It’s a tough time to be an omnivore. By now, you’ve probably heard all the reasons to go meatless: your health, the planet, the animals. They may all be true, but for many meat-eaters, vegetables just don’t taste as good on their own. Collards without ham hocks, bell peppers without sausage, snap peas without shrimp is a pathetic combination.
In my family’s world, meat is the sun around which vegetables, beans, and grains revolve. When meat is gone, dinner descends into chaos. As the family cook, I’m always looking for ways to reduce our meat consumption. But the mouths I feed, my own included, still crave the taste of meat.
Eating less meat and more vegetables can be a real challenge, especially with the current lack of meat alternatives. Are you really craving tempeh? Or a black bean burger? But the solution might already be in your fridge: an ingredient that is just as flavorful and satisfying as meat. Crunchy, flavorful, and packed with umami, it makes up for the lack of meat. If there’s anything that can turn a meat eater into a plant lover, it’s cheese.
Adding cheese to veggies is kitchen magic: a sprinkling of Parmesan transforms a humble pasta dish with beans into a hearty Italian dinner, while slices of grilled halloumi turn a veggie platter into an instant lunch. Virus RecipeChunks of feta cheese are baked with tomatoes and garlic to make a delicious pasta sauce. The natural order of the meal has been restored. For generations, cooks have used cheese to get people to eat their vegetables. In other words, cheese is Meat alternativesEven if you’re Italian Nonna You might not call it that.
Cheese helps address the problems posed by meat and its imitators, and while plant-based meat improves on some of these aspects, drawbacks around taste, cost and nutrition remain. The decline in demandIt’s far from perfect: Lab-grown meat, theoretically the same as meat, is still a long way off, and tofu is, well, tofu.health and Minimal harm to the planetbut it’s most appetizing when smothered in oily, salty sauce. Cheese isn’t perfect in this respect either, but it’s better than meat.
Yes, health-wise too. The long-held belief that cheese is bad for you has been complicated by research that finds that what you eat instead of cheese can make a difference. Cheese gets a bad rap because of its high saturated fat content. Dietary Guidelines They warn that saturated fats can cause weight gain, which increases the risk of: Heart disease,Diabetess, o, andHealthThat is all true. But inexplicably, Large-scale study show no relativerelationship There is a correlation between cheese consumption and weight gain. Some studies have shown that, for reasons that are yet to be explained, eating cheese can actually lead to weight gain. Linked to Lower weight.
All meat is not uniformly bad for you. Red and processed meat appear to be the worst. Cheese, especially as a substitute, is even better. Replacing just 1.8 ounces of red or processed meat with 1 ounce of cheese a day could reduce your chances of developing diabetes by 8.8%. One modeling study“If you eat a lot of meat, replacing some of it with cheese could be beneficial for your health,” Daniel Ipsen, a professor of nutrition at Aarhus University in Denmark, who led the study, told me. Part of the explanation is that cheese’s beneficial components, like its good fatty acids and probiotic bacteria, might offset some of its unhealthy properties. But the main reason is that red and processed meats are so bad for you that you might not want to eat them any more. Virtually replaces other protein sources Probably good.
And then there’s the climate issue: Cheese, especially hard cheeses that require a lot of milk to produce, undoubtedly puts a strain on the planet. The fact that cheese comes from cows is not a good thing. 4th largest emitter It’s one of the leading sources of protein, after beef, lamb, and farmed shellfish. Producing 1.7 ounces of cheese releases as much carbon dioxide as charging 356 smartphones using conventional power sources. But here’s the catch: Cheese is typically consumed in much smaller serving sizes than meat. Most of us don’t eat a steak-sized block of Gouda for dinner or regularly snack on Camembert in place of a hamburger patty. Nearly half of Americans 42 pounds Cheese per person Meat consumption will hit a record high in 2022 I wandered around £250 per year for the past 20 yearsA small amount of cheese is enough.
Cheese isn’t a one-to-one replacement for meat, but a way to make plant-based dishes more exciting without losing the meat. This principle shapes dinner in my house. I’ve never found that plant-based dishes are too simple, too frugal, too spartan. vegetablesI’m thinking of ways to incorporate a little cheese. Boring asparagus? LabnehLentils not your thing? Get them going with goat cheese. The dish that might turn my family into vegetarians is a North Indian dish. Saag Paneerspicy pureed spinach in soft, salty, chewy cubes. Paneer Cheese. It’s basically a meat stew, but the meat is replaced with cheese.
Switching from a meat-based diet to a cheese-based one isn’t the end goal. Whether cheese is “healthy” depends on who’s eating it. Someone worried about diabetes might benefit from eating cheese instead of red meat, but someone worried about their risk of cardiovascular disease might not, says Ibsen. Cheese isn’t cheap. If you’re lactose intolerant, cheese isn’t for you.
Cheese isn’t the new meat. Rather, it’s a bridge to a meatless future, one where the cries to enjoy only vegetables are less loud, because omnivores are all a little more creative about what a satisfying meal looks like. Cauliflower can be grilled like steak, mushrooms can be shredded like chicken, and crushed walnuts can be sautéed like ground beef. But discovering the joys of meatless cooking takes time. For now, a little sprinkling of cheese won’t hurt.
