While “cheese” is made from dairy, it’s really the mold and bacteria and fungus that make cheese cheese and as such, other matrices can be used to make a proper non-dairy cheese.
Why the need to have substitutes for omnivore fare? Well, to get milk, a cow has to be in a constant state of lactation. This only happens through pregnancy and that comes along with calf - another mouth to feed. And that will use up all the milk you want for cheese.
So they take the calf away from the mother.
Little known fact: Mother cows cry out-loud for DAYS. It turns out that taking a baby from it’s mother is a horrifying and terrible - looking at you Drumpf.
So yeah, cheese is mean. Sorry, but it’s Halloween, you should be a little terrified.
I was on a small Hawaiian island a while back and it was calving day someplace nearby. Honestly the worst time for a vacation.
I know how cheese is made. When I asked why the need for ‘substitutes’ I did not mean ‘why do people (i.e. vegans) need something other than omnivore fare?’, I meant ‘why do vegans want to have things that imitate omnivore fare?’
Not necessary true. I know a organic cheese farm where they keep the calves with the mother. Modern milk cattle is bred to give way more milk than needed for one calf. So keeping the calf with the mother will yield you less milk, but not no milk. You have to be careful the calf doesn’t overeat though, that sometimes happens and then they have to watch extra carefully. Of course it’s not all wonderful, as the bull calves still get slaughtered quite soon. Grown bulls are dangerous.
See my reply above, to ephoph. Duh!
(If I’d meant ‘why do vegans want to not eat omnivore fare’ I’d have said ‘alternatives’ not ‘substitutes’ and it would have been a truly dumb thing to ask.)
You’ve just described how non-vegans verbally attack vegans. I’m still waiting for my first overbearing vegan sighting, and I’m almost certainly a lot older than you.
I don’t know what’s to misconstrue.
I get that vegans want alternatives to animal-sourced foodstuffs. That’s what ‘vegan’ means, no?
I don’t get why (some?) vegans want to emulate animal-based foodstuffs. (Vegan ‘cheese’ … like vegan burgers, vegan bacon, vegan sausages, and so on.)
Hence my slightly flippant: ‘just eat the veggies’ comment.
I think it’s pretty easy to understand why a vegan would want to emulate animal based foodstuffs.
Imagine you love the taste/structure of hamburgers, but you object on moral grounds to the slaughtering of animals so you won’t eat them. Wouldn’t it be logical to try and make something which tastes,smells and feels like hamburger while it actually doesn’t contain meat so you can enjoy it without moral quandaries?
it’s not as if all vegan people despise the taste of meat/cheese/whatever.
Ok. Not quite that logical to me. One makes a choice and gets on with its consequences. I’d like to think that if I had the moral quandaries, I’d accept the sacrifices involved and/or seek to make other delicious and tasty things. And nothing can taste like cheese, except cheese, surely? There is no substitute.
But I do accept that it’s very easy for me to say I’d live with the consequences. (And not even sure if it is relevant but I grow all my own veg and eat huge quantities of it. I do also eat a lot of cheese/dairy, as well as meat and fish, but I strive for it to be non-factory farmed, free-range, locally reared and butchered, and traceable to local owner-run farms.)
Also, as you say, there is (semi-)ethical cheese. Then there’s the guy who doesn’t eat slaughtered meat, but lives off rather more ethical wild roadkill/naturally deceased meat. No rearing or slaughter involved.
Hey-ho - I think we cleared up any confusion in what each of us was trying to say, anyway.
If you don’t want to eat meat (because you don’t like where it comes from), well, then, I’m sorry. You made your choice. No, you made your bed. You don’t get to eat things that taste like meat now. You need to accept your sacrifice. Don’t come crying to me, saying you enjoy tasty foods. You should have thought of that before you selfishly decided not to eat meat. Besides, I don’t like the various vegetarian and vegan “meats” and cheeses, so I really don’t see why you’d want to eat them.
Yours is just the sort of decent, humorous, thoughtful comment that I want to share with family on the political right. We are not monsters, not weirdos–and we can laugh at ourselves. What we demand is respect, and we’re willing to give it to get it.
Familiarity is one reason, particularly if you switched recently these are things you already know to how to cook.
But in the case of sausages and burgers, the fact that they were originally a meat product is largely irrelevant. Lots of the meat free alternatives don’t taste anything like meat and don’t try to. People eat them because they are convienent and easy to prepare. I’ve met lots of meat eaters who prefer veggie burgers, they like the taste better and they tend to be a healthier product.
What’s the point? Well; any diet isn’t intrinsically healthy or unhealthy. Eating healthily is what’s healthy. That might include animal based protein, or it might not. Although things are changing, it remains true that in most western cultures it is easier to eat healthily with a ‘traditional’ meat-and-three-vege diet.
My eldest decided about a year ago that she wants to be vegetarian. Good on her, and I willingly support her choice. I’m learning to cook interesting vegetarian meals, we chose places to eat out based on ensuring there’ll be decent choices available (not just a salad or mushroom paella ). But it is more work.
). But it is more work.