A Guide to Vegetarian and Vegan Cheese

It's hard not to like cheese. The sumptuous feel, the rich flavor, the many ways you can use it to enhance vegetable dishes, not to mention the phenylethylamine that acts as a mood-booster. But if you're a vegetarian or vegan, the regular cheese you find in the supermarket isn't usually a good option. Even lacto-vegetarians, those who avoid meat but eat dairy products, keep away from traditionally made cheese because it's curdled using rennet. Rennet is an enzyme that occurs naturally in animal stomachs and animals are slaughtered in order to obtain the rennet, which makes the cheese essentially a "meat" product in the eyes of some.

Vegetarian Cheese
The good news is there are vegetarian and vegan cheeses available. These cheeses are usually curdled using plants, fungi, or bacteria. Keep in mind, though, that these are real cheeses. In fact, vegetarian cheese is hard to distinguish from cheese made with animal rennet. It's almost impossible to tell difference just by looking at or even tasting the cheese. The only reliable way is to check for the phrase "vegetarian cheese" on the label. Do to the increase in demand, some grocery stores have started labeling their vegetarian cheeses themselves to make them easier to find.

Vegan cheese
Now, "vegetarian cheese" doesn't refer to the "cheese substitute" products that have either no diary products or no animal products whatsoever. This type of vegetarian cheese is still made from milk and is appropriate only for lacto-vegetarians, but not for vegans. If your goal is to avoid any animal products at all, a cheese substitute made from tofu, rice, almonds and even hemp seed is your best option.