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.
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!
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
SeikoCasio outperforms the majority of mechanicals on raw accuracy.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.Ahhhhh you’re right I mixed them up :/
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.
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.
They aren’t talking about quartz watches though. Seiko makes mechanical watches that were being compared to swiss mechanical watches costing way more.
.
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.
“Our cheese is so good they had to disqualify us” would be my new slogan so fast.
Wasnt that what they did with monty python’s holy grial when it was banned in norway*?
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?
Kokum butter is edible and occasionally used to make chocolates and other confections.
deleted by creator
None of them care about that. They only care about arguing against vegan foods.
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
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.
Huh, turns out asbestos is actually delicious too
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
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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.
Web MD is crap. Also GRAS is a term that only the FDA can bestow. So yeah it’s not GRAS.
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.
I’m surprised, I’ve had all sorts of vegan cheeses and they all taste like murder
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.
This is blue cheese, so that tracks
The point of vegan cheese is that they most certainly do not taste like murder. 😁
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?
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.
Add to the fact that the dairy industry feeds into the veal industry.
In addition to the above, there’s also the use of animal rennet made from calf stomach linings
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Crows are friends not food!
What the hell kind of cheese are you eating?
Parmesan and some other varieties of cheese involve rennet, which is sometimes* made from the stomach lining of young cows.
I was actually just teasing him about a typo that makes it sound like he’s eating bird cheese.
fight cheese 💪🏼 🐦⬛ 💪🏼 the first alcoholic, dairy-based protein cheese for bodyguards by bodyguards 💥🐄
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.”
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.
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.
We’ve called those liquids “milk” for over a thousand years
Magnesium hydroxide is also known as “milk of magnesia”. Must be milk!
There was a time when the “definition” of marriage was a union between only one amab and afab person. Definitions change.
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.
didn’t you know that vegans are an oppressed minority? the dairy industry is their oppressor?
There are forms of discrimination that happen to vegans, but more importantly, it’s the non-human animals who are being oppressed.
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.
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
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.
This, thank you.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
If we can define plant products as milk then we could also define cows as plants. It would make vegan chili contests more interesting.
Good luck with that.
Likewise, good luck with vegan “cheese”.
Clearly it doesn’t need luck - it’s already winning awards despite underhanded tricks.
According to the article, they didn’t win.
EDIT:
Actually I guess they did, see below.
They were slated to win, close enough.
Anyone got the actual link to buy this cheese?
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.
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
A quick search: https://climax.bio/ and https://climax.bio/findus/
Looks like you gotta go to a restaurant to taste it. Meh. I just want some bean tacos when I’m back from work that have cheese in them.
Really limited information on the actual products. Zero ingredients information too.
🤨📷
It’s not available yet, but here’s their home page.
Big Milk will not accept any threat to their cash cow! This is outrages!
So what is it called, so I can get some?
Edit: Climax Blue yes really
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
I just wanna try this cheese.
Look, I dislike blue cheese purely for the flavor, but I’ll be damned i didn’t want to try this
You can really taste the feet.
Ugh, It’s a little judgy and I actually like AI in some day-to-day search scenarios but instantly disappointed in the blue cheese company when this banner appeared across the top of their homepage. " Find out how AI is shaping the future of Food and how you can support the movement! " With links to join a mailing list.
Also, just an FYI, they aren’t selling the cheese to consumers yet, it’s only available in a handful of restaurants.
I guess vegan cheese has improved a whole lot since I last tried it.
Now if only they could make a vegan hot dog that didn’t taste god-awful…
that beyond brauts are pretty good actually
I haven’t had those, but I’m waiting for a plant-based product that tastes like a good Nathan’s or Hebrew National.
We don’t have that long.
I’ve definitely had some good hot dogs and brats. I don’t remember which stadium style hot dogs I’ve tried, but I usually go for some flavor of Field Roast.
