Is Vegan Cheese Healthy

Why Do We Think Vegan Cheese is Unhealthy

As mentioned above, the common misconception is that vegan cheese is simply unhealthy.

People think that they are unhealthy because of the handful of options in supermarkets that all use coconut oil.

The supermarket vegan cheeses are the only plant based cheeses that people see and there in lies the problem.

So of course, when they see potato starch (a flour) or coconut oil as one of the main ingredients in nearly all of the vegan cheeses available in supermarkets, then this is the conclusion they come to.

To expand on our original point about vegan cheese being made with coconut oil, this is mentioned because it is a highly processed ingredient and contains large amounts of saturated fats.

You want to stay clear of processed ingredients when you are looking at improving your health.

You can argue that fats are healthy, they are required by us for specific dietary reasons to help with our health.

What is unhealthy about oils are the amount of oil you would consume and the saturated fats that come with this ingredient.

If you are looking at your cholesterol and have higher amounts and looking to lower them to improve your health, drop the supermarket branded vegan cheeses and look at artisanal whole food vegan cheeses made with whole food ingredients.

Is Vegan Cheese Healthier Than Dairy Cheese

There is no straight answer to this, is vegan cheese healthier than regular cheese?

It completely depends on the ingredients and what they are, we believe there are some vegan cheese that can be healthier than regular cheese, this is because dairy cheese from goats, cows, sheep and other animals is not a whole food.

We are not going to get in to if dairy cheese is bad for you and if so, how bad, but what we can do is highlight the good and healthy vegan cheeses that exist.

To understand what vegan cheese ingredients are healthy, we only need to know which ingredients are healthy.

There is a simple answer to that, plant based whole foods ingredients are some of the healthiest foods and ingredients that we know of.

There is plenty of data to back this up https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/plant-based-diets

With this in mind, which ingredients and foods in vegan cheese are wholefoods?

Wholefoods Ingredients In Vegan Cheeses

Below is a complete list of vegan cheeses which have wholefoods ingredients only.

There are many vegan cheeses which do not have completely wholefoods ingredients, so we have kept them out.

Here you can see only 100% wholefoods ingredients used in each of the cheeses.

You can see that they use mostly cashew nuts as their main ingredients and then other wholefoods ingredients along side.

There are no processed ingredients and if there are only one or two and they come from wholefoods themselves.

Where Are The Healthy Vegan Cheeses

Luckily for you, we have the largest database of vegan cheeses anywhere on the internet, with over 1500+ and counting and we're continually adding new cheeses to the database when we find them.

And with this catalogue of vegan cheeses, we have categorised them in many different ways to help you find new favourites.

Wholefood Vegan Cheeses

One of those categories is called ingredients composition and it tags the vegan cheeses by those with completely wholefoods ingredients, those that have a mix of wholefoods and processed ingredients and those that have just processed ingredients.

All you have to do is filter out the vegan cheeses with processed ingredients.

Below you can see some of the best healthy and completely whole food vegan cheeses and here you can find hundreds of whole food ingredient vegan cheeses at our discovery tool.

Comparing Wholefood Vegan Cheese Ingredients to Mass Produced Cheese in Supermarkets

Above you can see a selection of vegan cheeses made with only wholefood ingredients, but what do those ingredients look like?

The Happy Cheeze Tomato Sage cheese is one of those with some great reviews and rated highly amongst vegan cheese lovers and has the following ingredients:

• cashews
• water
• tomatoes
• garlic
• sage
• salt
• vegan fermentation cultures

To us, that is just a beautiful list of ingredients and we'd be more than happy to have these ingredients in our diet and enjoy this vegan cheese multiple times a week, if it lasts more than one sitting that is!

The Muka Cajumelo Camembert has a short and simple list of ingredients as well:

• cashew nuts
• filtered water
• shiitake mushroom
• sea salt
• vegan fermentation cultures

Hopefully you can understand how simple and healthy these ingredients are, the only other ingredient not on these lists that the cheese requires is time.

And with time they can mature and age, and vegan cheese makers do this differently with all their cheeses, depending on how they want their cheese to taste.

To compare that to the Applewood Smoky list of ingredients, you'll expect something more like this:

• water
• coconut oil
• potato starch
• modified maize starch
• yeast extract
• salt
• natural flavourings
• carrageenan
• calcium phosphate
• smoke flavouring
• calcium chloride
• carotenes
• paprika

Zero whole food ingredients, and it is with this you can see the difference between supermarket and mass produced vegan cheeses and those healthier options made by artisans and sold at local health food stores, vegan cafes and online.

Aged Vegan Cheeses with Cultures and Probiotics

Another health indicator of vegan cheese is whether it uses probiotics in the making of it. These are great at improving gut health when consumed with an aged vegan cheese.

Some vegan cheese may use mostly wholefood ingredients but with a single processed ingredient that makes up a fraction of the cheese. They may also use probiotics in them as well and we would say that these vegan cheeses are still healthier than the fullly processed alternatives you can get and that the supermarkets stock.

Below you can find some of the best cultured vegan cheeses and here you can use the discovery tool filters to find whole food vegan cheeses with cultures in them.

How Can You Find New Healthy Vegan Cheeses

If you want to find more healthy vegan cheeses with your own requirements, head on over to our vegan cheese database.

It has over 1500+ vegan cheeses and grows daily and you can filter by wholefood ingredients, cultured vegan cheeses, vegan cheeses made with chickpeas or almonds and find a new healthy vegan cheese favourite today.

Make Your Own Healthy Vegan Cheese

If none of that satiates your appetite or you just don't have the options in your country, have no fear, as a vegan cheese recipe could be the answer.

We have the biggest database of vegan cheese recipes anywhere online, and we're always adding new recipes.

At the time of writing we have over 250 vegan cheese recipes you can make at home today.

You can filter the recipes in many ways, such as refining the search to show only oil free vegan cheese recipes.

You'll be pleasantly surprised by how few ingredients you will require to make vegan cheese at home and also how quickly you can make it too.

From vegan cheese sauces, to even aged and vegan blue cheeses, there is something for everyone, especially those who are health conscious and want to stick to a whole food plant based diet.