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I prefer to avoid cheeses with natural rennet.
Synthesised rennets, vinegar, or introduced bacteria are fine with me.
Although I would like to wean myself off dairy products unless I can source them from cows who's calves are not killed and get half the milk. I can do this for about nine months of the year and make our cheese, butter, yoghurt, and kefir at home.
I try to avoid animal rennet cheeses when possible, and the brand/type I usually buy uses vegetarian-friendly rennet.
I don't consider it as ethically problematic as meat consumption in general however, and I don't have a steadfast policy against it. If I inattentively bought animal rennet cheese, whatever harm is associated with that had already been done, and there'd be no sense in refusing to consume it.
A true vegan wouldn't be so inattentive. Most of them do not eat animal byproducts of any kind--cheese obviously included.
Hubris aside, all of us are inattentive at times.
Hello w:
I don't eat anything with rennet ennet.
excon
Good word play.
I wouldn't eat it as soon as I found out.
So what. I am sure I make all kinds of animal error. I don't do it on purpose. I live and learn. I don't eat STEAK and Pork and Fowl. That is obvious to me on the plate. That is what I focus on, not some animal juice in an ingredient that I have no rhyme or reason to consider.
I'm a bit like you in that regard - I'm what I would call a sloppy or non-purist vegetarian - for instance,I don't quibble about whether someone has used an animal stock in a soup or stew.
But i do think rennet in cheese deserves to be a legitimate issue for vegetarians because it comes from the stomach of a calf. It is the enzymes that enable it to digest milk. So it means when we eat it, we are commercially supporting the slaughter of the animal. I guess it depends on the reason why a person chooses to be vegetarian. If it's about the ethics of not killing animals, then renneted cheese is not ok. But in that case, we could still eat cheeses if we know the source of the milk is from a cow who's calf is not killed.
In my sloppiness, I am hypocritical to my own ethics. I don't like that about myself. And yet I find cheeses addictively delicious. I restrict myself to treating them as occasional treats - but have great difficulty in giving them up altogether.
My husband is absolutely purist and always double checks everything. He insists that the cat's meat is kept separately, along with anything that touches it or the cat's bowls. On the other hand, he wears leather belts and shoes. So I think his reasoning in the food department is based more on hygiene than ethics. I tell him it's a hang-over of kosher (he's Jewish) - he laughs and protests that is not the case.
