Soy cheese is supposed to be okay for an A, but I haven't found any palatable soy cheese without sodium caseinate, an avoid.  (I love Soy Kaas, but I stopped eating it.)  Does anybody know of a tasty brand of soy cheese that doesn't have avoids in it?

I have not been able to find any, either. I use goat chevre when I want a cheese fix. There is a book called the Uncheese Cookbook (or something like that), with recipes for making your own. I own it but have not made any recipes yet.

I have never have found a 'clean' soy cheese without at least one gum, additive, stabilizer, natural flavoring, et al.

Best to find a substitute for soy cheese...perhaps silken tofu, sheep/goat cheese, soy/cow yogurt.

Alia

Yeah, it's the meltiness and stretchiness I miss.  When I make lasagna I use crumbled tofu and it works fine.  I had an allergic reaction the last several times I tried any sort of cheese, including goat and sheep.  I'm scared of it now.  Uncheese Cookbook.  Hm.

Thanks, y'all.

Have you considered using rice, almond cheese?  I have seen these in the health food stores but I have never purchased any; I am not cognizant of the ingredients contained in these cheeses.

My inclination is that gums or stabilizers are used in these 'mock cheeses' to provide the 'stretch', elasticity, and melting properties that you had referred to in your post.

Alia

The almond cheese was awsome when I use to get it. Haven't been able to get it in a long time. It was the one cheese I could cut and eat on a cracker that tasted good. It also melted very well. It was made by Lisaniti(not sure of the spelling) I suspect it had either carregean or casian maybe both. But for non dairy it was good and I miss it.

Thank you for sharing your food product experience with almond cheese, BuzyBee.

Alia

Well, I wonder what brand of soy cheese Dr. D tested.  If they all have thickeners in them of some sort, they can't be okay, but yet they tested neutral.  Makes me wonder if some of those thickeners are okay in very small amounts but not taken in large amounts by themselves.  Sort of like I can eat a wheat cracker, but I can't eat a piece of bread.  I can't tolerate any dairy, but the sodium caseinate in the soy cheese doesn't affect my stomach at all.  Is it dose-related, or does mixing it with something else make it better or worse?

Good question Ribbit. You make a good point that we can have soy cheese but there aren't any out there that we can find without avoids. Or is it ok to find one with small amounts of avoids(close to last on the ingredient list). The caseinate or carregean does not bother my stomach. One or the other is in most soy products. It is very hard to find soy products without an advoid.

The only soy cheese I found contained hydrogenated fat.  I e'd the makers and they said that was better than animal fat!!!  but then they were promoting veganism.

Joyce

For Baking and Toasting try 'Yeast Cheeze'.
Make a thick paste of Yeast Flakes and a little warm water - a Little Garlic if you wish. Works good for Pizzas...

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Quoted from Drea

...There is a book called the Uncheese Cookbook (or something like that), with recipes for making your own...

I used to have the Uncheese Cookbook - It does have some good recipes, but the Seed Cheeses never turned out for me.
Now there is the "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook", by Jo Stepaniak as well.
ISBN-13: 978-1570671517

The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. That's the one I have. The recipes look interesting. Just haven't taken the time to make any of them.

Quoted from Schluggell

For Baking and Toasting try 'Yeast Cheeze'.
Make a thick paste of Yeast Flakes and a little warm water - a Little Garlic if you wish. Works good for Pizzas...

Thank you for sharing this [soy] cheese substitute with us.

Alia

Quoted from Schluggell

For Baking and Toasting try 'Yeast Cheeze'.
Make a thick paste of Yeast Flakes and a little warm water - a Little Garlic if you wish. Works good for Pizzas...

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I used to have the Uncheese Cookbook - It does have some good recipes, but the Seed Cheeses never turned out for me.
Now there is the "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook", by Jo Stepaniak as well.
ISBN-13: 978-1570671517

Is that brewers yeast?  Or bakers yeast?  I am assuming brewers yeast, since I have read that it supposedly has a 'cheesy' flavor.  Would salt be added as well, or is the yeast salty enough tasting without it?

It's nutritional yeast, or sometimes just called yeast.  You can buy it in the bulk section at Whole Foods.  It doesn't look like baking yeast, the little grey granules.  It looks like quinoa flakes.  I "needed" popcorn one evening, so I took rice cakes, crumbled them up, poured a little olive oil on them, sprinkled on nutritional yeast and salt and ....  wow.  For those of us who can't eat popcorn, it does the trick.  

Wow!  I mixed the yeast with warm water and a little salt (and some melted Earth Balance "butter") and stirred it into rice noodles.  Who needs cheese sauce?  That was great!

glad you enjoyed it!
thanks for sharing.

I have a severe cow-milk allergy, and can tell you from YEARS of searching, there is not a dairy-free cheese that has any stretch.

HOWEVER, there is a goat-cheese mozzarella out there if you can find it... Consistency is the same as cow-mozzerella. My husband can't tell the difference. The Whole Foods near me carries it sometimes.

I just bought some yeast flakes today, and was surprised at how 'cheesy' they smelled.  I hope it tastes as good as it smells.  

I went ahead and bought some Soy Kaas again.  I feel like at this point in my pregnancy I need the protein more than I need to worry about one avoid that doesn't even bother me (that I notice anyway).  My midwife keeps getting on to me about the 90 grams a day, which I find very difficult to get.  I don't even feel like I need that much.  I stuff so much protein and water (1 gal./day feels like too much) down myself every day that I'm not even hungry for breakfast in the mornings.

I am still interested in knowing what kind of soy cheese Dr. D. tested.  I wonder if there's any way to find out.

Quoted from joedee

I have a severe cow-milk allergy, and can tell you from YEARS of searching, there is not a dairy-free cheese that has any stretch.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.  

Likewise, I have never found a 'clean' soycheese in any of the stores I have visited whether conventional or natural foods-based.  I believe the closest soy cheese I have found contained at least one gum avoid.

I feel there are alternatives to using substitutes for soy cheese or not using soy cheese at all.  The latter option allows me to discover or try new possibilities.

Alia

perhaps some tofu slices sprinkled with nutritional yeast might taste cheesy enough?

It's not just the taste of cheese but the texture that I miss.

Yeah, and especially the easy slice-it-and-eat-it routine instead of soaking beans all night, cooking them half the day, mashing them with garlic and salt and spreading them on a rice cake.  Not what I call a quick protein snack.

Quoted from Ribbit

Yeah, and especially the easy slice-it-and-eat-it routine instead of soaking beans all night, cooking them half the day, mashing them with garlic and salt and spreading them on a rice cake.  Not what I call a quick protein snack.

organic beans in a can are a lovely convenience! They save me when I don't plan ahead.  

Uuuuh.  Gets me every time.  One of my huge problems in life: lack of planning.  I'm not this bad every day, but an embarrassing amount of time, it gets to be 5:00 and I'm going, "Oh yeah.  I have to cook dinner.  What are we having?"  And I don't understand why I do that, because it's NO SURPRISE--I have to cook every evening, so why is it so hard just plan ahead?