For many people who go vegan, one of the hardest things to give up is cheese. Fortunately, thanks to the growing popularity of veganism, food manufacturers have begun to produce a greater variety of vegan cheeses, with some success in replicating everything people love most about cheese, including its texture and flavor. However, not all vegan cheeses are created equal, and many have little nutritional value.
People who buy vegan cheese can Wait something be as nutritious as cow’s cheese. But because many manufacturers focus on making cheese taste, look, and even melt like dairy cheese, this is rarely the case. The main ingredients of many vegan cheeses are starch and vegetable oils – usually coconut oil or sometimes palm oil.
Starch and oil can give vegan cheeses their texture, but they have little nutritional value. For example, when we eat starch, our intestine breaks it down into sugar. Over time, too much starch could lead to weight gain or diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
The vegetable oils in vegan cheese are even worse. Coconut oil is composed almost completely of saturated fats. Some types of saturated fat raise levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol in the blood, which can increase the risk of heart disease.
This is the case for lauric acid, the main type of saturated fat in coconut oil. Despite some claims online that coconut is healthy, lauric acid significantly increase levels of LDL cholesterol. Also increases the risk of coronary disease. Due to the high levels of coconut oil in some vegan cheeses, even a modest sized serving (30g) is about a third of a person’s total recommended daily amount of saturated fat.
Palm oil, found in some vegan cheeses, works a little better as an alternative ingredient. About half of the fat in palm oil is saturated fat, primarily a type of saturated fat called palmitic acid. Like lauric acid, this also increases the risk of coronary heart disease. And while some manufacturers claim to use “sustainable” palm oil, it’s uncertain how sustainable these products really are.
Although dairy cheeses are also high in saturated fat, there are good evidence that consuming them is not related to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. It is not clear why this is so, but it is possible that the saturated fats in dairy cheese are unabsorbed by the body as much as those from other foods, such as meat or coconut oil.
nutritional content
Many people can also expect vegan cheese, like dairy cheese, to be a good source of protein. But vegan cheeses consisting of vegetable oils and starch have little or no protein.
The amounts and types of vitamins and minerals that vegan cheeses contain also vary significantly, as it is up to the manufacturer to add them during production. As a result, unlike dairy cheese, most vegan cheeses contain little or no calcium. They too often missing other important micronutrients found in dairy cheese, such as iodine, vitamin B12, and vitamin D.
While an occasional slice of vegan cheese is unlikely to do any harm, relying on it as a dairy replacement could come with costs to your health. In a clinical studyPeople who replaced animal-based dairy and eggs with vegan alternatives for 12 weeks had poorer bone health at the end of the study, compared to those who ate animal-based dairy and eggs.
This was probably due to a lower intake of vitamin D and calcium. However, more studies like this are needed to better establish the long-term health consequences of dairy-free vegans.
However, not all bad news. Some vegan cheeses may be healthier than others depending on their ingredients, for example those that use cashews. These products they tend to have higher levels of protein and lower levels of sodium and saturated fat than other types of vegan cheese. However, they can also be more expensive than those other types.
Of course, there are many reasons why a person might want to adopt a vegan diet, including for environmental reasons or to improve their health. But while several studies have found that vegan diets can be healthy, this is generally only true for people whose diets are rich in natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.
As such, it’s important for vegans to watch how many ultra-processed alternative foods they eat (such as vegan cheese), as these could have many of the same negative health effects (like heart disease and cancer) that ultra-processed foods have for non-vegans.
This means carefully checking the content of vegan cheese products (and other vegan alternatives) to minimize the amount of harmful ingredients, like saturated fat, that vegans regularly consume. Vegans should also focus on getting essential micronutrients like vitamin B12, calcium, and vitamin D from vitamin supplements or whole foods.
richard hoffmanAssociate Professor, Nutritional Biochemistry, University of Hertfordshire
This article is republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original article.
