It is their choice after all. However, while we don’t feel like we’ll ever eat Parmesan again, we are shocked to learn how this cheese is made. A viral post online has shared the truth behind our favorite condiment to add to different kinds of pasta. After learning that the cheese wasn’t actually vegetarian, she shared that she was going to go “full vegan.”
Now, you might ask: what is so upsetting about the cheese?
Well, the hard Italian delicacy contains rennet, an enzyme that can be found in the lining of young mammals’ stomachs, such as cows, sheep, and goats. Rennet helps them digest their mother’s milk. So if we put two and two together, one might assume that parmesan is made with the blood of baby animals. Yikes. "Today years old when I found out Parmesan cheese is made from baby cow's stomach & I could go cry,” the woman wrote in the Twitter post that went viral. “I'm just gonna have to go full vegan at this point."
Some cheese producers have actually started using a rennet substitute that does not require any animal sacrifice. “Rennet doesn't have to be from animal sources, there are vegetarian variants that work the same,” one user commented. “But it's true that you'll have to check for this to be able to say it's actually vegetarian."
An alternative to the rennet found organically in calf stomachs is genetically-engineered yeast and bacteria. Also, most mass-produced cheese utilized GMO rennet instead of the traditional one. Phew!
Image credit: Castorly Stock