Posted on 10/24/2025 1:25:03 PM PDT by Red Badger
You probably don't want to know. Image Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock.com
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Every so often, the Internet rediscovers a food fact you’d think everyone already knew. But hey, we’re all still learning, right? In recent times, it was paprika and allspice. This time, it’s our old friend Parmesan cheese taking its turn in the spotlight.
"Today years old when I found out Parmesan cheese is made from baby cow’s stomach & I could go cry," one user wrote on Twitter, prompting others to learn this too. "I’m just gonna have to go full vegan at this point."
Parmesan is traditionally made from cow's milk, aged for at least 12 months in copper vats, where it is heated and other ingredients like whey and rennet are added. It's rennet that vegans, vegetarians, and anyone just a bit grossed out by eating the stomach juices of baby cows don't like the sound of.
"Animal rennet is an enzyme obtained from the fourth stomach of an unweaned calf (this can include veal calves, or even lamb and kid)," according to the Courtyard Dairy.
"At that stage in their life they’ve only consumed milk, so the natural enzyme for coagulating milk (chymosin) is present in large quantities. As the calves get older the amount of chymosin reduces and other enzymes take its place (those necessary for digesting other foodstuffs)".
VIDEO AT LINK..........................
Chymosin helps to separate the milk solids from liquid.
"For cheesemaking, rennet helps to form firm curds and is crucial in finding the right texture for your cheese," the Cheesemaker explains. "Where some recipes will use acid or an acid-producing bacteria to do this, cheesemakers use rennet to better cultivate the final flavor profile of their cheese."
Some cheesemakers now use vegetable rennet to create their cheeses, though most prefer to use traditional methods. This is why as a vegetarian, you should always check before you ask your waiter to dust your wets.
An earlier version of this article was published in April 2023.
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Cheese Whizz!...............
It’s why I hate cheese, yogurt...sour cream...that enzyme taste is blech!
and forget bleu cheese, if the tiniest crumb even so much as touched something, it’s a goner. :(
don’t mind ice cream though...so it’s not all dairy. but ew cheese.
No whey
I Love bleu Cheese!..................
Cheese is awesome.
Cow cheese, goat cheese, sheep cheese ... never tried yak cheese ...
OTOH, head cheese is disgusting. But it’s not actually cheese, so that’s OK.
it’s emotionally painful for me even to think about blue cheese...It’s also permanently barred me from ever ordering or dipping in ranch dressing at social functions because the two get easily mixed up and ranch just reminds me of it now.
I’m eating Colby Jack Cheese as I type this.
Never fear. Pfizer has a patent on a synthetic rennet that will be in our cheese soon.
I think it stinks ,LOL
LoL I order pizza without cheese too, but would be too embarrassed to in Europe so not there. (Mozzarella, that’s melted, is far more bearable though.)
And back in the states, I also don’t mind if a little melted jack cheese ends up on baked potato...
But that’s it.
No Cheese thread is complete without this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A
It isn’t just parmesan.
A lot of cheese requires Rennet.
You can use a plant called Rue to do much the same thing but baby calf enzymes probably smell better, and there is probably a broader variety of textures and flavors that result.
...whatever...
My love of cheese is outweighed by my love of not being plugged up.
The article didn’t mention the fact that the rennet is obtained as a byproduct from calfs processed for veal.
Blue cheese is wonderful.
That’s how cheese has been made for centuries.....
Pretty much all of them in fact, except for stuff like mozzarella and cream cheese.
So why are they singling out parmesan?
A teeny tiny bit melted ending up on a baked potato...won’t kill me. LoL
Have often felt a bit embarrassed about the cheese-less preference. Not fun having to return burgers and other foods even after explicitly stating so. Anyway, once I found out that that Johnny Depp’s daughter, who is half-FRENCH, hates cheese too...I felt vindicated. :)
https://youtube.com/shorts/XFSm-szMRSA?si=pQethSz0Eu1CVe2g
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