List of safe cheeses made with animal rennet

[Rinse & rePeat]

Thank you so much for this good information! I have read sooo many cheese labels. I am at the grocery store for hours ? and have gotten fooled multiple times. Very helpful!

Oh me too!

 

[Lollipop2]

There are tons of cheese with rennet, which makes them unsuitable for vegetarians, but they almost always contain "cultures" or "microbial bacterias" too, which makes them not Ray Peat recommended.

The cultures are okay it is the enzymes that are not. Cultures have been used in cheese making for like hundreds of years.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

The cultures are okay it is the enzymes that are not. Cultures have been used in cheese making for like hundreds of years.

Cultures are the very thing in yogurt he recommends avoiding. Apparently they are questionable, but people on the forum eat yogurt anyway. People have been eating grains for thousands of years, it doesn't mean Ray Peat recommends them.

Edit: all cultures are not bad, but because cheeses don't have listed what cultures cheese makers are using, RP says to stay away from cultures as they are "questionable". I like that true roquefort lists the culture they use which is penicillin.

 

[Lollipop2]

Cultures are the very thing in yogurt he recommends avoiding. Apparently they are questionable, but people on the forum eat yogurt anyway. People have been eating grains for thousands of years, it doesn't mean Ray Peat recommends them.

Edit: all cultures are not bad, but because cheeses don't have listed what cultures cheese makers are using, RP says to stay away from cultures as they are "questionable". I like that true roquefort lists the culture they use which is penicillin.

Some great Italian mountain cheeses and others mention the type of cultures as well. Like everything - we have to be full on label readers

He likes masa harina - tortillas which of course is a grain. I just mention to not speak in “extreme” terms about Ray and what he likes and doesn’t. Apparently he recently spoke about oat bran. What is interesting about Ray is reading and listening to his old interviews and then comparing with new ones. Fascinating really.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Some great Italian mountain cheeses and others mention the type of cultures as well. Like everything - we have to be full on label readers

He likes masa harina - tortillas which of course is a grain. I just mention to not speak in “extreme” terms about Ray and what he likes and doesn’t. Apparently he recently spoke about oat bran. What is interesting about Ray is reading and listening to his old interviews and then comparing with new ones. Fascinating really.

I quoted exactly what he said, "cultures" without labeling what they are are "questionable. People can be extreme or not, that is not for me or you to decide what people should and should not hear. I for one eat cheese with cultures since i don't have access to better stuff. He "likes" masa tortillas, but he doesn't claim them to be "optimal". We don't tuck under the rug what what we don't like to hear. He said it and that's it. Nobody is taking away anyones beloved masa or cheese with cultures.

 

[Lollipop2]

I quoted exactly what he said, "cultures" without labeling what they are is "questionable. People can be extreme or not, that is not for me or to decide what people should and should not hear. I for one eat cheese with cultures since i don't have access to better stuff. He "likes" masa tortillas, but he doesn't claim them to be "optimal". We don't tuck under the rug what what we don't like to hear. He said it and that's it. Nobody is taking away anyones beloved masa or cheese with cultures.

Why the attack @Rinse & rePeat? Ray was asked which two foods he would want on a deserted Island. He said cheese and tortillas to make tacos.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Why the attack @Rinse & rePeat? Ray was asked which two foods he would want on a deserted Island. He said cheese and tortillas to make tacos.

I am not attacking Lollipop2 I am just responding to you asking me please not be extreme. I kinda thought that was a little dampening of my comments. I thought I was being nicer.

 

[Lollipop2]

I am not attacking Lollipop2 I am just responding to you asking me please not be extreme. I kinda thought that was a little dampening of my comments. I thought I was being nicer.

I’ll pm you.

 

[Jennifer]

Cultures are the very thing in yogurt he recommends avoiding. Apparently they are questionable, but people on the forum eat yogurt anyway. People have been eating grains for thousands of years, it doesn't mean Ray Peat recommends them.

Edit: all cultures are not bad, but because cheeses don't have listed what cultures cheese makers are using, RP says to stay away from cultures as they are "questionable". I like that true roquefort lists the culture they use which is penicillin.

Is it the cultures or the byproduct of bacterial fermentation, lactic acid, that Ray thinks is an issue? I ask because he told me in an email exchange that he recommends cottage cheese and I'm almost certain I've heard him say strained yogurts are fine. I've been having Good Culture cottage cheese daily thinking it was okay so if you don't mind posting the quote where Ray says (certain) cultures should be avoided, I'd be very grateful. I don't want to get too extreme with my dietary choices, but I respect Ray's opinion and will cut back on my intake if he thinks the cultures are problematic.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Is it the cultures or the byproduct of bacterial fermentation, lactic acid, that Ray thinks is an issue? I ask because he told me in an email exchange that he recommends cottage cheese and I'm almost certain I've heard him say strained yogurts are fine. I've been having Good Culture cottage cheese daily thinking it was okay so if you don't mind posting the quote where Ray says (certain) cultures should be avoided, I'd be very grateful. I don't want to get too extreme with my dietary choices, but I respect Ray's opinion and will cut back on my intake if he thinks the cultures are problematic.

He doesn't eat a variety of cheeses because he says they are hard to find with ONLY rennet.

https://raypeatforum.com/community/attachments/cheese-mp3.11165/

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

It is the not knowing about the name of bacteria culture that makes Ray Pear question it's safety. Roquefort is quite forthcoming about the bacteria it uses, why don't other companies? I read a study years ago about a woman scientist demonstrating how bad yeasts and cultures can be in our food supply, by using vaginal cultures to make bread rise. It certainly doesn't mean it is healthy to eat, or even appealing to eat if one knew where the bacteria came from in the cheese they are eating. That is why Ray pretty much only eats Parmigiano Reggiano.

Redirect Notice

"Culture is a generic term for bacteria / molds. They give the cheese its flavour, make each cheese unique and allow cheeses to ripen for a long time without spoiling. They also make the milk more acidic, which allows the rennet to separate the proteins and fats from the water in the milk, making cheese!

Rennet is the name for several enzymes which make cheese in some animals stomachs so that they can better digest the milk."


View: https://www.reddit.com/r/cheesemaking/comments/gjw2c5/culture_vs_rennet_what_is_the_difference/

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

"Rennet is a mixture of enzymes used to coagulate cheese. Originally it was available only from the fourth stomach of calves, and was scarce and expensive, or was available from microbial sources, which often suffered from bad tastes. With the development of genetic engineering, it became possible to extract rennet-producing genes from animal stomach and insert them into certain bacteria, fungi or yeasts to make them produce chymosin, the key enzyme in rennet.[52][53] The genetically modified microorganism is killed after fermentation and chymosin isolated from the fermentation broth, so that the Fermentation-Produced Chymosin (FPC) used by cheese producers is identical in amino acid sequence to the animal source.[54] The majority of the applied chymosin is retained in the whey and some may remain in cheese in trace quantities.[34] In ripe cheese, the type and provenance of chymosin used in production cannot be determined.[54]
FPC was the first artificially produced enzyme to be registered and allowed by the US Food and Drug Administration. FPC products have been on the market since 1990 and have been considered in the last 20 years the ideal milk-clotting enzyme.[55] In 1999, about 60% of US hard cheese was made with FPC[56] and it has up to 80% of the global market share for rennet.[57] By 2008, approximately 80% to 90% of commercially made cheeses in the US and Britain were made using FPC.[54] Today, the most widely used Fermentation-Produced Chymosin (FPC) is produced either by the fungus Aspergillus niger and commercialized under the trademark CHY-MAX®[58] by the Danish company Chr. Hansen, or produced by Kluyveromyces lactis and commercialized under the trademark MAXIREN®[59] by the Dutch company DSM."

What did Ray Peat meant about the horrible enzymes in cheese

I dont quite understand. What do we have to look for. I dont really understand how cheese is made. I now it is made traditionally with "rennet", stuff from one of the cow stomachs. Now they make GMO rennet like stuff from fungi or bacteria, is that what he meant. Or are fungi and bacteria like...

raypeatforum.com

 

[Jennifer]

He doesn't eat a variety of cheeses because he says they are hard to find with ONLY rennet.

https://raypeatforum.com/community/attachments/cheese-mp3.11165/

Thank you for going through the trouble of posting the clip and other information, Rinse. I appreciate it. I was hoping you could post the quote (or interview) where Ray says to “stay away from cultures because they are questionable.” In the above clip he doesn’t mention cultures, just seaweed and other gums, and says he doesn’t eat fresh cheese because he can’t find any without added enzymes. I’ve known his issue with enzymes but like I mentioned in my last comment, he told me he recommends cottage cheese and I’m almost certain, strained yogurts, because the lactic acid is discarded in the whey portion. I just don’t want others or myself to have to avoid, or reduce our consumption of, yet another food if there really isn’t an issue with it. Speaking for myself, it’s hard enough finding cheese without added enzymes/vegetable (or vegetarian) rennet, let alone cultures, and I don’t have access to the quantity of raw milk that would be needed to make my own. I know of a fair amount of cheese without added enzymes, gums/thickeners, vitamins and preservatives I could list here that should be available at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Targets and Walmarts across the US, but most contain cultures or cultured milk.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Thank you for going through the trouble of posting the clip and other information, Rinse. I appreciate it. I was hoping you could post the quote (or interview) where Ray says to “stay away from cultures because they are questionable.” In the above clip he doesn’t mention cultures, just seaweed and other gums, and says he doesn’t eat fresh cheese because he can’t find any without added enzymes. I’ve known his issue with enzymes but like I mentioned in my last comment, he told me he recommends cottage cheese and I’m almost certain, strained yogurts, because the lactic acid is discarded in the whey portion. I just don’t want others or myself to have to avoid, or reduce our consumption of, yet another food if there really isn’t an issue with it. Speaking for myself, it’s hard enough finding cheese without added enzymes/vegetable (or vegetarian) rennet, let alone cultures, and I don’t have access to the quantity of raw milk that would be needed to make my own. I know of a fair amount of cheese without added enzymes, gums/thickeners, vitamins and preservatives I could list here that should be available at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Targets and Walmarts across the US, but most contain cultures or cultured milk.

Because I don't have the time to go through all of his intervies and articles I posted above this. It is the unknown bacteria and mold source that CAN cause problems. He is not saying it will, but it is a gamble. Like eating that innocent looking loaf of bread I posted above that can give you thrush.

"Culture is a generic term for bacteria / molds. They give the cheese its flavour, make each cheese unique and allow cheeses to ripen for a long time without spoiling. They also make the milk more acidic, which allows the rennet to separate the proteins and fats from the water in the milk, making cheese!"

 

[Birdie]

I'm not finding much rennet (animal rennet) cheese lately. I got some Jarlsberg and a little Red Wax Gouda at Fresh Market last week. They both list "enzymes" at the end of the ingredients.

I can't feel sure that the ingredient lists are really what's in it anymore though. The store cuts wedges of cheese and prints labels but if the ingredients change, you can't be sure the store would note that.

I just do the best I can with it.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

I'm not finding much rennet (animal rennet) cheese lately. I got some Jarlsberg and a little Red Wax Gouda at Fresh Market last week. They both list "enzymes" at the end of the ingredients.

I can't feel sure that the ingredient lists are really what's in it anymore though. The store cuts wedges of cheese and prints labels but if the ingredients change, you can't be sure the store would note that.

I just do the best I can with it.

Me too. I eat grass fed cheddar and mozzarella with the questionable cultures and enzymes and just cross my fingers. I have access to rennet only parmesan, but for histamine reasons I avoid aged foods. Like Ray Peat says, you can find good rennet only cheeses, but not made in the USA. I have access to rennet only cheeses from olioandolive.com, but I don't want to pay the expensive shipping charges. A couple of their rennet only cheeses are SO GOOD.

Olio&Olive is an online gourmet store for the finest Italian olive oils, plus a tightly scrutinized and edited assortment of excellent olives, balsamic vinegars, pastas, extra virgin olive oil, tomato sauces, seafood, charcuterie meats, cheeses, cure

 

[Jennifer]

Because I don't have the time to go through all of his intervies and articles I posted above this.

I see. My apologies. I thought you had the quote from Ray or knew of the interview where he said to avoid cultures. I was hoping for his opinion and the article, Reddit/recipe and Wiki quote you posted above, though interesting, weren’t written by him so I’ll just continue going through his interviews or maybe email him for his opinion on cultures and post it here if I do. Thank you for your time and effort.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

I see. My apologies. I thought you had the quote from Ray or knew of the interview where he said to avoid cultures. I was hoping for his opinion and the article, Reddit/recipe and Wiki quote you posted above, though interesting, weren’t written by him so I’ll just continue going through his interviews or maybe email him for his opinion on cultures and post it here if I do. Thank you for your time and effort.

I will see where else he has written about it and post back here. I sent him an e-mail about it this morning too, so hopefully, between us, an answer will come back soon ?

 

[Jennifer]

I will see where else he has written about it and post back here. I sent him an e-mail about it this morning too, so hopefully, between us, an answer will come back soon ?

Oh, perfect! Thank you!

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

The reply I got back from Ray Peat this morning is calling one!

"In 2015 and 2016, I noticed that my favorite cheeses experienced sudden changes in consistency, become softer and moister. About a week after the change in texture, I would get sick, and change to another cheese. In sequence, the same thing happened to three of cheeses that I ate regularly. This was a time when the world cheese production was shifting rapidly to “vegetarian rennet.” Allergenic traces of the genetically modified Aspergillus niger and other microorganisms contaminated the enzymes, and instead of a mixture of enzymes, a single enzyme was now used, causing the different texture, taste, and moisture content of the new industrial cheeses. Wisconsin and Vermont cheeses were among the first to change, then about 5 years later, following changes in most European brands, Tillamook’s prize winning sharp white chedder was changed by using the engineered enzymes. Many other people experienced the same things I did, but assumed that it was a matter of the deterioration of their own health, rather than the nature of the cheese.

Cheese: The GMO food die-hard GMO opponents love, but don't want to label

In cheese production, the need to use traditional rennet obtained from calf stomachs has largely been removed because of a little-known success of biotechnology: fermentation-produced chymosin.

geneticliteracyproject.org

Cheese: The GMO food die-hard GMO opponents love, but don’t want to label
Jon Entine, XiaoZhi Lim | November 2, 2018

This article or excerpt is included in the GLP’s daily curated selection of ideologically diverse news, opinion and analysis of biotechnology innovation.
Slammed by critics, Chipotle has been forced to back track on its non GMO claims. Its beef, pork and chicken are sourced from farm animals fed with GMO grain. And all of its calorie-packed sodas are sweetened with GMO sugar.

But it has yet to come clean on its most controversial GMO ingredient: all of its cheese is genetically modified. That’s right. The clotting agent used to curdle the milk into cheese is genetically engineered. So much for Chipotle’s bragging claim of transparency.

In fact, almost all the hard cheeses made in the United States, and in much of the West, use a protein that is made from genetically engineered yeast and bacteria. That includes cheese made in Vermont, which passed a mandatory GMO labeling bill in 2016—that curiously exempted its iconic Vermont cheese from carrying a GMO label. So much for the consumer’s ‘right to know.’

Critics of GMOs almost never acknowledge the fact that almost all hard cheeses are GMOs. In cheese production, coagulants called rennet are used to clot milk. The primary enzyme in rennet driving the clotting process is called chymosin, which acts on milk proteins like casein and makes milk curdle.

Traditionally, rennet is obtained from the fourth stomach lining of an unweaned calf. Calves have a higher amount of rennet in their stomachs compared to adults as they use it to digest milk, their main source of food. The rennet extracted from the stomach linings is usually a mixture of chymosin, pepsin (another enzyme) and other proteins. Rennet can only be obtained once from a single, young animal. This makes it a costly necessity during cheese production. To make billions of pounds of cheese, industrial chemistry is needed to produce large quantities of rennet. Recently harvested calf stomachs are chopped up en masse, and then chemically refined to produce rennet consisting of precise ratios of various enzymes, such as chymosin and pepsin, which are needed for consistent cheese production.

Beginning in the 1960s, the price of rennet, a byproduct of the veal industry, rose and became less stable as the animal rights movement grew. Demand for cheese also soared, and cheese-makers began looking for alternative sources of rennet from plants and microbes.

Some plants and microbes naturally produce enzymes that have coagulating properties like rennet. However, rennet from these sources tend to produce other side reactions in cheese production, leading to undesirable results in taste.

So how did biotechnology come to play a role? In 1982, Genentech earned approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the medical use of insulin produced by genetically modified microbes. It was more than a boon for medicine—it also showed that GMOs were a viable substitute for animals in the production of pure proteins. In the late 1980s, scientists figured out how to transfer a single gene from bovine cells that codes for chymosin into microbes, giving microbes the ability to produce chymosin. These genetically modified microbes are allowed to multiply and cultivated in a fermentation process while they produce and release chymosin into the culture liquid. The chymosin can then be separated and purified. Chymosin produced using this method is termed fermentation-produced chymosin, or FPC.

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In 1990, the FDA approved Pfizer’s GMO-derived chymosin by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption, on the basis that it was identical to the chymosin found in animal rennet, and FPC was given Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) status. After 28 months of review, the FDA found that FPC was substantially equivalent to rennet produced from calves, thus it needed no special labeling or indication of its source or method of production. FPC is actually more pure than calf rennet, as it does not contain other proteins from the calf stomach lining that cannot be separated from calf rennet during production. “The real advantage is that it is probably a much cheaper way of producing this substance than to grow calves,” said William Grigg, an FDA employee.

Today ninety percent of the cheese in the United States is made using FPC. In the past two decades, FPC has been considered the ideal milk-clotting enzyme. The GMO-derived enzyme has been a boon for cheese manufacturing and cheese sales. The US produced about 11-billion pounds of cheese in 2013 alone, thanks in large part to the cost-effectiveness of FPC. The technology transformed the industry, making it more efficient, more environmentally friendly and less dependent on animals. FPC has been regarded as suitable for meeting vegetarian, kosher and halal requirements. However, some vegetarians consider FPC to be derived from animals as the microbes were genetically modified using bovine genetic material. In response, scientists began synthesizing the gene needed to produce a synthetic form of FPC that does not have any genetic material from animals.

GMO concerns about FPC are few compared to those directed at genetically modified crops. Recent campaigns in Vermont, a major cheese-producing state that passed a GMO-labeling law in 2016 did not address the use of FPC to make cheese; dairy products were simply exempt. The Vermont law never took effect as it was eventually superseded by federal regulations.

FPC is especially interesting for the divisive role it plays in contemporary debates over the safety of genetic engineering, and the labeling of GMO foods. Should consumers be made aware of the fact that genetically modified microbes are in their cheese? If so, how should they be made aware? It’s not as though the cheese itself is genetically modified. Neither is the chymosin that produces the cheese. Because chymosin is a protein it contains no genetic material. Any genes found in purified FPC would be present only in trace amounts, vestiges of whatever genetically modified microbe produced the chymosin.

Cheesemakers know this line of reasoning well. Chr. Hansen, a Danish company, manufactures of some of the most popular brands of FPC in the world. The company describes its FPC as “GMO-free,” because purified FPC contains little to no trace of the genetically modified fungus, Aspergillus niger, that produces it. (But because organic food cannot even be a byproduct of GMOs, Chr. Hansen states that its GMO-free FPC is not acceptable for organic cheese production.) Similarly, Tillamook, an Oregon-based dairy company, uses FPC for all but five of its dozens of cheese varieties. Tillamook representatives recently stated on the company’s blog that “after purification, the end [FPC] rennet product does not contain any genetically modified material, since it no longer contains DNA from the cow gene. It is considered non-GMO by U.S. food industry standards.”

But there is huge hypocrisy by many anti-GMO campaigners who are quick to exempt their favorite cheeses from the dastardly GMO designation by target GMO sugar. Sugar made from GMO sugar beets is genetically indistinguishable from sugar derived fr0m sugar beets or sugarcane that has not been genetically modified, but is labeled as GMO in many countries and demonized by activists

Cheese is a foodie favorite, so it’s viewed differently. In other words, may be an unambiguous product of genetic engineering, but it is two steps removed from the genetically modified organism responsible for its existence. FPC is not allowed in organic cheese based on the certification rules in the United States, Europe and Canada, providing an option for consumers who wish to avoid FPC. Cheese with FPC are also considered a GMO by the Non-GMO Project.

A version of this story originally appeared on the GLP on May 15, 2015.

Jon Entine, executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, has been a journalist for more than 40 years, as a writer, network television news producer and author of seven books, four on genetics and risk. BIO. Follow him on Twitter @JonEntine

XiaoZhi Lim is a freelance journalist and former GLP editor and writer

The GLP featured this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. The viewpoint is the author’s own. The GLP’s goal is to stimulate constructive discourse on challenging science issues" -Ray Peat e-mai response to me