• johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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    7 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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      7 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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        7 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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          7 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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            7 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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              7 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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          7 months ago

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

          • piecat@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

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

    • MilitantVegan@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 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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        7 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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            7 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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          7 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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            7 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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              7 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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        7 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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          7 months ago

          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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            7 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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              7 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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            7 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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              7 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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        7 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.