For many vegans, cheese is the hardest thing to give up. Fortunately, thanks to the growing popularity of vegans, food manufacturers have begun producing a wider variety of vegan cheeses, replicating everything people love most about cheese, including its texture and taste. It has been successful to some extent. However, not all vegan cheeses are the same. Many cheeses have little nutritional value.
Those who buy vegan cheese may expect it to be as nutritious as dairy cheese. However, this is rare because many manufacturers focus on the taste, appearance, and even melting of dairy cheese. The main ingredients of many vegan cheeses are starch oil and vegetable oil. Usually coconut oil, sometimes palm oil.
Starch and oil may give the vegan cheese a texture, but it has little nutritional value. For example, when you eat starch, it breaks down into sugar in your intestines. Over time, too much starch can lead to weight gain and illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Vegan cheese vegetable oil is even worse. Coconut oil is almost entirely composed of saturated fats. Depending on the type of saturated fat, the “bad” LDL cholesterol level in the blood may increase, increasing the risk of heart disease.
This is the case with lauric acid, the main type of saturated fat in coconut oil. Despite the online claim that coconut is healthy, lauric acid significantly increases LDL cholesterol levels. It also increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Some vegan cheeses contain high levels of coconut oil, so even the moderately sized portion (30g) is about one-third of the recommended total daily allowance for saturated fat.
Palm oil, found in some vegan cheeses, is a bit better as an alternative. About half of the fat in palm oil is saturated fat, most of which is a type of saturated fat called palmitic acid. Like lauric acid, this also increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Also, some manufacturers claim to use “sustainable” palm oil, but it’s unclear how sustainable these products really are.
Dairy cheeses are also high in saturated fats, but there is ample evidence that consuming them is not associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. For unknown reasons, saturated fat in dairy cheese may not be as absorbed by the body as other foods such as meat and coconut oil.
Nutritional ingredients
Many people may also expect vegan cheeses, such as dairy cheeses, to be an excellent source of protein. However, vegan cheese, which consists of vegetable oil and starch, contains little or no protein.
Naty.M / Shutterstock
The amount and type of vitamins and minerals in vegan cheese also varies significantly as it is up to the manufacturer to add them during manufacturing. As a result, unlike dairy cheeses, most vegan cheeses contain little or no calcium. It is also often deficient in other important micronutrients found in dairy cheese, such as iodine, vitamin B12, and vitamin D.
Occasionally slicing vegan cheese will not hurt, but relying on vegan cheese instead of dairy products can be harmful to your health. In one clinical study, people who exchanged animal-based dairy products and eggs for vegan substitutes for 12 weeks had poor bone health at the end of the study compared to those who ate animal-based dairy products and eggs. rice field. This was probably due to low intakes of vitamin D and calcium. However, further studies like this are needed to better establish the long-term health effects of non-dairy vegans.
But that’s not all bad news. Some vegan cheeses may be healthier than others, depending on their ingredients. For example, cheese that uses cashew nuts. These products usually have higher protein levels and lower sodium and saturated fat levels than other types of vegan cheese. However, it can be more expensive than other types.
Of course, there are many reasons why people want to adopt a vegan diet – environmental reasons, or to improve their health. However, many studies have shown that a vegan diet is healthy, but this is usually only true for people who eat a diet high in natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes.
As such, vegans can cause many of the same health consequences as super-processed foods (such as heart disease and cancer), so monitor the number of super-processed food alternatives they eat (such as vegan cheese). Is important. For people other than vegan.
This means carefully checking the content of vegan cheese products (and other vegan alternatives) to minimize the number of harmful ingredients such as saturated fats that vegans consume on a regular basis. Vegans should also focus on getting essential micronutrients such as vitamin B12, calcium, and vitamin D from vitamin supplements and all foods.
