Why is it that Parmesan does not count as vegetarian when its just a cheese? (Picture: Getty)

Vegetarians across the land will know just how much it hurts to have to turn down Parmesan cheese, aka Parmigiano-Reggiano, in restaurants.

This hard Italian cheese (already the Antichrist to vegans, who don’t eat dairy) is not a vegetarian product, unlike the vast majority of world cheeses.

So why is it not vegetarian? And are there any similar-tasting alternatives that are vegetarian?

This ultra-hard cheese is great for grating but not all that great for cows (Picture: Getty)

Parmesan, which takes its name from the three places it’s made (Parma, Reggio Emilia and Bologna), is not vegetarian because its production involves the killing of animals.


The coagulation process, necessary to make milk, usually requires an enzyme called chymosin, which comes from something called rennet.



In the case of Parmesan, and most cheeses, that rennet is ritually procured from the one of the four stomachs of a calf.

For this, the baby cow is killed merely so it’s stomach can be taken and split open, dried, cut into cubes and added to the cheese mixture to curdle it.

An example of a dried calf’s stomach used in making Parmesan (Picture: Getty)

This stomach’s enzyme is so intrinsic to the production of Parmesan that it cannot legally be called Parmesan unless it contains cows milk, salt and calf rennet.

And Parmesan is not the only cheese to contain calf rennet. Grana Padano and Gorgonzola are other Italian cheeses with rennet in the recipe.

Others include Gruyere, Manchego, Emmenthal, Pecorino Romano, Mimolette, Camembert, Boucheron and Vacherin.

What’s more, in the Parmesan-making process, excess whey is produced, then fed by farmers to pigs that are killed to make Parma ham.

Calves die for Parmesan cheese because one of their stomachs is used for solidifying the cheese (Picture: Getty)

Vegetarian cheeses, meanwhile, are manufactured using rennet from either fungal/bacterial sources or genetically modified micro-organisms.

Inside the EU, cheeses cannot be described as Parmesan unless the cheese has been made in Italy in the usual regions, according to the three-ingredient recipe.

So if you buy Parmesan in a shop you know you are buying the real deal, aka the non-vegetarian Italian cheese involving rennet.

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