palm oil in vegan cheese.
Vegan cheese is a product designed to replace cheese for people who don’t eat dairy or animal products. Cheese substitutes are often soy-based, but can also be made from rice, nutritional yeast, almonds, and many other non-dairy ingredients combined to create a cheese-like texture and flavor. While vegan cheesemakers never use dairy products, many use casein, which is an animal product.
Since these cheese substitutes aren’t made with dairy, they often won’t melt or taste like the cheese they’re meant to mimic. Vegan cheese varieties are usually classified and marketed based on its dairy counterpart. These varieties include cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, blu and many other types. In an effort to integrate well on the shelves and meet consumer expectations, vegan cheeses are often packaged to closely resemble their dairy counterparts. For example, Parmesan may be sold grated in a shaker, mozzarella may be shredded in a bag, and American cheese may be sold in slices, although due to the way cheese is made, the process of getting the product into these shapes can be very different from the way this is done with dairy cheeses.
While the intended consumer of vegan cheese is often assumed to be vegan, it is also eaten by people who are lactose intolerant but otherwise eat animal products. Dieters also sometimes turn to vegan cheeses because they are lower in calories than dairy versions, although they often have as much fat as low-fat dairy cheeses. Since not everyone who eats vegan cheeses primarily cares about the lack of animal products, there are many non-dairy cheeses that still use animal products as minor ingredients.
Because cheese substitutes aren’t made from dairy products, they can’t always be directly substituted for dairy cheeses at meals. For example, a recipe that calls for melted cheese might not work with vegan cheese, even though newer vegan cheeses sometimes melt. A heavily flavored cheese recipe will not taste the same with a vegan substitute and may not have the same texture due to the unique properties of vegan cheeses. Experimentation is needed to determine how a recipe should be modified to accommodate vegan ingredients.
Some vegans argue that even cheeses free from animal products aren’t truly vegan because they contain palm oil. These objectors argue that because ingredients such as palm oil cause the deaths of animals due to the aggressive destruction of habitats involved in oil production and the actions taken by palm oil producers, vegans should not eat vegan cheese. To avoid eating something unintentionally, it’s especially important for vegans and other consumers to look at the ingredients in vegan cheese to decide if the product is appropriately compliant with their ethics or diet.
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