The New Age of Plant-Based Cheese

From falstaff.com

What was once a compromise has become a category worth taking seriously. As producers refine fermentation, texture and flavour, Swedish innovators are among those helping plant-based cheese win over chefs, restaurants and even traditional dairies

Necessity is the mother of invention

Or, in Simon Francis’s case, frustration. “After more than two decades as a vegan, the choice of plant-based cheeses was extremely limited. They were oil-based and simply not very good — the sort of products you buy once and never again,” says Francis, explaining that he eventually decided to turn that culinary frustration into something quite literally delicious.

A genuinely good cashew-based product

Together with Silvia Todeschini, he founded a creamery in 2020. The ambition was twofold: to create a genuinely good cashew-based product that could also compete with dairy cheese. Six years on, Casheury, based in Skivarp in Skåne, southern Sweden, has become a success story. After extensive experimentation with fermentation, herbs and spices, its alternatives to products such as mozzarella and Gorgonzola are now sold in grocery shops from Kiruna in Sweden’s far north to Abbekås in the far south. In restaurants, they are served at places including the Italian eatery Piadina in Stockholm.

Where does the flavoUr come from?

“Most people who are sceptical about vegan cheese have either never tried it or have only tried older coconut-fat-based versions with no protein,” says Gustav Johansson, cookbook author and the writer behind Sweden’s most popular vegan food blog, Jävligt gott. “The flavour of dairy-based soft cheese comes primarily from bacterial cultures. What is happening now is that artisan nut-based products, whose protein allows the bacterial cultures in blue cheeses to react in a similar way, are becoming good enough — and scalable enough — to make a real impact.”

In Sweden, that scaling-up is still at an early stage. Alongside Casheury, many producers remain small and somewhat niche. One of them is the vegan cheese maker fermenting and ageing nuts and seeds at Bliss Cafe in Stockholm, whose finished products are sold mainly in its own café and at the health-food shop Fully Rawsome. Internationally, however, the trend has gathered much stronger momentum. In London, hipster pizza joints such as Voodoo Ray’s and Yard Sale top their pies with products from I Am Nut Okay. Julienne Bruno’s burrata-style Burrella is served in the Harrods Tea Rooms, while Honestly Tasty’s acclaimed blue cheese can be enjoyed at Michelin-starred institutions such as Pied à Terre. In Los Angeles, Alchemy Organica’s pungent cotija, made from grated, fermented coconut, has proved a game-changer for Mexican restaurants.

“Most people who are sceptical about vegan cheese have either never tried it or have only tried older coconut-fat-based versions with no protein. The flavour of dairy-based soft cheese comes primarily from bacterial cultures. What is happening now is that artisan nut-based products, whose protein allows the bacterial cultures in blue cheeses to react in a similar way, are becoming good enough — and scalable enough — to make a real impact.”   -     Gustav Johansson, cookbook author

In Italy and France, several major companies — among them Les Nouveaux Affineurs — have found ways to standardise production and produce convincing dairy-free Camembert at scale. It may sound counterintuitive that European countries with such deeply rooted cheese cultures are also focusing on plant-based alternatives.

Gustav Johansson believes, however, that the shift is driven by self-interest. Because there is another necessity at play beyond satisfying taste buds: climate impact. “Cheese has a higher climate footprint than pork. At the same time, it is an unrealistic utopia to solve the problem simply by telling people to stop eating it. As vegan artisan cheeses improve and become genuinely delicious, people are given a way to keep eating what they love, but with a lower climate footprint.”

Even traditional dairies are embracing the trend

Porlammin Meijeri, east of  Helsinki, was founded in 1914 and, 102 years later, began launching plant-based cheeses. “We are always looking for ways to evolve, and we believed demand for this would continue to grow. The hardest part was convincing our owners — all of them milk producers — that it was a good idea,” recalls CEO Kari Ollikainen. Today, the company offers around 15 vegan cheeses, along with versions developed for professional kitchens. “We have also been working on the next generation of plant-based hard cheeses, with much higher protein content and better flavour.”

“Yes, it is the next generation that is truly exciting right now,” Gustav Johansson agrees. The process behind a soft cheese in the style of Brie differs significantly from the technique used to make a hard cheese such as Gouda. It depends on the unique protein casein, which is difficult to replace. To mimic it, producers have relied almost exclusively on processes in which coconut fat coagulates with starch before flavourings and colourings are added. The result is often worlds apart from a classically aged hard cheese.

Determined Pioneers

A growing number of pioneers, however, are determined to crack the problem. Among them are several Swedes, including Stockeld Dreamery, founded by tech entrepreneur Sorosh Tavakoli and biotechnologist Anja Leissner in 2019. It is, in every sense, a creamery with future-facing ambitions. By analysing, combining and fermenting legumes, the company aims to find a molecular match for casein. That, in turn, could give animal-free cheese a similarly distinctive texture — one that, combined with excellent flavour, could make it a serious alternative. One of the companies it has worked with so far is Porlammin Meijeri.

“The first product was quietly launched in New York in early 2023,” says Daniel Skavén Ruben, who at the time was Stockeld’s Chief Strategy Officer, pointing out that the global cheese market is worth 100 billion dollars. “People love cheese, and they will continue to love cheese in the future. But it will be produced differently. For example, through plants combined with casein, and whey proteins that can be cultivated in bioreactors in much the same way as beer is brewed.”

"We are always looking for ways to evolve, and we believed demand for this would continue to grow. The hardest part was convincing our owners — all of them milk producers — that it was a good idea! We have also been working on the next generation of plant-based hard cheeses, with much higher protein content and better flavour.”   -   CEO Kari Ollikainen

What comes next?

After a major boom in plant-based food solutions, sales of vegan products have recently seen a sharp decline. In the autumn of 2025, Sorosh Tavakoli — himself  based in New York because “I felt an expansion into the world’s largest cheese market needed the CEO on site” — announced that Stockeld would be shutting down. Then, just two months ago, the company jubilantly declared that it had “found a new home”.

What comes next is still too early to say. It is already clear, however, that regardless of how the wider market for vegan products develops, plant-based cheese can taste genuinely good, offer strong nutritional value and generate between 70 and 90 per cent lower climate emissions than animal-based options.

That alone is a future worth looking forward to.

https://www.falstaff.com/nordics/news/the-new-age-of-plant-based-cheese

Vegans develop complex skills to navigate an omnivorous society, new research shows

From phys.org/news

Going vegan is a life-changing decision. Successfully committing to eating only ethically sourced, non-exploitative products—no dairy, no honey, no eggs, no animal output of any kind—can be daunting, especially in a society where most people are omnivorous. Foregoing meat and other animal products purely for ethical reasons can cause tension between vegans and their friends, families, partners, businesses and even other vegans.

These tensions are the subject of a new paper by Concordia researchers. Published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the study examines the relational fractures vegans sometimes experience and the strategies they use to navigate this challenge.

"We wanted to look at these fractures from the vegan perspective, since most people are omnivorous and familiar with trying to accommodate others' dietary needs," says co-author Zeynep Arsel, a professor in the Department of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business. "But what we studied can be applied in other contexts, such as driving electric vehicles."

Stressors on all sides

The study was led by Arsel's former Ph.D. student Aya Aboelenien, now an associate professor at HEC Montréal. Between 2017 and 2022, she conducted interviews, attended vegan festivals, protests and sit-ins to gain insight into how vegans managed interpersonal strains. Aboelenien also studied online news, videos, blogs and social media posts on sites like Reddit.

She classified relational fractures into three types: co-performance, co-learning, and marketplace.

• Co-performance fractures can arise when vegans introduce novel elements to shared practices or activities like family meals. Changes in dietary habits require accommodation from their regular dining companions. This shift can result in tension, misunderstanding or labelling vegans as "difficult."
• Co-learning fractures usually occur within the vegan community itself, when individuals new to veganism turn to other vegans for advice. Conflicts can arise over what constitutes vegan food and how—or even whether—to interact with non-vegans. However, this rigidity can confuse and repel those new to or interested in veganism.
• Marketplace fractures are caused by a lack of places where vegans can meet their dietary needs. Even as plant-based foods become more popular, most supermarkets and restaurants cater to omnivorous appetites and finding businesses that cater to vegan diets can be difficult.

"Many of the people I spoke to really wanted to discuss the personal struggles they faced, which in many instances discouraged them from maintaining a vegan lifestyle," Aboelenien says. "Many of them just retreated from veganism because of the stress in their personal relationships."

A range of responses

Aboelenien further identified four kinds of social skills vegans adopt to manage conflict. First is decoding, in which vegans try to explain their choices to friends and family members. They also continue learning about veganism from others in their community and developing an understanding of labels, menus and other food requirements in a mostly omnivorous marketplace.

They may also try decoupling: behaving parallel to omnivores while actively avoiding conflict triggers. Examples include preparing and/or bringing one's own meals to family gatherings so that they can share space, if not the food itself.

Other vegans practice divesting, where they avoid problematic food-related relationships whenever possible. This involves an uncompromising approach to the extent that they will not share meals with non-vegans.

Finally, chameleoning involves navigating between one's beliefs and a "go-along-to-get-along" posture, in which a person who considers themselves vegan will occasionally revert to an omnivorous diet to avoid conflict.

The researchers say the patterns identified in the study are easily transferable to other contexts.

"If you stand apart from the norm for ethical reasons, like driving an electric car or trying to live a green, sustainable life, others may take it as you trying to impose a moral lens on practices they've had for a long time," Aboelenien says.

"A lot of consumption is moral, even if we don't think it is," adds Arsel, Concordia University Research Chair in Consumption, Markets, and Society. "And when there is a moral element, it is bound to cause friction."

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-vegans-complex-skills-omnivorous-society.html 

12 Sugars Ranked: Which Vegan Sweeteners Do The Least Damage?

From plantbasednews.org

From "Satan itself" to whole food sweeteners, find out which ones truly belong in your pantry 

If you’ve ever stood in a grocery aisle wondering which sugar is the least bad option, you’re not alone. The search for the healthiest vegan sweeteners can feel confusing when every label claims to be “natural” or “better for you.” That’s exactly the problem Mic the Vegan sets out to tackle in a recent video, where he ranks 12 common sugars from least healthy to healthiest using what he calls a “sugarithm” (sugar rhythm) scoring system.

Known for breaking down nutrition studies with humour and spreadsheets, Mic explains that this ranking is not about pretending sugar is healthy. It’s about understanding relative harm, based on measurable markers like glycaemic index, antioxidant content, and documented health effects. “We all know that sugar, especially more refined sugar, is not healthy,” he says, “but why not overthink it?”

How the sugar rhythm works

Mic the Vegan ranked 12 common sweeteners according to their glycaemic index, antioxidant content, and documented health effects to determine which cause the least metabolic harm - Media Credit: Adobe Stock

Before comparing sweeteners, Mic explains the system he uses to score them, jokingly calling it the “sugarithm.” (Like an algorithm.) The ranking combines three main markers: glycaemic index, antioxidant content, and documented health effects.

The glycaemic index measures how quickly a food raises blood sugar. Mic explains, “The glycaemic index is something that is a result of giving 50 grams of carbs, not including fibre, and then measuring a blood sugar response from that food.” Foods higher in glucose tend to spike blood sugar more quickly, while fructose lowers glycaemic index but brings its own concerns when refined and consumed in large amounts.

Antioxidant content also plays a role. He references studies measuring antioxidant activity using FRAP, or ferric reducing antioxidant power, a method that evaluates how compounds counter oxidative damage at the molecular level.

Finally, he assigns additional points based on unique health effects, both positive and negative. These include links to inflammation, fatty liver disease, mineral content, or beneficial compounds such as prebiotic fibres.

The least healthy group: highly refined syrups and sugars

At the bottom of the list are brown rice syrup, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup. These sweeteners share several characteristics: extremely high glycaemic index scores, little to no antioxidant content, and heavy processing.

Brown rice syrup ranks last, largely because it is almost entirely glucose and scores poorly across all categories. Corn syrup follows closely behind for similar reasons.

High fructose corn syrup sits slightly higher, but Mic still describes it in blunt terms, calling it “Satan itself” while explaining that its glycaemic index is somewhat lower due to fructose content. However, he notes that refined fructose carries its own risks.

He explains that high intake of refined fructose has been linked to fatty liver disease and metabolic changes. He also highlights research showing increased triglycerides and LDL levels in young people after just two weeks of consuming high-fructose beverages.

Another concern involves gut permeability and inflammation. According to Mic, “Really high levels of refined fructose up against the barrier of your intestines can cause some gut permeability or leaky gut.” This process can allow endotoxins into the bloodstream and contribute to inflammation.

White refined sugar and agave nectar also fall in this lower tier. White sugar contains a 50-50 mix of glucose and fructose and has a high glycaemic index. Agave nectar, often marketed as healthy, ranks poorly because it can contain up to 90 percent fructose and provides virtually no antioxidants.

Mic cautions that even when the glycaemic index appears lower, that does not automatically make a sweetener healthy. Both refined glucose and refined fructose can contribute to oxidative stress and metabolic problems when consumed frequently.

The middle group: slightly better but still far from health foods

Adobe StockWith far fewer antioxidants than top performers like date sugar and blackstrap molasses, maple syrup landed in the middle of the ranking

Brown sugar, fruit juice concentrates, maple syrup, and unrefined cane sugar land in the middle of the ranking. These sweeteners show small improvements in antioxidant levels or glycaemic index but remain refined sources of sugar overall.

Brown sugar performs only marginally better than white sugar because it is slightly less refined and retains trace antioxidants. Fruit juice concentrates rank similarly because, while their glycaemic index can be moderate, most fibre and beneficial compounds are removed during processing.

Maple syrup surprises Mic by scoring lower than expected in antioxidant content. While it contains unique compounds, the overall antioxidant level remains low compared with top-ranking sweeteners.

Unrefined cane sugar ranks somewhat higher because of modestly higher antioxidant levels than refined sugar, though Mic emphasizes that it still should not be considered a health food.

He repeatedly reminds viewers that being higher on the list does not mean a sweetener is beneficial in large amounts. The difference between middle and top-ranked sugars is substantial.

The top tier: coconut sugar, molasses, and date sugar

The three highest-ranked sweeteners stand out because they contain additional nutrients or bioactive compounds.

Coconut sugar ranks third, partly due to its antioxidant content and the presence of inulin, a prebiotic fibre linked to digestive and metabolic benefits. Mic notes that the amount is small but still meaningful enough to affect scoring. Coconut sugar may also slow starch digestion by inhibiting amylase activity.

Blackstrap molasses takes second place. It has the highest antioxidant content in the comparison and provides minerals such as iron. Mic explains that a serving can supply a notable portion of daily iron needs, although taste can limit how much people use. He jokes that it can overpower baked goods, adding, “I personally think blackstrap molasses will ruin anything that you bake in terms of the taste, unless it’s a gingerbread cookie.”

Date sugar ranks first. Because it is made from ground whole dates, it retains fibre, phytochemicals, and other beneficial compounds that refined sugars lack. It also has relatively high antioxidant levels and a lower glycaemic index than many other sweeteners.

Mic says he was surprised by the research on dates, noting evidence of cholesterol-lowering effects and reductions in inflammatory markers such as interleukin-1. Some studies also suggest potential benefits related to pregnancy outcomes and reproductive health, although much of the reproductive research has been conducted in animals.

“These are a fruit,” he says, emphasizing that their whole-food structure makes them fundamentally different from refined sugars.

What this means for everyday eating

Despite ranking certain sweeteners higher, Mic stresses that most sugars should still be minimized. Even the better options remain calorie-dense and can contribute to excess energy intake when used heavily.

He concludes that the results mainly reinforce a simple principle: whole foods outperform refined ingredients. Dates and other minimally processed sweeteners retain fibre and phytochemicals, while highly refined syrups provide concentrated sugar without protective compounds.

For anyone curious about the healthiest vegan sweeteners, the takeaway is not that some sweeteners are healthy in large amounts, but that the level of processing, antioxidant content, and metabolic impact can make a meaningful difference.

As Mic puts it, most of the sweeteners on the list are things “you want to either seriously, heavily minimize or eliminate altogether,” with whole-food options like dates standing out as the least harmful way to add sweetness.

Find more videos about vegan health, science, and nutrition on Mic the Vegan’s YouTube channel.

https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/sugars-ranked-vegan-sweeteners/

Meal-breakers: can any relationship survive food incompatibility?

From theguardian.com

By Clare Finney

It’s not the heart, but the stomach that will sometimes define whether a budding romance proves food for the soul, or reaches boiling point … 

For Anna Jones, it’s lemons. For Ben Benton, it’s rice. For Gurdeep Loyal, it’s anchovies on pizza and, for me, it’s Yorkshire Tea in the morning. I could – did – date someone who “didn’t drink hot drinks”, but I would never have married a man I couldn’t make tea for when I woke up, or who couldn’t make me tea in turn.

These are what I’ve come to call “meal-breakers” – mouthfuls whose joys we feel our loved one must share, if we’re to share our lives with them. They are foods and drinks we cleave to as much for what they say about us and our values as we do for their smell, texture and taste. For most, it’s not so much the meal as the principle it conveys; not the anchovies on pizza so much as being with “someone who appreciates food as an act of collective joy – that embraces an ethos of all plates being communal,” says Loyal, author of the cookbook Flavour Heroes. The meticulous divvying-up of brown, salty silvers to ensure an even distribution on each pizza slice: that’s the sharing ethos he looks for in a potential soulmate.

Is this fair? I once dated a man who didn’t share food. When we didn’t work, I couldn’t help but blame his revulsion at my suggesting we order nachos.

“As much as music and sports, food has a tribal aspect,” says food writer Ben Benton, whose popular Go To Food Podcast is a hotbed of culinary opinions. He tells me that the episodes in which a well-known food personality says something that doesn’t resonate with their “tribe” are the ones that garner the most comments online, as listeners discuss whether this “aberration” is one they can forgive.

Dating’s the same, Benton says: “We’re constantly reading cues for how a prospective partner aligns with us and our values.” Not everyone follows sport or cares deeply for music, but food seems a reliable social cue because everyone eats. “There is so much politics to it, too: how you shop, how you consume, how you view the world,” Benton adds. As lenses go, it’s pretty powerful. Yet do we risk making snap judgments when we narrow in on a particular food or food group?

One tweak can be the difference between eating together or not … Meera Sodha’s hot tahini and soy mince noodles with cold pickled radishes. Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian

“People cast aspersions on your personality because you’ve ordered an oat milk latte,” sighs comedian Stevie Martin, who is vegetarian and allergic to dairy. Veganism, in particular, comes with a lot of cultural and political baggage, perhaps because it’s more holistic than just eschewing meat and fish. But to dismiss a prospective partner on account of their not having cow’s milk, well, as Martin points out, that says more about you than it does them. “You can be a racist, sexist pig and be allergic to dairy. You can treat people like shit and be vegetarian,” she argues. As if to prove her point, her husband, a wonderfully kind and funny man, cooks and eats meat at home; and Martin has never even dated a vegetarian or vegan.

“That’s never been a dealbreaker,” she says. “It’s how they’ve dealt with my being vegan.” She remembers one ex-boyfriend who insisted on steak restaurants when they went to Paris, and who then laughed when she could eat nothing but bread. “If they have a problem with how I eat, that tells me they’re narrow-minded and uncompromising,” Martin says. For her, the most important thing is that she and her husband eat together, whether that means the same dish or one tweaked for their differences. With fellow comedian Lou Sanders, Martin hosts Vegans in Your Regions, an Instagram series that puts vegan products to the test. She’s been delighted by some of their discoveries: “Anything that requires beef mince – bolognese, curries, chilli – my husband and I now make with Moving Mountains or Linda McCartney mince. We’ve also found great pasta sauces that we both love. The lovely thing is that we still get really excited when we find dishes we can both enjoy.”

Benton describes these meals in which both halves delight as existing in “the central part of your culinary Venn diagram. This needs to be large enough that you can go Monday to Friday eating together. If I’m out, my wife will cook from the part of the diagram I’m not in and vice versa, but there’s a big central part we’re happy existing in.”

Sometimes, these mutual meals come easily, sometimes they take work; but, if you have a sense of what that person loves, you can often translate that into something you can share together. “Think about favourites as more conceptual,” says Anna Jones, whose recipes are particularly good at catering for different diets. “For example, spaghetti and meatballs can become spaghetti with spinach polpette.”

Even when your tastes are different, there’s usually some middle ground. Benton’s wife prefers her carbonara “practically scrambled, which I used to think disgusting, but now we eat carbonara weekly throughout winter. I serve mine and leave hers to cook a bit more. It feels like a coming-together.”

That’s the thing about dislikes, says Tamar Adler, author of multiple cookbooks including her latest, Feast on Your Life. They’re more a reflection of experience than of personality. “We’re probably right to judge someone for being rude to a waiter or serving themselves before others. But if they don’t like fennel or anchovies, or think martinis should made with vodka – I mean, that is rough,” she shudders, “but you might be doing yourself and them an injustice if you assume that makes them a barbarian.”

To believe that martinis should be made with vodka instead of gin is “erroneous. But it’s something that can be healed with time and exposure.” Adler’s tongue is only partly in her cheek, for it’s true that most couples want to feel in sync in their appetites – and that how we eat and drink can reveal our appetite for other things. “In many ways, it’s our first symbolic order,” Adler says. On her first date with her now husband, they cycled to a place that promised the town’s finest hand-pulled noodles. That he loved hand-pulled noodles as much as she did didn’t matter so much as “his gastronomical and physical adventurousness in biking out there to try them. A lack of curiosity – that’s the dealbreaker,” she concludes. “And probably the vodka thing.”

The more people I speak to about this, the more I am struck by their strength of feeling, and by how much food and drink can stand for. When recipe writer and cookbook author Elly Curshen went on a date with a man who “ordered a large, white hot chocolate”, it was the childishness she felt it betrayed that gave her “instant ick”. Karen Barnes, author of KB’s Joyous Things Substack, could never have married a man who didn’t like roast chicken because of the “gentle, generous ritual of it” – which is how I feel about my teapot in the morning. Only Jones has a non-negotiable that’s solely about flavour: the “bright, forward, puckeringly sharp lemon. I work it into almost every dish.”

Crying fowl: a love for the “gentle, generous ritual” of roast chicken is author Karen Barnes’ meal-breaker. Photograph: The Guardian. Food styling: Kitty Coles. prop styling: Rachel Vere. Food styling assistant: Florence Blair

Years of interviewing people about food, writing recipes and, of course, his marriage have taught Benton that the most important meals for partners to align on are the comfort meals: “You’re tapping into culinary vulnerabilities. We get strong reactions around takeaway orders on the pod because that’s what we have when we’re tired, sad or hungover, and we don’t want to be judged.”

Childhood dishes also fall into this, and are arguably more important, because, as well as providing comfort, they can be cornerstones of our identities. I will never love my mother-in-law’s chicken rice on the same deep, psychic level that my husband does, but if I’d hated it, it would have been a rejection of far more than food.

In the end, the need to know and be known by a partner is universal. That can entail a book, song, place or even video game, but food will always offer the quickest and most intimate “in”.

“The only thing more intimate than eating together is sex,” the late anthropologist Kaori O’Connor once told me. She was as right as she was forthright: only food has the capacity to render us as exposed, deeply loved and elated. We may not always align. We may require some tessellation. But if we laugh at, revile or simply refuse to try a potential partner’s favourite mouthful, it rarely bodes well: for lunch, a life together or the bedroom.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/mar/09/meal-breakers-can-any-relationship-survive-food-incompatibility