When checking ingredient labels, vegans must keep an eye out for casein, a protein found exclusively in milk. Beyond its presence in dairy products, casein may appear in processed foods, protein powders, and even paints and adhesives.
Casein and Vegan Cheese
The stretchy qualities of dough and cheese both come from protein. Dough’s stretchiness comes from a category of grain-based proteins called gluten. Melted cheese gets its even greater elasticity from a milk-based protein called casein.
Back in the bad old days, soy cheese companies often added casein to their products without disclosing it as a milk ingredient. This tricked quite a few vegans into eating the stuff. To this day, there are still some soy or almond-based cheeses on the market that contain casein. Since these products are not dairy-free, vegans must check the ingredients when buying cheese-style products that lack a vegan seal.
As food technology has advanced, vegan food companies have discovered plant-based ingredients that mimic casein’s meltability. There are now several great vegan cheeses on the market that have comparable elasticity to dairy-based cheese. My vegan cheese page contains a list of top brands, as well as advice for making your own dairy-free cheeses.
Is Dairy-Free Casein Available?
Several biohacking teams are at work figuring out how to mass-produce vegan casein using a technology called “precision fermentation.” As challenges go, this one is considerably tougher than, say, making a good vegan sausage. On top of that, the limited market for vegan casein has constrained the pace of research and development.
I’m confident that one day you’ll be able to buy soy and almond cheeses containing vegan casein, and that these cheeses will be every bit as stretchy as dairy-based mozzarella. But for now, no vegan cheeses made with precision fermentation technology are on the market. Three companies are seeking to develop fermentation techniques to produce vegan casein at commercial scale: New Culture, Those Vegan Cowboys, and Pureture.
