The good news is, they got caught, pled guilty, served three years of probation, paid fines, and are now defunct (via Inc.com ). What you need to know about fake grated cheese and the food additive cellulose. In fact, in terms of consumer confusion Kraft probably plays a very small role, since its ubiquitous dry powdered “cheese” in green cardboard tubes is so far removed from actual Parmigiano-Reggiano that virtually no one could confuse the two. Most recently, I looked closely here at Forbes.com at the fake fish issue. Bloomberg tested other store-brand grated Parmesan cheese via an independent laboratory and found that Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan cheese contained 8.8 percent cellulose, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese contained 7.8 percent cellulose. According to Italian farmers' association Coldiretti, last year the production of  parmesan-like and grana-like cheeses exceeded 300 million kg, while in Italian cheese makers produced 295 million kg of the real 'Made in Italy' kind. Italian Grana Padano. The company, Castle Cheese Co., sold the fake cheeses under a variety of brands, to retailers and wholesalers nationwide (via Food Safety News). A combination of its uniform production process, strict quality control and testing by outside experts of every single wheel at the age of 12 months - which rejects a notable amount as less than perfect, assures this. When people who care what they put into their bodies eat Parmigiano-Reggiano, they know exactly what they are putting in their bodies. the Canadian ham) was sold under the name ‘Parma ham’. More from the imitations exhibit at the Parmigiano-Reggiano museum. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese came in at 7.8 percent. If you just slaved over an elaborate Italian recipe and spent a lot of money on great shrimp or handmade pasta or beautiful veal and yet it somehow underwhelmed you, ask yourself, did you skimp on the cheese? Plus, um, the vegan cheese market is booming. So when a recipe calls for it and you use something less you are shooting the recipe in the foot. If you purchase shaved or pre-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, such as the sample from Trader Joe’s, then the container should contain the consortium’s mark to guarantee authenticity. You can find the real Parmigiano-Reggiano right alongside all the Argentinean and New Jersey “parmesan” at almost any sizable cheese counter, and you can tell by the signature pin-prick patterns, the words Parmigiano-Reggiano embossed all over every square inch of the rind, as shown in the accompanying photos. Best Vegan Parmesan Cheese Brands. It’s the law. Like Parmigiano-Reggiano, Champagne, Burgundy, or Prosciutto di Parma this means that it can only be legally made in a certain place under specific rules with specific labeling requirements. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. As we are increasingly discovering in the form of a global health epidemic linked heavily to diet, there is a lot of truth to the old saying “You are what you eat.” There is a similar saying attributed to high-level athletes looking for maximum performance: “Garbage in, garbage out.”. The English translation of the cheese is Parmesan, and when you buy it in England you get Parmigiano-Reggiano. Just as was the case with Kobe beef, the U.S. has chosen not to abide this EU legal determination, and the real Parmigiano-Reggiano continues to come under assault from pretenders marketing themselves with sound alike names (For much more background on the US government’s historical refusal to honor almost any foreign geographically indicated product, including Champagne, read my Kobe beef series, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 and my follow up on the change in status, here. My last column was full of praise for Parmigiano-Reggiano. Once you unwrap an airtight wedge, don’t keep it more than few weeks). Parma! I have, I am the NY Times Bestselling author of Real Food, Fake Food and have been traveling the world as a journalist and passionate fan of all things fun for 20 years. Bragg Nutritional Yeast Seasoning – Vegan, Gluten Free Cheese Flakes. It is wonderful by itself in chunks, shaved over or grated into foods, cooked or uncooked. It is not like you are being fed rat poison, but you may well be eating things you didn’t intend to eat and don’t consider healthy. But they also lament this fact, and one point they always bring up is how confounding it is that even the simplest pasta dishes can’t be successfully replicated at home. As I also mentioned, Parmigiano-Reggiano has long been sought after by cooks and chefs because of the way it improves so many dishes. Editor's Note: Larry Olmsted is the author of the New York Times best seller Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It, released in July 2016.He has spent the past four years researching fraudulence in food and labeling, a journey that has taken him to Japan, Alaska, Chile, Argentina, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, … In the age of social media, consumers are the ones that control the perception of your brand, as several businesses had to find that out the hard way at the beginning of 2017. Delightfully Yours Parmesan Cheese Crisps- Original Flavor (4 Pack) - Parmesan Crisps - Cheese Crisps Low Carb Keto - Parmesan Chips Made Of Just Cheese - Keto Cheese Crisps - Cheese … Generic Parmesan cheese is a family of hard grating cheeses made from cow's milk and inspired by the original Italian cheese. Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese (Vegan) Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese tastes just like real … My most recent visit this year was part of a longer trip to Italy, and my 3-day stay in the Parma area was hosted by the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano. Many have laundry lists of chemicals and additives and even if they list only the same three ingredients, there is no knowing what’s in the milk used, where it came from, how old it is, or how the cheese is actually made. It is based on coconut oil and is fortified with Vitamin B12, which plays an important role in the metabolism of every cell in our bodies. After all, one of the major appeals of Parmigiano-Reggiano is its highly protected purity, plus its high levels of calcium, protein, many other vitamins - it is considered so healthy that is the cheese of choice in space, chosen as an especially good food for astronauts to eat by both the U.S. and Russian space programs. Like Parmigiano-Reggiano, Kobe Beef producers have both copyrights and trademarks protecting different aspects of their name and brand in Japan, but the U.S., which has a long, rich history of pirating other nation’s proprietary foodstuffs, conveniently refuses to recognize these, leaving the playing field open for deception. Cheeses categorized as “hard-grating” require less aging and allow for more moisture. Not only is this vegan parmesan cheese a delicious topping for pasta, a chopped Italian Salad, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, or avocado toast, but it requires just 5 ingredients, comes together in mere minutes, and has virtually no clean-up. For the first time ever, in 2014, global production of fake parmesan and grana padano has overtaken that of the genuine made-in-Italy. such as Barilla - also made in Parma, Italy’s epicurean capital, by the way. Three other ingredients, Cellulose Powder, Potassium Sorbate, and Cheese Cultures are not found in Parmigiano-Reggiano - they are completely illegal in its production. Parmigiano-Reggiano does not have it this bad, as it is widely imported into this country, and its full Italian name is protected (but only fairly recently) here. Yet all three are in Kraft 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese (I’m not sure if that means it is supposed to be 100% “parmesan” or simply 100% grated, which it certainly is). Ultimately it is you, the consumer who is the victim. But there is one big problem. Most recently, I looked closely here at Forbes.com at the fake fish issue. I noted in my last column that by law, Parmigiano-Reggiano is allowed to contain only three very simple ingredients: milk (produced in the Parma/Reggio region and less than 20 hours from cow to cheese), salt, and rennet (a natural enzyme from calf intestine). Since not all cheese is created equal, we turned to Liz Thorpe, cheese expert, consultant and author of The Cheese Chronicles, to get her tips for how to make sure you get real Parmesan every time: 1. It’s far enough from the real thing that Kraft was legally forced to stop selling its cheese labeled Parmesan in Europe. Go figure). But some people are still skeptical about vegan cheese, as if it were made from—I don’t know—something disconcerting, like milk from an animal. Fake Parmesan Cheese. If you read my piece and wondered why your cheese doesn’t taste as good as I describe, maybe your cheese is not actually Parmigiano-Reggiano (though it also is important that the real thing be cut relatively fresh from the wheel, wrapped carefully in plastic or cryovaced - the best way to buy wedges - and refrigerated. They can even make their own homemade sauce, maybe using high quality 100% pure Italian Pomi tomatoes, traceable from seed to package - also from Parma. The new book Real Food, Fake Food (Algonquin, July 2016), covers the gamut of food frauds and scams... [+] American consumers face today. Besides the health and purity concerns, there is the more immediate taste and consistency issue. Real Parmesan is known in the industry as the “King of Cheeses,” and is so wholesome and nutritious it was picked as the first cheese to go into space to feed astronauts - and cosmonauts. Please read more from ITALY magazine here and why we continue to look for  'Real Made-in Italy' products to talk about and try to explain the work behind them. Discover our wide range of award-winning vegan alternative to cheese that can help you dive effortlessly into a plant based diet. It turns out that Parmigiano-Reggiano contains more umami elements than almost any other cheese (or any food). Olive oil is tampered with in a lot of ways so distributors can make money. It's easy to tell real Parmigiano-Reggiano when you can see a piece of the rind, because it is embossed with its name over and over. Castle Cheese Inc., a beloved american cheese brand was discovered to have produced parmesan cheese containing no actual Parmesan for almost 30 years (1). For instance, Grana Padano is another Italian cheese that is protected as a distinct Geographic Indication by most of the civilized world and has its own PDO (Protected Designation of Origin). At the retail website igourmet.com they go so far as to carefully include a full-page lengthy explanation of what makes real Parmigiano-Reggiano real, explaining the quality control role of the Consortium and the cheese’s history, and they also explain that legally, “In the US, the phrase Parmesan Cheese can be used as a generic label for any hard Italian-style grating cheese made from cow’s milk.” After dutifully explaining what real Parmigiano-Reggiano is, they then go on to sell various Argentine and Wisconsin-made Parmesan cheeses. 15 Vegan Cheese Brands That Are Healthy And Taste Like the Real Thing Made of cashew, soy, and coconut, these plant-based cheeses are … The Violife range is free from dairy, preservatives, casein, lactose, gluten, nuts and soy. It's bad enough for food shucksters to try to rip off US citizens without our own government actively helping them. 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