Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jimdavis
IDoes it melt into a puddle, or does it melt "properly" into a substance with a stringy texture?
The Toffutti "mozarella style" melts pretty much like traditional cheese. It actually melts more like a chedder, in a gooey lump, and doens't do the the stringy texture of actual mozarella.
The ingredients on the pack are: Water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, tofu, soy protein, stabiliser (carageenan), maltodextrin, vinager, corn starch, emulsyfing salt (calcium phosphate, potassium phosphate), potatoe flakes, salt, adipic acid, soy lecithin, natural flavours, natural colours.
Also of interest is the nutritional break down, which is, per 100g
protein - 10.5g
carbohydrate - 10.5g
of which sugars - 5.2g
fat - 26.3g
of which saturates 10.5g
Quick background: Dairy cheese is a mixture of (principly) proteins and fats. When it 'melts', the fats melt, leaving the proteins as a soft mass with the fats mixed together (the proteins do not actually 'melt' per se). This mixture of molten and solid substances is partly why it has a soft texture (although there's a lot more to that). If you think of something like paper pulp in water - the mixture as a whole is mushy, and is made up of liquid water and solid cellulose fibres - molten cheese is roughly like that, in terms of physical states.
The Toffutti stuff takes a similar intent. The ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats will have influence over the melting point of the material. When the fats melt, the soya proteins (note that tofu is more or less a mixutre of soy proteins and starch) and the various starches are left as a mush, which floats around in the liquid fats.
The next trick is to get the whole thing to stick together. That's down to a carful choice of proteins - as mentioned about, you want them a bit glue like. Enter soy protein, carageenan and possible those lectins too. In fact, depending on how they've processed it, some of the starch might help with that too - in the same way that a sauce that's over thickened with starch will end up a goopy mass, that's what's wanted here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dr. Schmeebis
I mean, you stop craving cheese after like a few months. The casein molecules become morphocasein, a molecule similar to (and addictive like) morphine. It's basically an addiction that relents after a few months of no cheese.
Hmm - I find that difficult to accept. Morphine and casein are rather different, and just being similar to morphine is meaningless when talking about any of it's properties. Can you cite something at me on that - the only thing I can find on the PCRM site carefully avoids giving any references at all, which makes me rather suspicious about such claims.