rennin

skinnygeness

Hi everyone!

does anyone know if your average cheese slice contain animal rennin? I'm pretty happy with the bacterial one, so just wondering if anyone has info on what major cheese use animal rennin or vege/bacterial rennin?

thanks!

henryporter

You mean rennet of course but in answer to your question most Irish mass produced cheddars would be vegetarian rennet, but a lot of the cheeses produced by artisan cheese makers in Ireland are made with traditional rennet. Also a lot of italian cheeses are made with traditional rennet.
Have a look at Sheridans Cheesemongers website, they list all of their cheese products indicating which has traditional or vegetarian rennet.

Slaphead07

henryporter wrote: »

Also a lot of italian cheeses are made with traditional rennet.

I'm told all of them... by law!

henryporter

Except some mozzarella and the likes of ricotta

Thoushaltnot

Or you could make your own paneer - with milk and lemon juice. Paneer is the cheese used frequently in Indian dishes/Govindas. Just heat/boil up some milk, add lemon/vinegar, let it curdle. Strain off and dry a bit - instructions on YouTube.

There is an another issue about how vegetarian rennet is made, though. Not all but possibly most (I've been quoted a figure of 90%) is produced from genetically modified organisms, or rather the active ingredient - chymosin - is. So while not actually a GMO ingredient, it is a product of the genetic engineering industry. It's been a while since I've looked at this but I believe it's covered on the UK Veggie site, oops www.vegetarian.co.uk is up for sale!

This explains it well;
http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/ncbe/gmfood/chymosin.html

***Edit*** Apologies, VegSoc UK uses another domain, so here we go;
Vegetarian Cheese facts

Slaphead07

henryporter wrote: »

Except some mozzarella and the likes of ricotta

I was in Country Choice in Nenagh a while back and asked the owner (Peter Ward) if he stocked any veggie parmesan. He wasn't sure of it's availability and so rang his cheese supplier in Italy right there and then. The supplier was quite clear that any cheese which claims to be Italian must, by Italian law, use animal rennet. I can only assume that the mozz or ricotta you mention, while undoubtedly fine, isn't actually produced in Italy.

flikflak

^ I think its only Parmigiano-Reggiano that has to use the rennet in order to be called Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Other Italian cheeses do not have the same restriction.

For instance Mozerella does not even seem to have any rennet added

The steps required to produce buffalo mozzarella are the following:

1.Milk storage (raw buffalo milk stored in big steel containers).
2.Milk heating (thermic treatment to the liquid, then poured into a cream separator).
3.Curdling (by induction of natural whey).
4.Curd maturation (the curd lies in tubs in order to reduce the acidification processes and reach a pH value of about 4.95).
5.Spinning (hot water is poured out on the curd in order to soften it, obtaining pasta filata).
6.Shaping (with special rotating shaper machines).
7.Cooling (by immersion in cold water).
8.Pickling (by immersion in pickling tubs containing the original whey).
9.Packaging (in special films cut as bags or in small basins and plastic).

Therefore no Parmigiano-Reggiano can ever be vegetarian but other Italian cheeses can be.

Peanut

I noticed a veg-looking Parmesan replacement in the fridge in Dunnes the other day. Green packet "eco"-something.

Wikipedia surprisingly has a list of Irish cheese with vegetarian status. Not sure how accurate that is as I always thought Durrus and Gubbeen were vegetarian, at least cheese.com (best site name ever!) says they are

Mark Hamill

flikflak wrote: »

^ I think its only Parmigiano-Reggiano that has to use the rennet in order to be called Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Other Italian cheeses do not have the same restriction.

For instance Mozerella does not even seem to have any rennet added

Seems to depend on the mozzarella. Buffalo style contains rennet but, presumably only buffalo mozzarella that falls afoul of PGS or TGS restrictions need animal rennet (ie buffalo style mozzarella wouldn't necessarily have to have rennet). Its the same thing that says only Port from the Port region can actually be sold as "Port" otherwise its supposed to be port style fortified wine.
Most mozzarella in Ireland seems to be veggie, though, I dont think there is the same market for "authentic" mozzarella as "authentic" parmesan.

skinnygeness

Slaphead07 wrote: »

henryporter wrote: »

Except some mozzarella and the likes of ricotta

I was in Country Choice in Nenagh a while back and asked the owner (Peter Ward) if he stocked any veggie parmesan. He wasn't sure of it's availability and so rang his cheese supplier in Italy right there and then. The supplier was quite clear that any cheese which claims to be Italian must, by Italian law, use animal rennet. I can only assume that the mozz or ricotta you mention, while undoubtedly fine, isn't actually produced in Italy.

thanks all, yes being Italian I can tell you most dop cheese (parmigiano reggiano, grana padano, pecorino) must have animal rennet by law. however most popular brands of mozzarella don't so I'm thinking hard/soft cheese must be a good rule of thumb? anyways, thanks all if u can read Italian the associazione vegetariana italiana has a comprehensive list

henryporter

Peanut wrote: »

I noticed a veg-looking Parmesan replacement in the fridge in Dunnes the other day. Green packet "eco"-something.

Wikipedia surprisingly has a list of Irish cheese with vegetarian status. Not sure how accurate that is as I always thought Durrus and Gubbeen were vegetarian, at least cheese.com (best site name ever!) says they are

Apparently Gubbeen went back to animal rennet a couple of years ago...

Gauge

henryporter wrote: »

Apparently Gubbeen went back to animal rennet a couple of years ago...

Gubbeen definitely uses animal rennet.

I'd be wary of using Sheridan's website as a resource for whether cheeses have animal rennet or not- Gubbeen Smoked is listed as having vegetarian rennet but that's definitely not the case.

skinnygeness

wikipedia list is very good, quite surprising too actually!
thanks!