Your beloved cheese

[Guest guest]

Most cheeses you buy in your local supermarket, many varieties of

chocolate, and a surpising amount of other foods contain the

ingredient rennet (or " enzymes " which is the same thing), or contain

whey which is produced using rennet. I wanted to let you know what

rennet really is. Its pretty upsetting...

 

WHEY:

 

Whey is used to produce many different kinds of cheese and is also an

additive in many processed foods, including breads, crackers, chips,

and commercial pastry and much much more. You'll be amazed how many

things contain whey once you start looking. Whey or milk plasma is the

liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. In order to

curdle milk in a factory, there needs to be a process similar to what

occurs in a baby cow's stomach when it feeds on its mother's milk. The

most accurate way to mimick this process is to use the actual

digestive enzymes from the calves stomach. The name for this enzyme is

Rennet.

 

RENNET:

 

Natural rennet is produced in the inner mucosa of the fourth stomach

chamber (the abomasum) of young ruminants (A ruminant is any hooved

animal that digests its food in two steps, first by eating the raw

material and regurgitating a semi-digested form known as cud, then

eating the cud, a process called ruminating. Ruminants include cattle,

goats, sheep, llamas, giraffes, bison, buffalo, deer, wildebeest, and

antelope).

 

Rennet is derived one of the following two ways:

 

1. Dried and cleaned stomachs of young calves are sliced into small

pieces and then put into saltwater, together with some vinegar or wine

to get a lower pH. After some time – overnight or several days - this

solution has to be filtered. This crude rennet can then be used for

coagulation of the milk.

 

2. Deep-frozen stomachs are milled and put into an extracting solution

– in this solution the enzymes are extracted. The crude rennet extract

is then activated by adding acid – the enzymes in the stomach are

produced in an inactive pre-form and are activated by the stomach

acid. After neutralisation of the acid, the rennet extract is filtered

in several stages and concentrated until reaching the required

potency.

 

THESE STOMACHS ARE A BY-PRODUCT OF THE VEAL INDUSTRY.

 

 

 

Other concerns with cheese:

 

Cheese is produced with casein, a substance that breaks down, when

digested by humans, into several chemicals including casomorphine, an

opiate. Cheese is (and, to a lesser extent, other dairy products are)

therefore suspected by some to play a role in behavioral disorders

among children, especially with regards to autism.

 

As you probably know, a key component of cheese is bacteria or mold. A

number of food safety agencies around the world have warned of the

risks of raw-milk cheeses. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration

states that soft raw-milk cheeses can cause " serious infectious

diseases including listeriosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis and

tuberculosis " . It is U.S. law since 1944 that all raw-milk cheeses

(including imports since 1951) must be aged at least 60 days.

Australia has a wide ban on raw-milk cheeses as well, though in recent

years exceptions have been made for Swiss Gruyère, Emmental and

Sbrinz, and for French Roquefort.

 

Some even say that pasteurization of the milk used to make cheese does

not ensure its safety.

This is supported by statistics showing that in Europe (where young

raw-milk cheeses are still legal in some countries), most

cheese-related food poisoning incidents were traced to pasteurized

cheeses.

 

Pregnant women may face an additional risk from cheese; the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control has warned pregnant women against eating

soft-ripened cheeses and blue-veined cheeses, due to the listeria risk

to the unborn baby.

 

 

SOLUTION:

 

Stop consuming dairy products. They are not natural, and are the

result of cruel treatment of animals. If you must eat cheese, make

sure at the very least that it is animal enzyme free. There are some

other options to look for. Sadly the first option is pretty wierd.

 

1. Genetically engineered rennet:

 

Because of the limited availability of proper stomachs for rennet

production, cheesemakers have always looked for other ways to

coagulate the milk. With the development of genetic engineering, it

suddenly became possible to use calf-genes to modify some bacteria,

fungus or yeast to make them produce " Chymosin " . Chymosin produced by

genetically modified organisms was the first artificially produced

enzyme to be registered and allowed by the FDA in the USA. In 1999,

about 60% of U.S. hard cheese was made with genetically engineered

Chymosin.

 

Today the most widely-used genetic rennet is produced by the fungus

Aspergillus niger, which in its un-engineered state, causes a disease

called black mold on certain fruits and vegetables such as grapes,

onions, and peanuts, and is a common contaminant of food. (gross)

 

 

***** OR *******

 

2. Vegetable rennet

 

Many plants have coagulating properties. Some examples include fig

tree bark, nettles, thistles, mallow, and Creeping Charlie. " Rennet "

from thistle or cynara is used in some traditional cheese production

in the Mediterranean.

 

These real vegetable rennets are also suitable for vegetarians.

 

**Worldwide there is also no industrial production for vegetable rennet.**

 

Commercial so-called " vegetable rennets " usually contain rennet from

the mold Mucor miehei. There are some moulds like Rhizomucor miehei

that have the capability to produce proteolytic enzymes. These moulds

are produced in a fermenter and then especially concentrated and

purified to avoid contamination with unpleasant side products of the

mould growth. At the present state of scientific research institutes

like the EFSA deny the QPS-status - Qualified Presumption of Safety -

to enzymes produced especially by these moulds.

 

 

FYI

 

Masterfoods switched from a vegetarian rennet substitute to natural

(CALF!!) rennet in its products on May 1, 2007. All their chocolate

products including Mars Bars, Bounty, Snickers, Twix and Minstrels

which have the " best before date " of after 1 October 2007 are no

longer suitable for vegetarians.

 

 

 

DON'T EAT RENNET OR WHEY.