I had to look up what that is.
If it’s any help, according to wiki 90% of cheese is made with artificial enzymes, because it’s cheaper.
Comment on Why Should I...
TipRing@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Rennet makes this a much more complicated decision for vegetarians. Like, if I know that the cheese was made with bacteria-derived enzymes, then that’s cool, but it’s really hard to know and trusting random cheese is just like still eating beef sometimes, so even though I’m vegetarian and I end up being so picky about cheese that I hardly eat it anyway.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 1 day ago
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
It depends a bit om where you are and what kind of cheese. For instance in the EU, Parmigiano Reggiano always has calf rennet, otherwise it’s not allowed to have that name. Nowadays a lot of cheeses in the Netherlands do specify it on the ingredients list though.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Spoiler: milk cows get murdered as well. A milk cow is productive for about 5 years, after which they usually get slaughtered for pet food. In that time, they need to have about 3 calves, to continue producing “good returns” amount of milk daily. Two of those calves are not needed to replace the cow, so they get - guess what? - slaughtered and processed to pet food.
Stupid me grew up next to a milk farm and didn’t realize that until way later than I care to admit.
Also, I still eat cheese (reduced amounts) and that’s a moral dilemma for me.
TipRing@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I am aware and I do make every effort to reduce and remove dairy (and eggs) from my diet, but I recognize that I fall short of what I would consider vegan. Like if I’m at a party and am offered cake I’m probably going to eat it even though there’s probably egg in it, but I’m not going to order an egg-based dish, same with dairy if we’re having pizza or something. As I get older I’m increasingly lactose intolerant anyway, so I have additional incentive to avoid it.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
The important thing is that you make a conscious effort to improve. I am the same. I eat cheese and occasionally eggs - rarely even meat, but I try to overall consume very little animal products.
TipRing@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Absolutely. For me it’s all about harm reduction so as long as I am trying to improve, I can still fall short sometimes without having a crisis of conscience.
kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz 16 hours ago
That ethical problem could be solved (well, not if you are “fully” vegan, and view even keeping pets and livestock, unacceptable), by doing good small-scale production. Factory farming producing the inhuman conditions, is needed to make the operations economically sustainable, in the way it is build into capitalist systems. But if you would keep the cows well, milk products could be made quite ethically… Now of course the costs needed to do that would make milk extremely expensive, and small-scale could not replace the massive demand, so people would have to consume way less anyway.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Could be - but that would also mean taking milk away from the calves for a while. Not sure how much milk a cow would be able to continue to give and what the quality would be after the calf has had enough to outgrow infancy.
Now eggs however, those could be absolutely produced without animal suffering. Just be willing to pay more for the eggs so that hens can live free range in natural environments, and still get to continue living when they produce less or even no more eggs until they die from natural causes.
I don’t see a big ethical problem with snatching an unfertilised egg, considering that hens are able to lay like one egg a day. They won’t miss it if you take away a bunch of them and let them breed out the odd one.
kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
This is doable, especially with the cows, that have been bred to produce milk. You do not even need to separate the mom and calf, for more than a moment, to milk, so we do know it is possible. You just get less milk, than by taking the calf away, so it is not profitable in comparison. There are other problems though, like they should be able to feed mostly by pasture grazing, which takes a lot of land, and if you do not kill some of the cows and bulls for food, you will have way too many… etc.
And with eggs - yes. The EU standards for “bio” eggs are already better (very far from perfect though), so it might be possible to do profitably even. A big ethical problem with factory farming chickens right now, though, is the process of mass producing the egg-laying chickens themselves. Hens are kept, but the male chicks might be just thrown into a shredder. Even if all of them were raised, a lot of the cocks would have to be killed, since there would be carnage otherwise, as you cannot keep them together, and you have to have multiple hens more than cocks in a flock. This also applies if you keep chickens in your backyard, so there are always excess cocks being given away, that nobody wants, and many end up as food.