Sundays are the Did You Know question days on the EcoVeganic blog. Some people may know these things, and some may not. Leave a comment and lets see how many of you knew and how many of you didn't know. This week I decided to do one about cheese

We all know that most people love cheese and it comes in all different forms. Did you also know that traditionally the first step to making cheese is to kill a newborn calf and remove its stomach to make rennet? Rennet is derived from the inner lining of the abomasum, the fourth stomach of the calf or any other animal classified as a ruminant.

The cheesemaker would scrape the stomach and then dry it in the sun after stretching it on a rack. Once dried, the stomach is cut into strips or squares. The strips or squares are then soaked in cold water and washed thoroughly before being placed in milk. Alternatively the strips or squares are dried and ground, then finally mixed with a salt solution to extract rennin.

Rennin is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary as "a coagulating enzyme occurring in the gastric juice of the calf, forming the active principal of rennet and able to curdle milk." The cheese industry prefers a broader definition of rennin, calling it "any enzyme used for the controlled coagulation of milk."

Placed in milk, rennin or rennet breaks down a protein called kappa casein that keeps milk in liquid form. The breaking down of kappa casein leads to coagulation of the milk that will become cheese. Another term used for rennin is chymosin.

Thankfully not all cheese is made with animal-derived rennet. There are a number of rennetless cheeses whose coagulating enzymes are vegetable, microbial, and unfortunately genetically engineered.

Some rennetless cheeses that have acidic levels high enough not to require enzymes for coagulation are cottage cheese, ricotta, and some varieties of mozzarella. Rennetless has also become a generic term for any cheese made without any animal derived enzymes.

Vegetable rennet usually means the enzyme was plant based. The phrase is an oxymoron because rennet implies it is animal derived. To add to the confusion, enzymes produced using microbes are often included in this category. What types of plants have been used to produce these enzymes? In the past, eager cheese makers have utilized plants like lady's bedstraw (Galium verum or curdwort), stinging nettle, fig leaves, melon, safflower, and wild thistle.

Microbial rennet can be produced by fermentation of the fungus Mucor miehe, Mucor Pusillus, and Endothia cryphonectria or from bacteria like Bacillus subililis or Bacillus prodigiosum. This type of rennet cannot be used to make cheddar or hard cheeses.

Genetically engineered rennet arose out of economic necessities. Supplies of animal rennet have always fluctuated and shortages have occurred. Supply problems have led to all types of research including one attempt in 1997 to create rennet from fish stomach mucosa, a waste product of the fishing industry. With bioengineered rennet the supply is always available and less expensive.

The bioengineering process involves taking a calf's prochymosin gene and inserting it into genomes of bacteria and yeast. In 1989 a microbial chymosin first appeared on the FDA's GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) list. In March 1990, after a 28-month review, the FDA approved a bioengineered form of rennin as the first genetically engineered product for human consumption.

According to information obtained from Whole Foods Market, "it is estimated that 70% of domestic cheese (in the United States) is produced with bioengineered chymosin. The producers of bioengineered rennet claim that their process will end the cheese industry's reliance on slaughtered calves.

A problem for vegetarian consumers is determining whether a particular cheese contains animal ingredients. The FDA does not require that the cheese ingredient label denote the type of rennet. The FDA considers it impractical for cheese producers to have variations of labels to indicate what is included in enzyme mixtures. Cheese makers can mix animal, plant, and microbial varieties and just label them "enzymes.

Whole Foods, in a survey of one of its Texas markets, found eight different ways enzymes were listed on cheese packages. They reported the following: enzymes, microbial enzymes (non-animal, rennetless), rennetless, rennet, enzymes and rennet, vegetarian rennet, and microbial coagulants. They found a large portion of the labels just had the word "enzymes." A few of the labels did not list any coagulant. VIP's survey of local market chains found similar results with most cheeses listing the generic term "enzymes" or failing to list any coagulant. Imported cheeses either listed "rennet" or had no ingredient list.

Trader Joe's has produced a colorful pamphlet titled Rennet that is available in all stores. The publication briefly discusses the use of rennet in making cheese and provides information on the types of rennet. Most important, it classes the cheeses they sell by the type of coagulant used. As a bonus they tell which cheeses do not contain rBST (recombinant Bovine Somatotropin), a synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone.

Navigating the minefield of cheese seems rather simple for the VIP editors. Eliminate the cheese. If it's made in Europe it's likely to have animal rennet but no rBST. If it is produced in the United States, it's likely to contain rBST and who knows what kind of coagulant. We always recommend that people read labels, but in this case the label may not provide complete or accurate information about the coagulant used.

The ethical dilemma for lacto vegetarians or lacto-ovo vegetarians is eating a product that was produced by killing an animal. Choosing a soy cheese may be a solution for the rennet dilemma, but soy or other types of vegetarian cheeses present their own problems. Many of these imitation cheeses contain casein, a milk protein. Any cheese labeled "vegan" should not contain animal-derived rennet or casein. However, it is important to read the label carefully because some manufacturers may not be aware that certain ingredients are animal-based.

Even though some vegetarian cheeses don't have the mouth feel and elasticity of rennet and casein cheeses, they're healthier and far more humane. Somehow, cutting a calf's stomach into pieces to create cheese, or inserting a calf gene into bacteria and yeast to produce bioengineered cheese is not very appealing. Next time, hold the cheese, please!


Sources: http://www.vegparadise.com

Jeff Tietz wrote an article, Boss Hog, for the RollingStone.com about Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world. Boss Hog might pose challenging for those with weak stomachs, every one should read it.

Smithfield has killed 27 million hogs last year. The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson.

Tietz wrote that, Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs -- anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

I am furious, how is it that people are not charged with animal cruelty? How is it that this can happen? How is this any different than a person hoarding cats and letting them reproduce to the point of not being able to properly care for them? Why would anyone treate an animal like that, see or know of their living conditions and eat it anyways?

Smithfield's holding ponds -- the company calls them lagoons -- cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. The liquid in them is not brown. The interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs turn the lagoons pink.

120,000 square feet per however many "lagoons" polute our world just so people can what? Eat bacon and clog their arteries? Why is it that no one worries about pollution until they HAVE to worry and no one cares or puts much thought into their health until they HAVE to do so? Why are people so ignorant?

And is it possible that H1N1 (swine flu) linked to Smithfield? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company website.

According to Tom Philpott, the outbreak of this particular strain of flu, which is caused by virus found in pigs, originated in the Mexican state of Veracruz, where Smithfield subsidiary Granjas Carroll raises about a million hogs a year, Philpott reports.

He points to a timeline of the outbreak on the blog Biosurveillance that documents a "respiratory disease outbreak" in the small Veracruz town of La Gloria, where about 60% of the population of about 3,000 has been affected by what's been characterized as a "strange" outbreak of acute respiratory infection leading to some cases of bronchial pneumonia. According to Biosurveillance:

Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.

Philpott notes that the Mexico City daily La Jornada has reported on the possible connection between the flu outbreak and Smithfield's operations, noting that a Mexican health agency has acknowledged that the original carrier of the disease may have been the flies that breed in the company's hog waste lagoons.

Check out this video for more information: CNN Reports Swine Flu Inhumane Factory Farming Root Cause According to Dr. Michael Greger states that the last episode of swine flu came from a factory farm.



Sources:grist.com, SouthernStudies.org, RollingStone.com, photo by doveimaging.com

Alexia Chipotle Roasted Sweet Potatoes & Vegetables with Field Roast Smoked Apple Sausage, that's what! Well in this house anyways.
Alexia's Select Sides are amazingly delicious, every bite comes packed with a flavor that drives your tastebuds screaming for more. Black beans, sweet corn, red bell peppers, onions and a chipotle-infused oil blend with a touch of olive oil, some cilantro, salt, cumin, coriander, honey* (not considered vegan to some) make up the ingredients in a bag of this Alexia Select Sides.
Field Roast Smoked Apple Sage Sausage is made of vital wheat gluten, dried apples, yukon gold potatoes, onion powder, barely malt, garlic, natural hickory smoke flavor with torula yeast, sea salt, spices and rubbed sage.
This recipe is definitely one we will be having again. Especially since it is a real quick one that can be done in as little as 15 minutes, prep time and all.
Included in the above photo is a picture of the chipotle Field Roast, it is not included in the meal I made tonight, however I am sure it would be just as good if you are wanting a spicier flavor.

*Its is a matter of scientific debate and personal choice when it comes to honey being vegan or not. However, since many of you may view honey as non-vegan I will always label what foods or recipes are made with honey.