I’m one of those gobby vegans who will happily tell anyone why they should stop consuming animal products. But I can still admit what’s obviously true: most vegan cheese isn’t particularly good.
I was once ardently devoted to cheese. In my vegetarian years, paneer, mozzarella and halloumi were less foods than companions. I loved how paneer would soak up the spice of a curry like a sponge. Mozzarella was like a spectacle of tensile, elastic theatre and halloumi provided evocative, salty squeaks. I also took delight in the standard toasted cheddar sandwich. Yes, I did get quite fat.
But when I learned about what goes on at dairy farms, everything changed. Brutal artificial inseminations, heartless separations of mothers and babies, male calves shot or tossed into bins, exhausted mother cows dragged to the abattoir the moment they’re considered unprofitable – no wonder people say dairy is scary.
Cows are my favourite animals, so learning the truth about dairy farms was game over for me. I tried some vegan cheeses but quickly concluded that most of them weren’t that good: too stringy, too rubbery, too… well… uncheesy. I actually found that a good creamy, salty hummus could stave off any cheese cravings and, before long, I’d stopped thinking much about cheese, vegan or otherwise.
But I noticed that some vegans liked to pretend. I used to travel to Parkruns with a group of vegan runners. We wore our club shirts, so would-be vegans approached us to ask questions about going plant-based. Cheese was often the sticking point and I’d cringe as these potential plant-munchers were told they could just switch their usual cheese for an identical vegan alternative. It is an odd claim for a vegan to make. After all, there is no one less qualified to judge the fidelity of imitation than someone long estranged from the original.
It’s not all bleak. Vegan milks are good and vegan ice creams, cakes and chocolate bars are rapidly improving joys. There are a handful of cheddars that nearly persuade, and a rice-based mozzarella that performs admirably in a summer salad. The artisanal end of the market offers further pleasures – though at prices that reflect their rarity.
Vegan cheese will continue to improve. Food technology is advancing at a pace, with companies experimenting with precision fermentation and other techniques to recreate dairy proteins without animals. Just two weeks ago, researchers from Heriot-Watt said they were working to create a vegan cheese with ‘superior meltability’ aka ‘ooziness’. Scientists will eventually close the gap in taste and texture but, until that happens, the real thing is better to be honest.
Scientists will eventually close the gap in taste and texture but, until that happens, the real thing is better
Generally speaking, vegan cheeses don’t taste very nice and have minimal nutrition. So trying to usher would-be vegans over the line by talking up plant-based cheese seems a fool’s errand. You might convince someone to go vegan by bigging up vegan cheese but you probably won’t convince them to stay vegan that way.
One of the things vegans have in our favour is truth. Dairy companies plaster their promotions with images of blushing maidens milking blissed-out cows, egg companies talk of happy hens and it’s all nonsense when you see how those animals are actually treated. Non-vegans tie themselves in disingenuous knots to try to reconcile their loathing of animal cruelty with the fact they fund it every day.
I’ve lost count of the number of times a meat-eater has told me: ‘I agree with you and I would go vegan but I couldn’t live without cheese.’ That is an obviously insincere statement because, if it were true, the only honest path would be to give up all animal products apart from cheese.
Look, I get it’s hard. Scientists say that dairy cheese is mildly addictive because it contains casein, a protein that releases pleasurable, opiate-like compounds during digestion. One expert calls cheese ‘dairy crack’. Trying to trick addicts into giving it up by eating a poor substitute seems doomed to failure.
If you want people to change, the food matters a bit, but the why matters more. The uncomfortable truths we’re prepared to sit with. The empathy we’re willing to extend. The weight that falls off your shoulders the moment you stop paying people to harm animals for you. I’ll always go deeper than ‘our cheese is as good as your cheese’ because, if you want to change someone’s mind, sometimes the best route is not through their stomachs but their hearts.
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