Claim:
Some Parmesan cheeses are made using the stomach linings of baby cows.
Rating:
Around early January 2023, a number of social media users expressed shock when they found that some brands of Parmesan cheese, the specialty from Italy, contain rennet, an enzyme that is traditionally taken from the stomach lining of calves. News articles confirmed the finding, with some citing the animal welfare organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
This revelation was not new, though. The information has long been available; see this article from The Guardian, and this 2013 post by the NZ Vegetarian Society on Facebook, “…Parmesan cheese is an EU ‘protected designation of origin’ product and has to be made using calf rennet, so it’s definitely not suitable for vegetarians.”
The enzyme is used for curdling milk in the cheese-making process.
“Today years old when I found out Parmesan cheese is made from baby cow’s stomach & I could go cry, tweeted @dtheebae on Jan. 9, 2023. “I’m just gonna have to go full vegan at this point.”
On Facebook too, some users were surprised. “It’s made from what?!,” asked UNILAD on Jan. 12, 2023. However, shocked reactions were neither new nor recent. “I just found out Parmesan cheese isn’t vegetarian and basically my whole life is a lie,” wrote BuzzFeed’s Delaney Strunk in 2019.
The BuzzFeed reporter found that “apparently to earn the authentic legal title of…
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