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.
So they can run the story time after time mentioning cheese types individually. A kind of click-baiting.
Grateful for the vegan Caesar salad dressings that substitute parmesan with cashew.
I heard Schiff likes d””k cheese
Sounds gross. but I don’t eat any cheese.
Gave up all saturated fats a few years ago when diagnosed with Heart Failure. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) in glass bottles is a good fat. Use it for sauteing and on potatoes, etc.
I thought they just put cheddar in an old sock, and hung it in the dark for a few years.
All those little bull calves are gonna go early anyway.
take Vitamin C....to bowel tolerance...
bleu cheese....
it was formal dining night on the cruise ship when my friend ordered me a Dirty Martini.
It took all of the power of the world... Zeus, Hercules etc to keep me from puking my guts out all over the table and my friends.
That was something else and i learned from the experience...inner strength, tenacity, perseverance, resolve, determination NOT to puke all over everybody..
I heard Schiff likes d””k cheese
+++++++++++
Thread winner
Head Cheese? Green Bay Packer’s fans?
Survivor had the chicken and rooster episode this week. Throughout the years there have been a wide variety of reactions. Sometimes they let the animals go. One time they idiotically killed the hen before the rooster.
This time, they killed that rooster. All the females turned away and couldn’t witness the killing. The guys who did it werent even sure how to do it. .. but they all chowed down on the animal.
Virtual signaling is hard when you are starving.
Rennet isn’t baby cow’s stomachs; it’s a protein that is produced in calves’ stomachs. It is harvested from calves that are slaughtered for veal because the calves are being slaughtered anyway; it doesn’t necessarily require the calves to be killed. Because the calves are being slaughtered anyway, it’s slightly easier to produce than extracting from live calves or producing vegetarian rennet.
I find it interesting to compare vegetarians’ objections to rennet to harvesting aborted fetuses for stem cells: babies aren’t aborted solely for stem cells (dear God, don’t get me started on the ways this isn’t always true), but stem-cell harvesting certainly does fund abortions.
That’s nothing. Ever had mountain oysters? And not know what they were till after you et?
The average idiot can be talked out of all foods to the point they only try eating rocks and twigs.
Please tell me that reindeer is a doe ...
There are versions of Parmesan not made this way. Kosher varieties, for example, use vegetable or fish enzymes rather then rennet, and taste just fine.
“ Grateful for the vegan Caesar salad dressings that substitute parmesan with cashew.” you do know that cashews are related to poison ivy? “ Cashews are indeed related to poison ivy, as they both belong to the same botanical family known as Anacardiaceae. This family includes cashews, poison ivy, poison oak, mangoes, pistachios, and sumac, among others.”
Historians think cheese was first discovered when someone stored milk in a pouch made from a sheep or goat stomach. That brave soul tasted the clotted solids and decided it was good. It’s not exactly a secret that most cheese is not vegetarian. Ignorance of modern man does not astound me anymore.
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