Can vegans enjoy cheese?

 

Vegans generally do not consume food or food products from any animal. However, most of the time cheese is prepared from the animals' milk like cow, goat, and buffalo. So, vegans hesitate to take the cheese prepared from this milk. 

On the other hand, cheese is healthy and needs to be part of a healthy diet. In this case, if cheese needs to be consumed vegans need to take care by checking the list of ingredients on the label. The words that let the consumer know if animal by-products may be used are rennet, animal enzymes, pepsin, or traditional rennet. In case if the words listed are thistle rennet or vegetarian rennet or plant rennet, it means the cheese is prepared using plant-based rennet. Yay!

Yes, apart from animal products, cheese is also produced from plant-based ingredients in a wide range of flavors. Let's look at a few of the dairy-free cheese types below:

1. Soy Cheese

One of the popular substitutes of animal products is Soy which is tastier as well as healthier too. Soy cheese is prepared from soy protein which is a rich source of casein, the milk protein available in soy.

2. DIY Cheese

Do it yourself (DIY) cheese is made from various tree nuts and seeds. In this process of cheese preparation nuts or seeds are soaked in water and blended into a paste, then it will be fermented to form the cheese. Most popular nuts and seeds for making cheese are:

Macadamia nuts, Cashews, Almonds, Pecans, Pine Nuts, Sunflower seeds, and Pumpkin seeds.

3. Coconut cheese

Yes, vegan cheese can also be prepared from coconut milk, cream, and oil by adding other ingredients to it. Coconut cheese is both healthy and tasty to use in various recipes.

Vegan cheeses are made from a variety of ingredients at one's convenience, though the most popularly used vegan cheese are soy, tree nuts, and coconut, there are also other varieties too available in the market.