Artisan Vegan Cheese: From Everyday to Gourmet

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My hope for the future is that humans are going to evolve to become truly humane beings – humane for the planet, humane for animals. That humans will evolve to become true leaders. Being a leader means that you take care of everybody and everything – that you are a steward, not an exploiter.

Billing: due to the really low monthly membership price and the nature of the benefits, FEC subscription is billed and paid yearly. This enables us to plan ahead and ensure that we can offer the best range of benefits available to all members. The membership fee will be automatically charged to your card every 12 months. Cows produce a lot of carbon dioxide and – crucially – methane, which actually causes the planet to warm swifter than carbon dioxide does. As such, it should come as no surprise that dairy cheese is significantly more damaging to the environment than cheese made from plants, whether coconut milk/oil, cashew nuts or anything else derived from plants.

Julia Gross

Like Tyne Chease, I Am Nut OK is one of the higher-end vegan cheese producers to have gained popularity across the UK. As such, some of its products are becoming more widely available in places like TheVeganKind Supermarket. With various gourmet-style plant-based cheeses among their products, they offer everything from a tasty smoky melting vegan cheese to Rigotta – a lemon and thyme vegan ricotta! Nutcrafter These guys are a cut above most in terms of the care and attention they give to their products… they use deionised water instead of plain old tap water, for instance! Their vegan version of halloumi is made from “organic raw and activated cashew nuts”, organic tapioca flour, organic pea protein, with some sea salt and live bacteria thrown in too (along with some plant-based stabilisers). See below for more on this artisan brand. A parmesan-like vegan cheese that comes finely grated, this works well on risotto, pasta or other dishes. Our top choices are the classic Farmhouse and Summer Truffle wedges, and the Faux Lox and Dill Creamy Spread. 5. Honestly Tasty Unlike other artisan vegan cheese brands, Honestly Tasty uses a unique recipe featuring almonds, miso, shea butter and rice bran oil.

Woman-owned, organic and small batch, Virgin’s a step up from Violife, but with that comes a step up in price and step down in easy availability. Get over it, you don’t mind spending more for an aged artisanal Laura Chenel goat cheese than a mass-produced supermarket brand. We have one person at Miyoko’s whose sole job is to work on this, and she is forming partnerships with, for example, an economist, so we can understand what the economics will look like. She’s working with an adviser who’s going to be analyzing the environmental impacts of dairy farming and then what happens after the dairy farmer transitions. There is little doubt among scientists who study such things that food products made from animals are significantly worse for the environment than those made from plants, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed an extensive research study published in 2014 found that the mean dietary greenhouse gas emissions per 2,000 kcal of meat-eaters were more than double those of vegans and it was 2.5 times as great once adjusted for sex and age. Inspired by traditional cheesemaking methods, Tyne Chease uses cashew nuts to create a creamy base with added probiotic cultures. We are encouraging farmers to switch to a lower water-intensive and less taxing farming system that would entail growing drought-resistant crops that can become part of the new plant-based economy.In our category of “flavoured cheese” we’ve included those to which ingredients have been added that flavour the cheese in a non-cheesy way (e.g. with peppers or chillies that are not used in conventional cheeses like standard cheddar) or which add texture in some way. This could be seen to be a rather general category and could technically cover some of the cheese that also feature in other categories. Generally speaking, this category would cover the higher-end more gourmet vegan cheese options, often produced from organic and/or locally sourced ingredients and sometimes in small batches. The Spread Me products from Green Vie include tapioca maltodextrin and water, as well as their usual mix of coconut oil and starch to produce the creamy texture.

Like Tyne Chease, Mouse’s Favourite also uses cashew nuts as a base with the addition of salt and cultures.

Summer Rylander

Asda have upped their game in recent times and now produce several vegan-friendly cheese options under their own-brand Free From label. At the time of writing these are: Soft Cheese Alternative, Garlic & Herb Soft Cheese Alternative, Garlic & Chive Cheddar Alternative, Grated Mozzarella Alternative, Sliced Mature Cheddar Alternative, Mature Cheddar Alternative. This week we’re sharing our favourite artisan vegan cheese alternatives as people often cite cheese as the barrier that stops them from going from vegetarian or flexitarian to full-time vegan.

Violife have three options for their grated cheeses: Cheddar Flavour, Original Flavour, and Mozzarella Flavour, which melts exceptionally well so works perfectly for homemade vegan pizzas. Funky London-based vegan cheese brand Palace Culture creates a wide range of cheese alternatives for every occasion. Its innovation range includes both hard and soft varieties.

Aged Artisanal Plant-Based Cheese Wheels

Violife have pulled out all the stops with their vegan cheese slices and offer the following flavours: Original, Mozzarella, Cheddar, Smoky Cheddar, With Herbs, With Tomato & Basil, Smoked, and Mature Cheddar. The Smoky Cheddar Flavour Slices work particularly well on burgers, in our view. Vegans are split between wanting to avoid this altogether as the company also makes dairy cheese, or loving it. It is one of the closest plant-based cheeses to dairy cheese in terms of texture and taste. Nettle currently only has two varieties to choose from which are all fermented using live cultures and marinated in a blend of extra virgin olive oil and cold-pressed rapeseed oil.