# Applewood launches a manufactured "plant-based" cheese-like substance



## Eddy Edson (Sep 23, 2019)

http://www.applewoodcheese.co.uk/vegan/

The latest crap food travesty - plant-based alternatives designed to taste sort of like the real thing while offering no or negative nutritional advantages. It's reached South Sea Bubble-like proportions in the US now with fake meat start-up stock prices going through the roof, KFC testing fake chicken in some stores etc etc.

Just another illustration of how good nutritional mesages get hijacked and turned into crud. Sat fats are bad ... so we'll up the sugar and claim that it's healthy!  Eat more minimally processed plant-based foods - well let's forget about the minimally-processed thing and just focus on "plant-based"!

The official rationale from the companies is that people want this stuff not for nutritional advantages but because taking animals out of the chain means less pressure on the environment & at the same time they don't have to make major changes to their eating habits.

Which sounds fine but I bet 20c that a large number of people will also think they're eating something healthier.

With this Applewood cheese-like thing, you get the opportunity to swap a not-very-processed product for an industrial construct with minimal protein, the same level of salt, minimal healthy unsaturated fats and about the same level of satfats - now from coconut oil, if anything worse for you than dairy. With lots of carbs from processed grain additives, I'd say a novelty for something which supposed to be a "cheese", and some calcium and Vit B added to make it not a complete nutritional disaster.


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## MikeyBikey (Sep 23, 2019)

Have to agree totally. It just follows on from the Free-From fad. Many of these are distinctly unhealthy looking at the sugar and fat contents. I know of one Free-From cafe that went to the wall very quickly. Never tried it myself but was told it was overpriced crap!


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## nonethewiser (Sep 23, 2019)

Ethics aside, lets not forget some folk can't tolerate diary products, so this would be option for them.  

Not for me, love cheese and life would be miserable without it.


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## MikeyBikey (Sep 23, 2019)

nonethewiser said:


> Ethics aside, lets not forget some folk can't tolerate diary products, so this would be option for them.
> 
> Not for me, love cheese and life would be miserable without it.



I know and accept that but it is the promotion of these products as "healthier" that irritates me. Some people are making lifestyle choices rather than health ones and then taking supplements to correct things.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 23, 2019)

My youngest decided to eat largely vegan several years ago, and rather than cooking double-meals we generally all eat that way (unless there’s an easy option like cooking two different sorts of sausage). It surprised me how many recipes that we would generally eat involve cheese in one form or another. 

Mostly we can adapt by using nutritional yeast which has a good cheesy flavour in sauces and potato toppings. We also add cream cheese alternatives occasionally. 

We’ve tried some of these block-cheese alternatives, but they’ve all been pretty grim tbh and we prefer to leave them out. Though if someone really likes to add some as part of a from-scratch plant/pulses based recipe I’m not sure it would really tip the balance into making that meal unhealthy. 

The things that make me roll my eyes more are the highly processed ready-meal type things. Especially if people think those are healthy options.


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## mikeyB (Sep 23, 2019)

There is nothing more highly processed than these meat and cheese alternatives, or, come think, Bergen bread. They are all produced using industrial chemicals and/or flavouring. It depends on whether you mind that. I do, I don’t eat highly processed food. Meat, cheese, fish and veg. And butter, never artificial spreads. The real thing always tastes better.

I bet these technicians can’t recreate black pudding


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## Docb (Sep 23, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> I bet these technicians can’t recreate black pudding



That made me chuckle, mikeyB.  

I have a Victorian cookbook in which the black pudding recipe starts....  "Take half a gallon of freshly drawn ox blood......"


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## Sally W (Sep 23, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> There is nothing more highly processed than these meat and cheese alternatives, or, come think, Bergen bread. They are all produced using industrial chemicals and/or flavouring. It depends on whether you mind that. I do, I don’t eat highly processed food. Meat, cheese, fish and veg. And butter, never artificial spreads. The real thing always tastes better.
> 
> I bet these technicians can’t recreate black pudding


I agree @mikeyB i wouldn’t touch the hydrogenated breads, however low carb. Just because it’s low carb doesn’t mean it’s good for us


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## Ljc (Sep 23, 2019)

Thanks for reminding me, I have some black pud in the fridge that’s just crying out for a  fried egg, sausages and some  bacon or perhaps nestling in a fried egg sarnie.

As for fake cheese or that awful stuff that purports to be bread, no thanks


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## rebrascora (Sep 23, 2019)

Docb said:


> That made me chuckle, mikeyB.
> 
> I have a Victorian cookbook in which the black pudding recipe starts....  "Take half a gallon of freshly drawn ox blood......"



I used to help my Mam make black pudding when I was little. We always used pigs blood from the slaughter house up the road and you are right, it was a gallon at a time with milk and barley and mint and baked in the oven in a large roasting tray so that the top went crispy and the pudding below was light and bubbly in texture. It wasn't a dense sausage with huge chunks of fat like you buy in the shops these days.... it was heavenly. The only down side was that you had to make it in bulk and whatever was leftover went in the freezer but when you thawed it to use later, it went crumbly and just fell apart.
Sadly it is impossible for the average Jo Public to buy fresh blood these days and commercially available black pudding is almost exclusively made with dried blood.... more unnecessary processing.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 23, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> or, come think, Bergen bread.



Out of interest... what have you got against Burgen in particular? Looks like the same industrially processed bread with dozens of 'flour improvers' and other extras - just like all the other plastic wrapped breads on the shelf.

Or am I missing something particularly nasty in Burgen vs some of the other supermarket seeded breads at 20g a slice rather than 12g?


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## Matt Cycle (Sep 23, 2019)

Vegan cheeses have been around quite a long time.  20 years ago there was Scheese, Cheezly, Biddy Merkins and that was about it.  I don't think anyone thought they were healthy.  Although with the people I knew at that time they weren't many fat vegans.  The market was primarily ethical vegans or those with dairy allergies who wanted something similar to cheese that didn't contain dairy and they were only really found in health food shops.  They're now available everywhere.  Still not particularly healthy but nothing wrong with them as long as you're not eating tonnes of the stuff - a bit like dairy cheese.


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## Eddy Edson (Sep 23, 2019)

Matt Cycle said:


> Still not particularly healthy but nothing wrong with them as long as you're not eating tonnes of the stuff - a bit like dairy cheese.



I just think back to when I used to eat cheese. It was a fairly chunky part of my daily calories and I imagine that's true for a lot of people. The basic prob with this thing is that it would fill that calorie slot with saturated fats from coconut oils and refined carbs - two of the worst things for CV health - while removing the protein and unsaturated fats. In other words, a chunk of your daily diet has gone from nutritionally meh to nutritionally crap.

It's the kind of move that's seen as driving the "obesity epidemic" and it becomes more of an issue the more the hype around these "plant-based" alternatives builds up. I think it's a different, bigger trend than the old vegan alternatives story, with large amounts of marketing $$$ behind it and the major food companies scrambling for positions.


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## nonethewiser (Sep 24, 2019)

MikeyBikey said:


> I know and accept that but it is the promotion of these products as "healthier" that irritates me. Some people are making lifestyle choices rather than health ones and then taking supplements to correct things.



The thing is mate, how people choose to live their life is entirely up to up to themselves, there's some things we cannot change so not worth getting upset about.

All part of life's rich tapestry.


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## Robin (Sep 24, 2019)

everydayupsanddowns said:


> Out of interest... what have you got against Burgen in particular? Looks like the same industrially processed bread with dozens of 'flour improvers' and other extras - just like all the other plastic wrapped breads on the shelf.
> 
> Or am I missing something particularly nasty in Burgen vs some of the other supermarket seeded breads at 20g a slice rather than 12g?


I think one particular question mark against Burgen is the inclusion of a hydrogenated fat as one of the emulsifiers, which is a trans-fatty acid and has been implicated in heart disease.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 24, 2019)

Robin said:


> I think one particular question mark against Burgen is the inclusion of a hydrogenated fat as one of the emulsifiers, which is a trans-fatty acid and has been implicated in heart disease.



Ah OK. I’d not realised that, and generally go out of my way to avoid hydrogenated fats. A bit naughty that it’s not listed as ‘hydrogenated fat’ (or even mono and diglycerides of fatty acids) on the ingredients 

After a quick Google I’ve realised that E471 also needs to go on my watch list!


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## Sally W (Sep 24, 2019)

everydayupsanddowns said:


> Ah OK. I’d not realised that, and generally go out of my way to avoid hydrogenated fats. A bit naughty that it’s not listed as ‘hydrogenated fat’ (or even mono and diglycerides of fatty acids) on the ingredients
> 
> After a quick Google I’ve realised that E471 also needs to go on my watch list!


How the food industry use different names for hydrogenated fats to avoid detection & get away with it is beyond me. Most commercially produced breads contain E471. Sainsbury’s stock Hi Lo bread which is free from hydrogenated fats & some sourdough doesn’t.


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## Robin (Sep 24, 2019)

Sally W said:


> How the food industry use different names for hydrogenated fats to avoid detection & get away with it is beyond me. Most commercially produced breads contain E471. Sainsbury’s stock Hi Lo bread which is free from hydrogenated fats & some sourdough doesn’t.


I buy Vogel's Soya and Linseed from Waitrose, which is more expensive and more carbs than Burgen, but it doesn’t contain emulsifiers. It's still slow release enough for me when I want a piece of toast for breakfast, and haven’t time to inject long enough in advance of a piece of proper sourdough.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 24, 2019)

Sally W said:


> How the food industry use different names for hydrogenated fats to avoid detection & get away with it is beyond me. Most commercially produced breads contain E471. Sainsbury’s stock Hi Lo bread which is free from hydrogenated fats & some sourdough doesn’t.


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## Eddy Edson (Sep 24, 2019)

Robin said:


> I think one particular question mark against Burgen is the inclusion of a hydrogenated fat as one of the emulsifiers, which is a trans-fatty acid and has been implicated in heart disease.



Is that correct? I thought that things like e471 might contain small amounts of trans fats, without actually being them. At face value, it's knd of hard to see why the FDA and the EU would be Ok with these emulsifiers while cracking down on trans fats, if they had a big trans fat load. But don't know enough about it to really have a worthwhile opinion.


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## Sally W (Sep 24, 2019)

Robin said:


> I buy Vogel's Soya and Linseed from Waitrose, which is more expensive and more carbs than Burgen, but it doesn’t contain emulsifiers. It's still slow release enough for me when I want a piece of toast for breakfast, and haven’t time to inject long enough in advance of a piece of proper sourdough.


Thanks Robin. I didn’t know that I’ll check it out. I buy my sourdough from Waitrose


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## Robin (Sep 24, 2019)

Eddy Edson said:


> Is that correct? I thought that things like e471 might contain small amounts of trans fats, without actually being them. At face value, it's knd of hard to see why the FDA and the EU would be Ok with these emulsifiers while cracking down on trans fats, if they had a big trans fat load. But don't know enough about it to really have a worthwhile opinion.


I think the UK guidelines are, no more than 2% of your food energy from trans fats, and I assume any found in emulsifiers would be well below this target. The reason I switched to Vogel bread was more that Waitrose stopped selling Burgen, rather than a fear about what the odd slice was doing to my heart. But generally I do like bread to contain flour, salt, yeast, water and nothing else, for a start, it tastes better!


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## Eddy Edson (Sep 24, 2019)

Robin said:


> I think the UK guidelines are, no more than 2% of your food energy from trans fats, and I assume any found in emulsifiers would be well below this target. The reason I switched to Vogel bread was more that Waitrose stopped selling Burgen, rather than a fear about what the odd slice was doing to my heart. But generally I do generally like bread to contain flour, salt, yeast, water and nothing else, for a start, it tastes better!



Yup! I stick to an occasional piece of simple sourdough pumpernickel now & it tastes great. My main complaint against Burgen is that I really hate the texture and taste. Also it looks pretty rubbish for nutrition but that I think is true of most common breads.


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## mikeyB (Sep 27, 2019)

Sourdough is the ultimate low ingredient bread. Flour and water. If you buy sourdough in the supermarket, if more ingredients are listed, it’s not real. Most supermarket sourdough bread is fake.


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