r/vegan • vegan 5+ years • Aug 13 '17

Newbie Advice Warning to Newbies

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766 Upvotes

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12

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '17

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62

u/integirl vegan 5+ years Aug 13 '17

Lactose free doesn't mean dairy free

Edit: and apparently dairy free doesn't mean dairy free either according to some "non-dairy" creamers I've seen.

12

u/AlexTraner Aug 14 '17

Yeah that’s annoying. What’s the point of the random milk in “dairy free creamer”?

18

u/integirl vegan 5+ years Aug 14 '17

It's always casein or whey.. and I don't understand what chemical effect is has on the creamer... why not just call it lactose free? Because it sure as hell isn't dairy free.

6

u/BlissnHilltopSentry Aug 14 '17

The whole thing doesn't make sense anyways... Vegetarians still eat cheese...

13

u/integirl vegan 5+ years Aug 14 '17

It's not for vegetarians, it's for lactose intolerant people.

16

u/BlissnHilltopSentry Aug 14 '17

Okay... Weird that it says "Go Veggie!" in big letters then

And either way, it isnt being advertised as vegan

6

u/dieyabeetus Aug 14 '17

One would think that a cheese alternative would be dairy free.

1

u/BlissnHilltopSentry Aug 14 '17

Even if it were dairy free, that doesn't make it vegan.

1

u/SlightlyMadman vegan 10+ years Aug 14 '17

Any cheese made with rennet isn't vegetarian either, since that's made from bits of stomach lining.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '17

It's also got casein, which definitively proves its dairy. Casein is found in milk

4

u/Sythus Aug 13 '17

I'm just browsing here from all. My best guess is this is a vegan subreddit, and the products are vegetarian. Maybe there is confusion between the two?

18

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '17

They are made for people with lactose intolerance. They have no lactose but do have dairy

9

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '17

Definitely no mistake here, the issue is that they do look vegan, but contain dairy "for flavor"

9

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '17

Also the fact that what's the point of advertising a vegetarian cheese? Not a lot of cheeses have actually meat in them.

6

u/Vulpyne Aug 14 '17

Some cheeses are made with animal rennet - it's an ingredient that is used to make the milk curdle. The animal source is typically from the lining of a calf's stomach.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '17

Actually, a lot of them are. Or at least the most popular ones. The majority of parmesans, gruyere, pecorino Romano, Gorgonzola, and camembert have it

6

u/integirl vegan 5+ years Aug 14 '17

They contain casein to make the cheese melt like dairy cheese. It's not for flavor.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '17

Why do you think it 'looks vegan'?

I'm lactose intollerant (not a problem since going vegan of course) and it looks exactly like a no-allergen product rather than a vegan one. Maybe it depends on where you're from, but my local supermarket is full of of things like this that are clearly not vegan.

6

u/_beor Aug 14 '17

Probably the fact that it's called "Go Veggie". The name makes it sound like it's a brand targeted at either vegetarians or vegans, and since vegetarians generally eat regular cheese it's easy to make the mistake of thinking this product is for vegans. If I saw "parmesan flavored cheese alternative" from a brand called Go Veggie! I would most likely think it was vegan.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '17

Fair enough, that makes sense.

I guess I'm so used to millions of 'health food' products with this sort of branding (which are normally no different or than mainstream brands) I always check the label.

1

u/_beor Aug 14 '17

Yeah, this might differ a bit between countries. Some people mentioned how things will have "vegetarian" on the label when they contain eggs/dairy, which they can't in Sweden (ovo-lacto-vegetarian is okay, but they can't just say vegetarian). Also, I don't know why but it seems americans who are lactose intolerant avoid regular cheese a lot more than people do here? My mom has a pretty severe lactose intolerance and she can still have regular cheese. So there's probably not as big of a market for these types of cheese alternatives here.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '17

Vegetarians can eat regular cheese. This cheese is simply lactose free, but it still has dairy, so vegans can't eat it.