Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips the size of a grain of sand into their 90-pound cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters::Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are using microchips to verify the authenticity of their products and thwart scammers.
I got to admit, Italians inventing Cheese DRM, wasn’t on my 2023 Bingo card.
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I would try really hard to do that
I would try really hard
Good, 'cause you’d need to!
Bolognese always clogs my fiber lines. Do not recommend downloading.
Blockchain-based cheese DRM! 😂
Physical products are the only ones that makes sense for DRM.
DRM? More like DOC!
For fucks sake… This is literally about an RFID sticker that is put on the outside of whole cheese wheels.
So unless you buy whole 40kg wheel and then eat it with the rind… you are not eating any.
And also fuck that article for even mentioning that.
unless you buy whole 40kg wheel and then eat it with the rind
Haha no of course not…
lol right? I would never lol, that would be like, too much? Would it be too much? Honestly we may never know
It would probably last you a decade even if you really eat a lot of parmesan
You severely underestimate my cheese eating ability
I seriously love parmesan. I always buy it fresh and grate it myself. I know pretty well how much cheese is reasonable to eat in a sitting. 100g is insanely much for one serving, but you could distribute it over the whole day. If you eat 100g of parmesan each day, 1kg will be gone after 10 days. That means eating 40kg takes 400 days, or a bit longer than a year.
Being a bit more realistic easily allows you to stretch that wheel of parmesan over the span of a decade, even if you seriously love the stuff.
I’m perfectly aware that you’re not being entirely serious but I just can’t let it stand like that.
shifty eyes Yes, 100 grams is quite a lot. Yes. Indeed. Quite right.
When I was a kid we’d grate 200g for 4 people. I take a bit less nowadays than what I would get as a kid but some people still look at me funny. I think 20-30g is a regular serving.
Some people add the rind to broths.
If your soup or sauce sparks a little bit next time, you’ll know, lol.
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https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=parmesan+rind+uses&ia=web
From the top result (Treehugger):
- Throw them into tomato sauce when cooking. They’ll impart some flavor. Pull them out and discard when the sauce is done cooking.
- Place them in a jar, pour olive oil over them (perhaps add some garlic cloves, too – but if you add garlic, make sure to keep the oil refrigerated) and make parmesan-infused olive oil. Great for dipping bread into.
- Throw them into bean soups or minestrone. Discard the rinds before serving.
- Throw them into the pot when you’re making stock.
- Add to stew. Remove rinds before serving.
- Use them to flavor steamed artichokes. Add some chicken broth, onion and lemon juice and a cheese rind or two, and it’s a delicious broth!
- Put a rind in the pot when you’re cooking risotto or other rice. Remove the rind before serving.
- Make a parmesan broth for cheese-filled pastas like ravioli. You can try the Bitchincamero’s recipe for ricotta & pea ravioli in parmesan broth or just use the recipe for inspiration for your own pasta in Parmesan broth.
- Try The Novice Chef’s Panera-inspired recipe for tomato, cheese and bread Soup.
- If the rind is pure cheese (with no waxy coating), you can grill the rind until it becomes soft and chewy, put it on a piece of crusty bread, and eat.
To save you a click (although none of the other commenters seem to have read the article anyway): The microchips aren’t embedded into the actual cheese that you eat, but are part of the label attached to the outside rind. Nobody will be eating microchips.
The chips use blockchain technology and trace the wheel of cheese back to where the milk that was used came from.
Cryptobros, Unite! We finally found a way for blockchain tech to be relevant for more than just ransomware! We authenticate cheese!
Someone’s gonna make a ton of money on CheeseCoin
Blockchain is also good for solving the Ship of Theseus problem. You can encode the entire history of the object into the object.
Blockchain has many cool uses and none of them are currency.
I mean, the ship of Theseus isn’t a problem, nor is there a solution, but I get the joke anyway :)
There was a joke in there?
There was a joke in there?
I thought there must be, otherwise it would be a deep misunderstanding of what the ship of Theseus is
Blockchain =/= crypto
Crypto uses blockchain, but blockchain is just a different type of database that generally tracks data through a decentralized network. It has a lot of real uses beyond crypto like identity verification, transcript/records management management, and iot data sharing. It’s nothing that can’t be done in a centralized manner, it’s just a different way of going about it that, in some cases, is much more secure and/or much more easily accessible.
It’s nothing that can’t be done in a centralized manner,
and thats the main problem with basically all blockchain related solutions, theres pretty much always a centralized alternative thats more efficient
and much more… centralized? But let’s also just ignore the part where it’s described as generally more secure as well.
The cheese makers are not concerned about decentralization. Presumably they trust themselves, because they are the only ones trusted to write to the database. If they are the only ones allowed to put something on the chain, it’s a central database, regardless of how many computers/places they run it on.
Blockchain is not magically more secure than any other equivalent cryptographic solution.
Most commercial non-crypto blockchains I’ve seen only have a couple of nodes connected, usually held by a single entity. In these cases it’s no less centralised than any alternative write-only DB.
and much more… centralized?
it being centralized dosent mean its bad. theres also the fact that many processes are centralized by the nature of how they work.
it’s described as generally more secure as well.
why would that be?
If I run low on health and have to eat several dozen cheese wheels, will the authentic DRM ones provide a greater HP boost compared to the generic cheese wheels?
Actually an “HP boost” refers to using fake Hewlett-Packard ink cartridges that circumvent their ink-jet printer DRM. 😁
Nothing enhances that Mediterranean flavor quite like micro plastics
its funny that some ppl are paranoid that bill gates is trying to microchip them with a vaccine when they probably already have been by the fucking itailians
Maybe I’m a picker eater, but I think I’d rather have an inauthentic product than eating a microchip.
as other people pointed out, is a sticker on the outside, on the hard part.
unless you are very hungry and have good teeth, you will not eat it.
yet, since is applied on edible product, it needs to be edible.
You wouldn’t even notice.
I would!
points RFID scanner in their general direction
What if the inauthentic product is made by my mate dodgy Dave who got a load of cheap milk and some dirty old metalwork, it’s ok he flushed a load of industrial cleaner through them and it’s good stuff they use it to clean engines at his brother’s garage…
You’d be far better off not buying a prestige product and getting a good quality cheese from a reputable manufacturer at a price that doesn’t include a huge markup due to perceived historic significance
As long as Dodgy Dave passed his mandatory FDA inspections I’d eat his cheese.
You think the big brands don’t use industrial cleaner? LOL
But the point is if the labels are fake you don’t know if they got inspected, it’s organized crime gangs running it and they’re not really known for being sticklers for the law…
The cleaning products and procedures are heavily regulated in food production because when they’re not people cut corners and use cheaper things without regard for long-term health effects
Now you’re worried about counterfeit Dodgy Dave cheese? Where are you buying your cheese‽
There was a HUGE scandal in the UK over rotten horse meat getting mixed into basically everything. This was part of the whole Ikea horse meat story from years ago.
It’s a supply chain issue, criminal gangs fake paperwork and all that stuff hence the cheese people going for more extreme security measures - you could be eating Dave’s cheese in an expensive restaurant, as far as they know it’s ligit but the importer or supplier duped them
I mean I was being a little jocular in my comment (since this tracker is on the outside) it doesn’t really matter.
But by preferring “inauthentic” I was thinking something like “Greek style cheese” which is just feta but made outside of Greece or sparking wine for champagne. So food standards still apply.
But yeah, they are trying to stop fraudulent claims.
Not really putting them “into” their cheese, just the labels that bind with their outer casing of the cheese wheel. Still neat.
They are being placed on the casein label, a food-safe label commonly used in cheese production, which is placed on the cheese wheel.
Okay…
That still begs the question, why are they considered edible? Are people eating the labels? 🤔
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Interesting. So how long before you become an official scannable wheel of cheese? 🤔
Could he claim to officially identify as a parmigiano reggiano cheese?
Not sure, we should cut him open and taste to confirm.
Probably because otherwise people would be like “yOuRe PuTtInG mEtAl IN mY cHEeSe”
Even if it’s just the size of a grain of sand, I don’t want to worry about biting down on that.
I would too, but it goes in the shell/outside that goes around the cheese wheel, not in the cheese itself
I’m just saying, there’s a reason we’re not allowed to have kinder surprise eggs in the US. If we can find a way to hurt ourselves with food we will. And then we will sue.
I mean… yeah. That is a very reasonable concern.
It is if it’s anywhere that’s eaten it is, but the outer rim of the cheese wheel doesn’t get eaten
Except it is very common to boil cheese rind for broth. And prolonged exposure high temperatures tend to break down pollutants into even more reactive forms as well as draw them out into solution. Worse if it’s in like a commercial steam oven or pressure cooker that can get much higher than 100 C, you know, like many professional restaurants make a point of using.
I doubt it will be that easy to identify and scrape off, because that would defeat the point, probably hidden deep within the layers. It says it can’t be read remotely so very unlikely it’s just an off the shelf RFID sticker you can easily see and peel off. I also doubt a lot of people will know it’s there and that it needs to be removed in the first place, or they’ll take their word for it that it’s edible even though they are absolutely in no position to make that claim and have definitely not done the rigorous medical research/testing to actually justify a claim like that.
The conspiracy theorists are going to run wild with this one.
That’s because makers of Parmigiano-Reggiano are implanting microchips into the casings of their 90-pound cheese wheels as the latest move to ward off counterfeiters, The Wall Street Journal reported.
If it’s just going in the casings, then it wouldn’t be eaten I guess?
Except for counterfeiters. They eat the whole thing to make sure their copies are accurate but now we can track their poops. I’m telling you, Mario, this thing is genius!
They don’t read the article though so as far as they’re concerned this proves jet fuel can’t melt 5G COVID
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I guess in that case I should probably seek out the counterfeit versions of it since they’re now apparently better than the originals.
What?
Where in the article did it mention that the counterfeit versions are better than the originals? I didn’t see a comparison of quality at all (maybe I missed it?).
I think it’s more than the counterfeit versions have gotten so good and/or cheap that the genuine manufacturers feel the need to compete by placing microchips in their cheese rather than improve their own or bring down the price.
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You’re talking about market economics on a site full of tankies.
Well the counterfeit versions don’t have microchips in them.
Neither does this cheese, if you read the article the microchips are in the casing
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Lol, cheese DRM. Just when I thought more DRM was impossible.
If I can make cheese good enough to pretend that it’s another brand, I’m gonna just slap my own label on it
It’s not a brand name but a regionally protected signifier. Like champagne.
Ah yeah the appellation system. couldn’t you just call it “Champagne-style wine”?
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Next up. Improve your wireless network with cheese.
if people who is eating them cant tell the difference than whats the point
Probably to protect the “brand” at places that actually care about advertising what kind of cheese they have
They make counterfeit Rolex so good, you need an expert and a microscope to tell the difference. Why not cheese.
It’s almost like luxury goods are a scam and purely for bragging rights of having the brand, and not that the actual object is unique or the best!
You really don’t want to buy counterfeit food.
One of the biggest reasons for avoiding counterfeit food is the higher risk of contaminants.
Semiconductors are a pretty serious contaminant.
Could you please elaborate on that
My friend, it’s food. You put into your body. Do you really need to ask why it’s a huge breach of trust?
But putting microchips in your body is ok? Seems to me the counterfeit cheese is now better for me.
I see your point, but both wheels are questionable in different ways.
Making your own product worse to own the counterfeiters.
Its what the gaming and film industry have done for decades
This is like complaining that they changed the ink to print the labels with.
I would rather buy the cointerfeit version of this cheese if that comes without microchips
