Benefits of Vegan Cheese

Vegan cheese is full of benefits and not just for vegans! Vegan cheese while being great for the environment and for the animals, can also benefit your health.

Allergy-friendly

Our products are made without nuts, dairy, gluten, alliums or soy, which means they are allergy-friendly and suitable for a very wide range of diets.

One of the big challenges for people with allergies is that they often have issues with multiple foods.

For example, people who are sensitive to gluten often find dairy difficult to digest too.

See Also: Dairy-Free Grated Cheese Alternative

We’ve worked hard to choose ingredients that are as allergy-friendly as possible.

That means that they’re suitable for vegetarians and vegans, as well as people who are avoiding dairy, gluten or soy for example. 

Health

Dairy cheese has traditionally been seen as a ‘good’ food, or at worst, benign - but it’s actually full of saturated fat, casein and lactose.

Casein and lactose are very common allergens, and as we age people tend to find it harder and harder to digest cheese without discomfort.

And really that’s not surprising - cows’ milk is a rich source of nutrients which is designed to grow baby calves into massive cattle - and cheese is a very concentrated form of that already-rich substance.

See Also: Dairy-Free Cream Cheese Alternative

For people who are trying to find the source of digestive issues, dairy is often one of the first items to remove from the diet.

With cheese being a key ingredient for many familiar favourite foods - especially comfort foods like pizza, lasagna and toasted sandwiches - it can actually be hugely challenging to stop eating cheese.

That’s where our plant-based cheeses come in, as a simple swap from dairy cheese. 

Environment

Research by the World Economic Forum shows dairy cheese is one of the largest greenhouse gas generators behind beef and lamb, placing it ahead of pork, chicken and eggs, but only 26 per cent of those surveyed ranked it as one of the most carbon-intensive foods.

A European brand of plant-based cheese, Violife, calculated the environmental impact of its products and found it was around 50% of the impact of their dairy equivalents. Check out the report here. 

(If you’re keen to see more about the environmental impact of different types of food, there are some cool interactive tables here.)

A large part of the reason that dairy cheese has such a big environmental impact is that cows are so big and their digestion creates so much methane.

In intensive farming situations - which is where the vast majority of cows live - they also damage soil structure and the huge amounts of fertiliser added to soil to grow enough grass to satisfy production requirements is bad for soils and for adjacent waterways. 

And of course we can’t forget the animals caught up in this situation, including the cows and calves separated from each other within days or even hours of birth.

Choosing the plant-based option really is the kindest choice for them, as well as for our own health and for the environment!