• themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Really, the disqualification is probably better publicity than winning the award itself. If someone told me some vegan cheese won a “Good Food” award, I would assume it was related to eco- and social-consciousness. Learning that it was so delicious that the dairy industry schemed to take away the award tells me they’re afraid of the competition.

    • theareciboincident@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      When Seiko beat the Swiss at their own mechanical watch accuracy competitions, they decided to cancel the long running prestigious competition entirely instead of make a better watch.

      Capitalism breeds innovation!

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        To be fair, a crystal clock is just going to be more accurate than a movement based watch. Even the biggest watch fanboys admit that a $30 Seiko Casio outperforms the majority of mechanicals on raw accuracy.

        • KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Seiko makes mechanical watches that cost under $100 and are just as precise and long-lasting as a Swiss watch.
          You’re probably thinking of Casio.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          So… The existing market leader chose to flip the table instead of admitting that their position was weaker and lower value.

          Yep, that sure sounds like the pursuit of capital instead of… innovation, quality, or any of the other attributes capitalism attempts to associate itself with.

          • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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            The Neuchâtel Observatory is a publicly funded institution that certifies movements with high accuracy as chronometers. Not a private body, or a marketing tool used by a watchmaker. The same ‘competition’ is done by other observatories, all giving their own rating of a timepiece’s accuracy against a reference chronometer kept at the observatory.

            A quick search could have brought you that information_ Quartz movements beat the pants off mechanical movements, and they’re far cheaper to make, allowing the non-rich to have a decent watch with good battery life and serious accuracy. Cheap and normal mechanical watches regularly drift and lose a few seconds time over days and weeks - quartz drifts between 1-110 seconds over a year.

            • __Lost__@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              6 months ago

              They aren’t talking about quartz watches though. Seiko makes mechanical watches that were being compared to swiss mechanical watches costing way more.

    • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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      6 months ago

      Indeed, and while they might have been initially furious at the snub, this is going to wind up being VERY good for business. Now they have an incredible story to tell, complete with mystery and intrigue that consumers love. Their marketing department must be salivating right now.

    • Linnce@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I could have never known this award even existed if not for this news. I don’t care at all for cheese and now I’m curious to try it.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 months ago

      You’re right, but it’s understandable why the dairy industry shat themselves. They fucked up by allowing things to be named “oat milk” or “whatever milk”, so they damn sure aren’t going to let their “cheese” territory get encroached on.

  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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    6 months ago

    I’m closer to a carnivore than a vegan, but if something is good, it’s good. I’m not going to hate on something delicious because I feel threatened by someone else’s life choices.

    Don’t worry, farmers; if I start eating vegan cheese I promise I’ll make up for it in beef consumption.

    • DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      A lot of vegan “alternatives” are actually really good when you know what you’re doing with them. I will take tofu or mushrooms over meat any day tbh. Problem is some people don’t know that and will just prepare tofu like it’s meat, and then wonder why their tofu tastes like shit.

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That’s a really dumb argument. Sorry but literally every food is really good when you know what you are doing with it.

        It is not even a question of quality… some of the tastiest food is terrible quality used with great effect.

        That doesn’t even take into account personal preference, which is majorly just familiarity.

        The awards world is filled with awards that would never be given if there wasnt a story to go with it. This vegan cheese is an example of this as well.

        Problem is some people don’t know that and will just prepare tofu like it’s meat, and then wonder why their tofu tastes like shit.

        You arent even wrong about this, but you could say the exact same thing about damned near anything that has more than a single opinion on.

        Like literally exchange in what i quoted tofu to a burger patty and instead of “like its meat” change it to some aspect of the experience. Whether its what temperature to cook it or how thin or thick it is.

        Same exact argument based on different peoples familiarity. Many people dont have just dont care that much and also some people are really bad at cooking.

        To sum up my point, you are making a statement that is so broad it is useless

    • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Same. I had some green Thai curry “duck” at a vegan restaurant once and it was the bomb!

    • VonCesaw@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      from personal experience, veggie burgers make excellent topping-condiments to regular burgers

      they have all the flavors a burger wants

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        I like this suggestion. Plus it still ultimately reduces beef consumption because maybe I only eat one of these doubles instead of two burgers.

    • Kedly@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Damn, who would have thought liking good food would be so controversial xD

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Every time I eat vegan cheese my mouth says this ain’t quite right. But the taste is usually fine.

    • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I think attitudes like this are borderline psychopathic and I bet you’ve never rendered an animal in your entire life.

  • fatalicus@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Let me see if I get this right: they get disqualified for containing an ingredient that hasn’t been certified as edible (kokum butter) and is usually used in cosmetics, and there is no evidence of Big Cheese being the reason for the disqualification, other than the owner of the company saying it.

    But it is still Big Cheese’ fault?

    • Xatolos@reddthat.com
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      6 months ago

      It’s even worse than that. The makers aren’t even sure what was in their product to begin with.

      Zahn says the kokum butter shouldn’t be an issue anyway: The company has since replaced it with cocoa butter, which does have GRAS certification. Initially, he told the Post the cocoa butter version was what he submitted for the awards, but after this story was published he said he determined that it was in fact the kokum butter version. (According to Weiner, Climax submitted an ingredient list that included kokum.)

      So it might have been labeled with having kokum butter, it might not. Who knows? Seems to depends what answer is needed at the time.

      Also,

      Climax, it turns out, wasn’t just a finalist — it was set to win the award, a fact that all parties are asked to keep confidential until the official ceremony in Portland, Ore., but was revealed in an email the foundation sent to Climax in January.

      If I’m reading this correctly, out of all the contestants, only they knew they won. Makes it a further stretch that it was a dairy company that “out” them as they wouldn’t have known that the vegan cheese won.

      My guess for the change about GRAS was it most likely was assumed everyone would only submit GRAS items, and since someone broke that non-spoken rule then they had to make it a clarified rule. It is something you’d just assume everyone made sure their food was most or less FDA approved (which is a logical assumption).

      The Washington Post article is much clearer about this whole issue (which is linked to in this badly written Boingbonk article.)

    • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      Here are more details (and more context is in the article):

      "Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).

      The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.

      “It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"

      https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php

    • refutablewife@reddthat.com
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      6 months ago

      There are innumerable horror stories from cottage vendors bumping up against the money and strict gatekeeping of the nationally established conglomerates. This was in the US, but I know Canada also has, new, laws on the books to specifically prevent plant based cheeses from referring to their product as “cheese,” despite being the exact same process and a final product that you wouldn’t know side by side to the dairy version.

      I’m not a vegan, but this is the just same ole regulatory capture bullshit that we’re seeing w ev cars, good imported rum, net neutrality and everything else

  • Hugin@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It was disqualified for having an ingredient that was not GRAS(generally regarded as safe). Even GRAS is a pretty low bar for food safety.

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        I mean, asbestos is dangerous if broken down and inhaled, so as long as you just eat it and you don’t choke on it…

        • derpgon@programming.dev
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          6 months ago

          Ground chests are also probably not okay to inhale, but here we are eating them whole. Why not dip some of that 'bestos in guac? Should solve all issues tbh.

    • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      Here are more details (and more context is in the article):

      "Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).

      The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.

      “It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"

      https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php

    • anon987@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Not true. It’s considered safe by WebMD, and it’s been studied as a food for a long time. It is chemically similar to cocoa butter.

      So it’s been approved by more reputable organizations than the FDA.

      • Hugin@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Web MD is crap. Also GRAS is a term that only the FDA can bestow. So yeah it’s not GRAS.

  • Rob@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The dairy and meat lobbies are something else. It’s like smoking in the fifties.

    It’s well established that there are serious health concerns when you consume animal produce (not to mention environmental and animal welfare ones), yet the industry keeps pushing back on plant-based alternatives.

    • howrar@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      I’ve heard of potential health issues from red meat consumption, but all animal products? That’s a first for me. Do you have any sources to share on this?

      • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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        6 months ago

        Technically it can’t be all animal products, since honey is about 98% sugar, and despite the hate campaign currently hitting carbs, sugar is not quite as harmful (in and of itself) as it’s made out to be.

        But if we’re referring to all animal products in the sense of meat, dairy, and eggs - those three foods have nutritional properties that are all very similar and they do have some overlap in terms of health issues.

        The biggest thing they have in common is being a package deal with high amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol. Heart disease is generally the industrialized world’s number one killer, and all three animal foods initiate the onset and progress the state of heart disease.

        Then there are issues that are less settled, like to what degree do these foods cause various cancers?

        And then this one is even more in need of further study, but there might be a link between these foods and autoimmune disorders.

        https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/meat-bad-you-and-environment

        https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/processed-meat

        https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/health-concerns-about-dairy

        https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/health-concerns-with-eggs

        • howrar@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          I’m aware that there’s evidence of saturated fats having undesirable effects on your health. But plenty of meats are low in saturated fats (e.g. skinless chicken breast, or fish).

          • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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            6 months ago

            Relatively low if you compare it only to other meats or animal products. So while you can choose animal products that might progress these chronic metabolic diseases slower, you are still advancing them. But there are lots of factors that complicate things. For example the health impacts of animal products also depend on how you cook them, and what you eat them with. Cured meats are unanimously considered one of the worst things you can consume, right up there with smoking. Steamed fish would probably be about the least harmful (except that fish have some of the highest levels of bioaccumulated toxins and heavy metals). Actually, bugs are likely the least harmful, for those who are comfortable with that. Eating a source of fiber mitigates some of the harm from animal products as shown in this video:

            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C08mqjMuwyY

            Further complicating things is that single nutrients often behave differently depending on context. For example antioxidants other than some of the essential vitamins have never been shown to produce their purported effects outside of laboratory conditions, and some supplemented sources of antioxidants have even been shown to be a little harmful. But when we test the whole foods that contain those antioxidants, we get data like how increasing leafy green consumption has been correlated with a longer life expectancy.

            And it’s similar for saturated fats and animal products. In the most established science on the matter you’ll see they don’t just talk about saturated fat alone - the science appears to show a relationship between the ratio of saturated and unsaturated fats consumed, particularly polyunsaturated fats. This book describes that science quite well-

            https://www.redpenreviews.org/reviews/eat-drink-and-be-healthy/

            But going back to that nutrients vs whole foods, there might be more than just the fats at play. This piece by Colin Campbell is a bit of a manifesto against nutritional reductionism, and suggests that the animal proteins themselves might play more of a role than we had thought:

            https://nutritionstudies.org/is-saturated-fat-really-that-bad/

            When you put whole diets to the test, what starts to become most consistent is how the most whole-plant-dominant diets by far achieve the most remarkable results. It’s apparent in the Adventist Health Studies, the Esselstyn Heart Disease Reversal diet, as well as Dean Ornishes full lifestyle intervention program. The latter two claim they can reverse heart disease, which is a controversial claim. More study is needed to prove whether that’s true or false, but regardless it’s still apparent that these fully plant-based dietary interventions do more than any others to restore people to good health.

            And it’s a thing where science and personal experience match. If you check out the online whole-food plant-based support communities, you see people routinely report almost miraculous changes to their health and wellbeing in a matter of weeks or even days. It’s the kind of thing that once you experience it fully enough, you don’t want to go back.

            https://adventisthealthstudy.org/studies/AHS-2/findings-lifestyle-diet-disease

            https://my.clevelandclinic.org/departments/wellness/integrative/esselstyn-program

            https://www.ornish.com/

      • Rob@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Try watching the documentary “You are what you eat” on Netflix, it’s a good intro that covers the health risks of other animal products as well.

        • howrar@lemmy.ca
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          I don’t get much time to watch videos these days so I’m not going through the Netflix series. Though it looks like it’s based off this paper, and that I can look through.

          They studied 22 pairs of twins, intervened by changing their diets so that one gets a vegan diet and the other an omnivore diet, then measured a bunch of stuff via blood and stool samples. I don’t see mention of how they correct for multiple hypotheses, but I’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt here.

          They found statistical significance in two places

          • LDL-C: Participants all start out in a healthy range, and they stay in a healthy range. So while the vegans improved on this measure, it also tells us that omnivores are perfectly healthy as well.
          • Fasting insulin levels: Same as LDL-C. Start off healthy, ended up healthy. We see the vegans having lower fasting insulin, but we don’t know if that’s a good thing or not when they’re already starting at 12.7 μIU/mL.

          So basically, the conclusion from the paper is that vegan and omnivore diets are both perfectly healthy, but you might gain slight benefits from going vegan.

          • Rob@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Thanks for looking that up. I’m no dietician or medical expert myself, so I have to go by the more easily digestible media. That does run the risk of being more sensationalised.

            One thing I did take away from the Netflix series was that both the omnivore diet and vegan one were designed to be well-balanced. Everything in moderation works well, I suppose.

  • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I dunno, I think I’m on the side of “it might taste great but if it’s vegan it doesn’t meet the definition of cheese.”

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      So I don’t necessarily agree in general, it depends on how you define milk… If you curdle a liquid and it becomes cheese like, it’s probably cheese? Unless milk can only come from mammals/animals.

      • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I would, in fact, definite milk as only coming from a mammal. Coconut milk or soy milk or nut milk or whatever else may superficially resemble milk but they’re pretty fundamentally not the same sort of substance as milk.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          There are texts going back to the 8th century talking about almond milk. That ship sailed before Columbus.

          • accideath@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Just because it’s called the same, doesn’t mean it generally is. In Germany we have something called “Scheuermilch”, which literally translates into “abrasion milk”. The only property it shares with milk or even plant-milk is its colour. It’s a cleaning product. You could of course define milk more broadly as “white liquid”…

            Fun fact on the side: almond milk & co. are not allowed to be called milk on the packaging in germany. They’re usually called something along the lines of “almond drink”. Reason being because it might confuse the buyer. Scheuermilch is still allowed to be called Scheuermilch though and coconut milk is still coconut milk. So according to our government, apparently, milk can be any white liquid unless it’s a plant based substitute for cow milk. Then it’s something entirely different.

            • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              So it’s arbitrary except for the whitish color. So who do you think is pushing for the name changes, because we’ve been doing this for 1200 years now. I expect someone doesn’t want to have to put dairy or cow on their labels. Goat milk, after all, is still unquestionably milk and is still called goat milk.

        • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          We’ve called those liquids “milk” for over a thousand years

          • piecat@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Magnesium hydroxide is also known as “milk of magnesia”. Must be milk!

    • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      There was a time when the “definition” of marriage was a union between only one amab and afab person. Definitions change.

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Bro, come on man. I don’t give a fuck what you call cheese but likening dairy to sexual preference discrimination is a bit much.

          • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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            6 months ago

            There are forms of discrimination that happen to vegans, but more importantly, it’s the non-human animals who are being oppressed.

        • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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          6 months ago

          The lgbtq+ communities and vegans are both seeking justice in their own areas of concern, so it’s most definitely not extreme to compare the two.

          • Wogi@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            It’s extreme. The fact that you can’t see that it is undermines your entire argument. You’re not doing yourself any favors by saying that vegan cheese is as oppressed as gay people have been. No one’s being dragged behind a truck because they presented vegan cheese as a dairy product. No one’s shouting slurs at you.

            You alienate people who might otherwise have agreed with you.

            As an example, look at the other end of the spectrum using exactly the same, ridiculous logic. Selling vegan cheese is legal. Selling people was also once legal.

            You really believe in veganism and that’s great. I’m happy for you. But punch in your weight class my dude. Some people think vegan blue cheese is better, but it lost a competition for not technically being cheese. Some people think chili has beans, but since 1967 beans have been strictly forbidden from ICS cookoffs but the people’s choice competitions strictly require them. There are reasonable parallels to be drawn there.

            There is no reasonable parallel between vegan cheese in a cheese cookoff, and actual hatred of LGBTQ+ people

            • Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              6 months ago

              You’re straw manning their argument. They aren’t comparing the oppression of LGBTQIA+ folk to the oppression of cheese. The comparison is to the oppression of animals - who most definitely are being dragged behind the truck.

              You can, and probably would, make the argument that animals don’t deserve the same level of moral consideration as LGBTQIA+ humans, but the vegan argument is that non-human animals experience pain and suffering and deserve the same right to life and non-exploitation for the same reason that any human (LGBTQIA+ or not) does.

      • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        And I suppose it is up to the organizers of a contest over cheese to define the parameters of what constitutes cheese. But milk seems like a reasonable starting point. It is, after all, a dairy product.

        • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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          Plant-based cheeses are allowed in their competition. They technically got disqualified because one of the ingredients is some type of fat that currently doesn’t have GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status. Except they only made it an issue after the plant-based cheese had won.

          The whole resistance to reinterpreting culinary language is just nothing but anti-competitiveness.

          • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 months ago

            That actually strikes me as a extremely reasonable justification for disqualifying it. The fact that they only noticed after it won is also not particularly suspicious.

            Edit: how many alt accounts are down voting me for saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to enter in a food with potentially unsafe ingredients?

            • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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              6 months ago

              I’ll just copy and paste the same thing I replied with, above:

              Here are more details (and more context is in the article):

              "Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).

              The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.

              “It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"

              https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php

          • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Maybe they didn’t make it an issue until after because it was under their radar? Once it became the center of attention they might have thought safety of the winner was important? The vast majority of the comments in this thread don’t even seem to know why it was disqualified.

            This whole thread strikes me as odd.

            • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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              6 months ago

              Here are more details (and more context is in the article):

              "Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).

              The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.

              “It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"

              https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If we can define plant products as milk then we could also define cows as plants. It would make vegan chili contests more interesting.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’ve had a few good vegan cheeses. Not all of it is 1 to 1 with the real deal, but a lot ends up being good in its own way. Just wish it wasn’t so damn expensive. Hopefully that changes over time. Lactose doesn’t agree with me so the more (affordable) non-dairy options there are, the happier I am.

      • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Genuine question: how would cheese be considered “murder” in this sense (unless you’re just going along with the original comment), I guess another way to weird it would be how is cheese bad, according to veganism and vegetarianism?

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          As far as the murder part goes, dairy cows are mostly all killed very quickly after they stop producing milk. They are almost never allowed to live out their full lives. Especially, none of the cows in the larger dairy industry. The calves produced in the process are also just raised to be slaughtered. Besides the murder, The act of farming dairy products is also just cruel and inhumane in practice.

          To produce milk, cows have to be kept in a pretty much constant state of pregnancy. Once the calves are born, they are immediately taken from the mother, and it is known that cows have maternal instincts that makes this painful for them. They have to be taken away, because otherwise they will drink the milk we are trying to steal from the process. Then the calf’s are raised in isolation for the first few months of their life on a milk substitute.

          That is the bare minimum amount of cruelty needed to produce milk. Obviously, our modern capitalist driven dairy industry ramps up the cruelty in many other ways to increase productivity and efficiency.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        thats like saying that the point of buying non nestle water is so that it doesnt taste like nestle water. (yes they all taste a little different, i mostly attribute that to secondary factors though)

        Also you can make cheese without murdering cows im pretty sure?

        also weird off topic question, im curious about this. But would consuming breast milk as a child be considered non vegan? I realize at this point it doesn’t really matter since you have no autonomy as a person, but i’m curious about the ethics in application to humans.

        • dracs@programming.dev
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          6 months ago

          You technically could make cheese without murdering a cow but you won’t find any made that way. Cows only produce milk for their young. To make milk they need to be repeatedly impregnated over and over again. Lifespan of a cow can be 20 years, though they are usually killed after about 5 as their milk output drops. Half of the cows they give birth to will be male and almost all killed as they don’t produce milk. Some of the females may be killed too as you’ll end up with more cows than you have room for it you keep them all.

          As for a human child, drinking human breast milk is considered vegan as long as it was given consensually. If you kidnap someone and tie them up in your basement then it wouldn’t be.

        • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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          6 months ago

          A baby human consuming their mother’s breast milk is vegan, because the mother is consenting to it. A cow cannot consent to being forcibly, artificially impregnated for the sake of producing milk. They don’t consent to having their horns chopped off. Nor do they consent to their children being stolen from them almost immediately after birth to be butchered for veal.

          Yes plant-based cheeses are intended to mimic animal cheeses. But that doesn’t mean they have to be identical. Guilt puts a tint on the things we experience, and the way we feel can be considered a dimension of flavor. I would imagine a lot of people would argue they don’t feel guilty about consuming animals or their secretions, but that’s only because they’ve never experienced any time without that guilt. If you’re used to feeling a certain way every day, you start to forget about the feeling all together, even though it’s still effecting you in the background.

          The idea with plant-based alternatives is to have all of the good properties of their animal-counterparts, and none of the bad. Cheese that’s free of the shame and guilt of causing unnecessary harm and suffering to thinking, feeling, sentient beings inherently tastes better.

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 months ago

            A baby human consuming their mother’s breast milk is vegan, because the mother is consenting to it. A cow cannot consent to being forcibly, artificially impregnated for the sake of producing milk. They don’t consent to having their horns chopped off. Nor do they consent to their children being stolen from them almost immediately after birth to be butchered for veal.

            i suppose that makes sense, so hypothetically if we solved all of those problems, it would be vegan? That sounds about right to me. And if it’s consent based, then what if the mother is forced to bear a child for example, surely that would no longer be vegan?

            Yes plant-based cheeses are intended to mimic animal cheeses. But that doesn’t mean they have to be identical.

            Yeah, but then you should probably not name it, or base it directly off of an existing cheese, in which case, fine by me. Don’t pull up with some shit that is explicitly not “blue cheese” and then call it “blue cheese” though. That’s just lying.

            The idea with plant-based alternatives is to have all of the good properties of their animal-counterparts, and none of the bad. Cheese that’s free of the shame and guilt of causing unnecessary harm and suffering to thinking, feeling, sentient beings inherently tastes better.

            i mean, i guess so, but then at that point we start getting into philosophy and nihilistic shit starts to crop up. But any improvement is a potential improvement i suppose. It’s incredibly hard, if not impossible, to live a truly “net zero” lifestyle. Even monks don’t do it, and they don’t do shit.

            • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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              6 months ago

              Only replying to your last point, and on that I only have to say that perfection is the enemy of greatness. The vegan philosophy is about doing the best we can, within practical limits. I can’t stop myself from breathing or my mere existence causing harm to beings I can’t even see, but doing more feasible actions like abstaining from animal consumption and electing not to purchase or use other animal products has substantial benefits that are felt.

              • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                6 months ago

                yeah that’s fair enough. But then again it is called veganism for a reason. I suppose i would probably rather it be called something more broad, if it’s actually less about the actual consumption, and more about the morals and technicalities of how things work.

                • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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                  6 months ago

                  I do think the name itself is problematic. To anyone unfamiliar to the ideas, the word hints at something to do with vegetables, and yes that currently plays a role, but it’s not the point. It’s more of an animal rights milieu, and plants are only relevant at this point in time because it’s the least harmful way humans can sustain themselves for now. But that ignores that animal rights go far beyond diet, and that fact tends to get lost during any outreach since all most people are thinking about is the foods they dread to give up.

        • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Parmesan and some other varieties of cheese involve rennet, which is sometimes* made from the stomach lining of young cows.

          • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I was actually just teasing him about a typo that makes it sound like he’s eating bird cheese.

        • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          fight cheese 💪🏼 🐦‍⬛ 💪🏼 the first alcoholic, dairy-based protein cheese for bodyguards by bodyguards 💥🐄

    • Muscar@discuss.online
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      6 months ago

      Many have gotten super good in the last few years. I’ve had some people who are very hard to get to admit to liking anything vegan ask what brand and where to buy it after they tasted it. Everything from blue cheese and brie to feta, smoked cheddar, parmesan and mozzarella. There are also many really good, both simple and more complicated recipes online to make your own of basically any kind.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Since it was actually disqualified for being made from an ingredient that’s not approved for human consumption by the FDA you might not want to buy it.

      It was disqualified before the announcement was made. Dairy farmers didn’t even know it was going to win.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That’s not true. There’s no reason to believe kokum requires GRAS affirmation since it’s been historically and widely consumed on the Indian subcontinent. That means it’s grandfathered in as GRAS by default even if it’s not included in their lists.

        The FDA not yet giving it GRAS affirmation is not the same as it not being approved for human consumption. Specifically, the FDA did not raise any concerns to a GRAS notice that it has already received for kokum butter as a cocoa butter substitute.

        A substance used in food prior to January 1, 1958, may be generally recognized as safe through experience based on its common use in food when that use occurred exclusively or primarily outside of the United States if the information about the experience establishes that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use within the meaning of section 201(u) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act

  • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Unbelievably shitty ragebait journalism.

    The traditional cheesemaking company is freaking out (really?) about Climax Blue, especially because the vegan cheese was so delicious that it had slated (it had slated did it?) to win the overall competition

    Though yes, there is a bit of controversy here, but at least the Washington Post tries to explain it in a less incredibly-biased way - https://wapo.st/3xQCcYX