For our cheese eaters.

[Guest guest]

http://cheese.joyousliving.com/

 

Vegan people need not read further. Thanks!

This site provides information for vegetarians. Cheese can be made with

or without rennet which is derived from the stomach tissue of a

slaughtered calf. This list specifies those cheeses which are made

without the use of rennet. Today more and more cheeses are made

with " microbial enzymes " which are widely used in the industry because

they are a consistent and inexpensive coagulant. The term " microbial

enzyme " means it is a synthetically developed coagulant. The

term " vegetable rennet " means it is derived from a vegetable source.

Soft cheeses such as cream cheese and cottage cheese are manufactured

without rennet. Some cottage cheeses, however, may contain gelatin

which is derived from animal sources. All labels should be read

carefully.

[Guest guest]

In response to the e-mail providing a link to a website with the title

cheese.joyousliving.com, I can't help but note that cheese production does NOT

make for joyous living for dairy cows or their offspring. I personally would

not find any joy I might experience from eating cheese worth the cows'

suffering. Here is some information from Peta:

 

Milk: A Cruel and Unhealthy Product

 

Cows who are allowed to roam free in pastures and care for their young form

lifelong friendships with one another. They also play games, have a wide range

of emotions, and demonstrate characteristics, such as vanity, and actions, such

as holding grudges, that are generally associated with humans. But most cows

raised for the milk industry are intensively confined and are not allowed to

nurse their calves—even for one day. They are treated as little more than

milk-producing machines and are genetically manipulated and pumped full of

antibiotics and hormones that force them to produce more milk. Humans continue

to consume dairy products, despite overwhelming scientific evidence indicating

that cow’s milk is linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other

ailments.

Cows Suffer on Dairy Farms

Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do—to nourish their

young—but calves born on dairy farms are taken from their mothers when they are

just 1 day old and fed milk replacers (including cattle blood) so that humans

can have the milk instead.(1,2)

Female cows are artificially inseminated shortly after their first

birthdays.(3) After giving birth, they lactate for 10 months, then they are

re-inseminated, and the cycle starts again. Some spend their entire lives

standing on concrete floors; others are crammed into massive mud lots. Cows have

a lifespan of about 25 years and can produce milk for eight or nine years, but

the stress caused by factory-farm conditions leads to disease, lameness, and

reproductive problems that render cows worthless to the dairy industry by the

time they are 4 or 5 years old, at which time they are sent to the

slaughterhouse.(4,5)

On any given day, there are more than 9 million cows living on U.S. dairy

farms—about 13 million fewer than there were in 1950. Yet milk production has

continued to increase, from 116 billion pounds per year in 1950 to 170 billion

in 2003.(6,7) Although these animals would naturally make only enough milk to

meet the needs of their calves (around 16 pounds a day), genetic manipulation,

antibiotics, and hormones are used to force each cow to produce more than 18,000

pounds of milk a year (an average of 50 pounds a day).(8,9) Cows are also fed

unnatural, high-protein diets, which include dead chickens, pigs, and other

animals, because their natural diet of grass would not provide the nutrients

necessary for them to produce the massive amounts of milk required by the

industry.(10)

Mastitis

Painful inflammation of the mammary glands, or mastitis, is common among cows

raised for their milk and is one of the reasons most frequently cited by dairy

farms for sending cows to slaughter. There are about 150 bacteria that can cause

the disease, one of which is E. coli.(11) Symptoms are not always visible, so

the somatic cell count (SCC) of milk is checked to determine the presence of

infection. Somatic cells are a combination of white blood cells and skin cells

that are normally shed from the lining of the udder. Just as in humans, white

blood cells, sometimes referred to as “pus,” are produced to combat infection.

The SCC of healthy milk is below 100,000 cells per milliliter, but the dairy

industry is allowed to combine milk from the teats of all the cows in a herd to

arrive at a “bulk tank” somatic cell count (BTSCC) and can sell milk with a

maximum BTSCC of 750,000 cells per millileter.(12,13) A BTSCC of 700,000 or more

generally indicates that two-thirds of the

cows in the herd are suffering from udder infections.(14)

Studies have shown that providing cows with cleaner housing, more space, and

better diets, bedding, and care lowers the SCC of their milk and their incidence

of mastitis.(15) A Danish study of cows subjected to automated milking systems

found “acutely elevated cell counts during the first year compared with the

previous year with conventional milking. The increase came suddenly and was

synchronized with the onset of automatic milking.”(16) Yet instead of improving

conditions on factory farms or easing cows’ production burden, the dairy

industry is exploring the use of cloned cattle who have been genetically

manipulated to be resistant to mastitis.(17)

The Veal Connection

While female calves are slaughtered or added to the dairy herd, male calves

are taken from their mothers when they are as young as 1 day old and are chained

in tiny stalls for three to 18 weeks to be raised for veal.(18,19) They are fed

a milk substitute that is designed to make them gain at least 2 pounds per day,

and their diet is purposely low in iron so that their flesh stays pale as a

result of anemia.(20) An enzyme from their stomachs is used to produce rennet,

an ingredient used in many cheeses.(21) Calves raised for veal commonly suffer

from diarrhea, pneumonia, and lameness.

Environmental Problems

Large dairy farms have a detrimental effect on the environment. In California,

America’s top milk-producing state, manure from dairy farms has poisoned

hundreds of square miles of groundwater, rivers, and streams. Each of the

state’s more than one million dairy cows excretes 120 pounds of waste every

day—an amount equal to the waste of two dozen people.(22) Overall, animals on

factory farms, including dairy farms, produce 500 million tons of manure each

day, much of which ends up in our waterways and drinking water. The

Environmental Protection Agency reports that agricultural runoff is the

primarily cause of polluted lakes, streams, and rivers.(23)

Eighty percent of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise animals

for food or to grow grain to feed them—that’s almost half the total land mass of

the lower 48 states.(24) Each cow raised by the dairy industry drinks as much as

50 gallons of water per day.(25) Along with chickens, pigs, and other animals

raised for food, cows are the primary consumers of half the water in the

U.S.(26)

Human Bodies Fight Cow’s Milk

Besides humans (and domesticated animals who are fed by humans), no other

species drinks milk beyond infancy or drinks the milk of another species. Cow’s

milk is suited to the nutritional needs of calves, who—unlike human infants—have

four stomachs and gain hundreds of pounds in a matter of months, sometimes

weighing more than 1,000 pounds before their second birthdays.(27) Cow’s milk

also contains about three times as much protein as human milk.(28,29)

Cow’s milk is the number one cause of food allergies among infants and

children, according to the American Gastroenterological Association.(30) Most

people begin to produce less lactase, the enzyme that helps with the digestion

of milk, when they are as young as 2 years old. This reduction can lead to

lactose intolerance.(31) Millions of Americans are lactose intolerant, and an

estimated 90 percent of Asian-Americans and 75 percent of Native- and

African-Americans suffer from the condition, which can cause bloating, gas,

cramps, vomiting, headaches, rashes, and asthma.(32) Studies have also found

that autism and schizophrenia in children may be linked to the body’s inability

to digest the milk protein casein; symptoms of these diseases diminished or

disappeared in 80 percent of the children who were switched to milk-free

diets.(33)

A U.K. study showed that people who were suffering from irregular heartbeats,

asthma, headaches, fatigue, and digestive problems “showed marked and often

complete improvements in their health after cutting milk from their diets.”(34)

Calcium and Protein Myths

Although American women consume tremendous amounts of calcium, their rates of

osteoporosis are among the highest in the world. Conversely, Chinese women

consume half the calcium (all of it from plant sources) and have scant incidence

of the bone disease.(35) Medical studies indicate that rather than preventing

the disease, milk may actually increase women’s risk of osteoporosis. A Harvard

Nurses’ Study of more than 77,000 women aged 34 to 59 found that those who

consumed two or more glasses of milk per day had higher risks of broken hips and

arms than those who drank one glass or less per day.(36) T. Colin Campbell,

professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, said, “The

association between the intake of animal protein and fracture rates appears to

be as strong as that between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.”(37)

Protein deficiency (or “kwashiorkor”) is very rare in the United States and is

usually only a problem for those living in famine-stricken countries.(38)

Consumption of excessive protein from dairy products, eggs, and meat has been

linked to the formation of kidney stones and has been associated with cancer of

the colon and liver.(39,40) It is also suspected of putting a strain on the

kidneys, which take calcium from the bones to compensate.(41) Humans can get all

the protein that they need from legumes, nuts, seeds, yeast, tofu, and beans.

What You Can Do

The best way to save cows from the misery of factory farming is to stop buying

milk and other dairy products. Discover the joy of soy! Fortified soy and rice

milks provide calcium, vitamins, iron, zinc, and protein but contain no

cholesterol. Soy and rice milks are perfect for cereal, coffee, and soups and

also work well in baked goods and other recipes. Many delicious dairy

alternatives—such as almond, rice, oat, or soy milk and Soy Dream and Tofutti

brand “ice cream”—are available in health and grocery stores.

Vegetarianism and veganism mean eating for life—yours and animals’. Call

1-888-VEG-FOOD or visit GoVeg.com for a free vegetarian starter kit.

References

1)David Goldstein, “Up Close: A Beef With Dairy,” KCAL, 30 May 2002.

2)“Mad Cow Casts Light on Beef Uses,” Los Angeles Times, 4 Jan. 2004.

3)David R. Winston, “Goals for Heifer Rearing,” Department of Dairy Science,

Virginia Polytech University, 1 Oct. 1996.

4)Anne Karpf, “Dairy Monsters,” The Guardian, 13 Dec. 2003.

5)Richard L. Wallace, D.V.M., M.S., “Market Cows: A Potential Profit Center,”

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004.

6)National Agriculture Statistics Service, “Milk Production,” United States

Department of Agriculture, 17 Feb. 2004.

7)Don P. Blaney, The Changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production, Statistical

Bulletin Number 978, United States Department of Agriculture, Jun. 2002.

8)Ibid.

9)David Pace, “Feeding a Bucket Calf,” Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service,

Oklahoma State University.

10)“Mad Cow Case Casts Light on Beef Uses,” Los Angeles Times, 4 Jan. 2004.

11)Helen Pearson, “Udder Suicide, E.Coli Kill off Milk-Making Mammary Cells,”

Nature, 6 Aug. 2001.

12)“Guidelines on Normal and Abnormal Raw Milk Based on Somatic Cell Counts

and Signs of Clinical Mastitis,” National Mastitis Council, 2001.

13)P.L. Ruegg, “Practical Food Safety Interventions for Dairy Production,”

Journal of Dairy Science, 86 (2003):E1-E9.

14)National Mastitis Council.

15)S. Waage et al., “Identification of Risk Factors for Clinical Mastitis in

Dairy Heifers,” Journal of Dairy Science, 81 (1998): 1275-84.

16)Morten Dam Rasmussen et al., “The Impact of Automatic Milking on Udder

Health,” Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Mastitis and Milk

Quality, Vancouver, B.C.: 2001.

17)Michael Raine, “Cloning—New Era in Breeding Technology Raises Hopes,

Concerns,” The Western Producer, 17 Jul. 2002.

18)Susan C. Kahler, “Raising Contented Cattle Makes Welfare, Production

Sense,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 15 Jan. 2001.

19)Food Safety and Inspection Service, “Safety of Veal, From Farm to Table,”

USDA, Feb. 2003.

20)John M. Smith, “Raising Dairy Veal,” Ohio State University, information

adapted from the Guide for the Care and Production of Veal Calves, 4th ed.,

1993, American Veal Association, Inc.

21)“Chymosin and Cheese Making,” The European Food Information Council, 2003.

22)Marla Cone, “State Dairy Farms Try to Clean Up Their Act,” Los Angeles

Times, 28 Apr. 1998.

23)John Heilprin, “Bush Issues Rule for Factory-Style Farms,” Associated

Press, 16 Dec. 2002.

24)Marlow Vesterby and Kenneth S. Krupa, “Major Uses of Land in the United

States, 1997,” Statistical Bulletin Number 973, United States Department of

Agriculture, 1997.

25)Rick Grant, “Water Quality and Requirements for Dairy Cattle,” NebGuide,

Cooperative Extension, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources,

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1996.

26)Bill McKibben, “Taking the Pulse of the Planet,” Audubon, Nov. 1999: 104.

27)“Beef Cattle Farming in Ontario,” Ontario Farm Animal Council, 12 Feb.

2004.

28)USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, “Milk, Whole, 3.25%

Milkfat,” 16 Jul. 2003.

29)USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, “Milk, Human,

Mature, Fluid,” 16 Jul. 2003.

30)American Gastroenterological Association, “American Gastroenterological

Association Medical Position Statement: Guidelines for the Evaluation of Food

Allergies,” Gastroenterology 120 (2001): 1023-5.

31)National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, “Lactose

Intolerance,” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases,

Mar. 2003.

32)Courtney Taylor, “Got Milk (Intolerance)? Digestive Malady Affects 30-50

Million,” The Clarion-Ledger, 1 Aug. 2003.

33)“Milk Protein May Play Role in Mental Disorders,” Reuters Health, 1 Apr.

1999.

34)Severin Carrell, “Milk Causes ‘Serious Illness for 7M Britons.’ Scientists

Say Undetected Lactose Intolerance Is to Blame for Chronic Fatigue, Arthritis

and Bowel Problems,” The Independent, 22 Jun. 2003.

35)Karpf.

36)D. Feskanich et al., “Milk, Dietary Calcium, and Bone Fractures in Women: A

12-Year Prospective Study,” American Journal of Public Health, 87 (1997) 992-97.

37)Karpf.

38)U.S. National Library and the National Institutes of Health, “Kwashiorkor,”

MEDLINEplus Medical Encyclopedia, 5 Jan. 2004.

39)Gary C. Curhan et al., “A Prospective Study of Dietary Calcium and Other

Nutrients and the Risk of Symptomatic Kidney Stones,” The New England Journal of

Medicine 328 (1993): 833-8.

40)Kathleen M. Stadler, “The Diet and Cancer Connection,” Virginia Tech, Nov.

1997.

41)Karpf.

 

Peace,

Thea

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

There are lots of great cheese replacements. Commercially there is the line

of Follow Your Heart vegan cheeses, not only lactose free but also without

milk protein (caseine). I also make my own cheeze or un-cheese. There are

a lot of cheese replacement lot of recipes in books by Joanne Stepaniak's,

especially her " Uncheese Cookbook, " but I have others from different recipe

lists.

 

 

 

Here is one versatile uncheese recipe from " Vegan Vittles " by Joann

Stepaniak:

 

 

 

CLASSIC WHITE UNCHEESE

 

1/4 pound fat-reduced regular tofu (firm), rinsed, patted dry & crumbled

3 T. nutritional yeast flakes

2 to 3 T. tahini

2 T. fresh lemon juice

1-1/2 T. light miso

1 t. onion granules

3/4 t. salt

1/4 t. garlic granules

3/4 c. water

3 . agar flakes

 

1. Lightly oil a 1-1/4 c. heavy plastic storage container with a lid.

 

2. Place the tofu, yeast flakes, tahini, lemon juice, miso, onion granules,

salt and garlic granules in a blender, or food processor fitted with a metal

blade. Set aside.

 

3. Place the water and agar flakes in a 1-quart saucepan. Bring to a boil,

thenr educe the heat to medium-high, and simmer, stirring frequently, until

the agar is dissolved, about 5 minutes.

 

4. Pour the agar mixture into the blender or food processor containing the

other ingredients. Process until the mixture is completely smooth. You

will need to work quickly before the agar begins to set, but it is important

to process the mixture very thoroughly. STop the blender or food processor

frequently, to stir themixture and scrape down the sides of the jar or work

bowl.

 

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared container (from step #1). Use a

rubber spatula to remove all of the blended mixture. Place the open

container in the refrigeratorto let the uncheese firm up. When it is firm,

and no longer warm to the touch, cover the container with the lid or plastic

wrap. Let the uncheese chill for several hours before serving. It will

keep for about 10 days in the refrigerator.

 

Per 2 Tablespoons: calories, 48; protein 3g; carbohydrates 4g; fat, 2g.

 

----------

----------

 

VARIATIONS:

 

AMERICAN STYLE UNCHEESE: Blend in 1/4 c. (2 ounces) drained pimiento

pieces, processing until no flecks from the pimientos are visible. This

will make a naturally orange-colored uncheese.

 

HOT PEPPER UNCHEESE: Stir in 4 T. finely chopped and well-drained canned

chilies or 1/4 to 1/2 t. crushed hot red pepper flakes into the blended

mixture before pouring into the mold.

]

OLIVE UNCHEESE: Stir in 1/4 c. sliced, pimiento-stuffed greenolives or

sliced black olives into the blended mixture before pouring it into the

mold.

 

DILLED UNCHEESE: Stir in 1 t. dried dill weed intot he blended mixture

before pouring it into the mold.

 

MEXICAN-STYLE UNCHEESE: Blend in 1 t. chili powder, 1/2 t. dried oregano

leaves, and 1 clove garlic, pressed.

 

ITALIAN-STYLE UNCHEESE: Blend in 1/2 t. dried basil leaves, 1/4 t. dried

oregano leaves, 1/4 t. dried marjoram leaves, and 1 garlic clove, pressed.

 

FRENCH-STYLE UNCHEESE: Blend in 1 t. dried basil leaves, 1/2 t. dried thyme

leaves, 1/4 t. dried marjoram leaves, 1/4 t. ground black pepper, pinch of

ground rosemary and 1 clove garlic, pressed.

 

SMOKY UNCHEESE: Blend in 14/ t. liquid smoke or more to taste.

 

 

 

 

 

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from Maida

 

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