Miyoko Schinner, Cheese, Cookbooks, Travel, New Sanctuary!

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miyokoMiyoko has been delivering up her style of gourmet vegan cuisine to the public for decades through her many enterprises, including a restaurant, natural food company, cooking classes, lectures, and books. Her titles include the groundbreaking book, Artisan Vegan Cheese, and the most recent, The Homemade Vegan Pantry. Miyoko is the founder of Miyoko’s Kitchen, makers of artisanal vegan cheese available at key retailers and online at http://miyokoskitchen.com/. She is co-host of Vegan Mashup, a cooking show on the Create Channel and seen on PBS.

 

TRANSCRIPTION:

Caryn Hartglass:  Let’s move on to the second part of the program because my guest is here and I can’t wait to talk to Miyoko Schinner.  Miyoko, welcome to It’s All About Food.

Miyoko Schinner:  Hey, how are you, Caryn?

Caryn Hartglass:  Good.  You know I’m really grateful that you’re spending this half hour with me because you are the most amazing person out there these days doing a gazillion things.  I don’t know how you find the time.

Miyoko Schinner:  Oh, Gosh.  [Laughter].  Like everybody else including you I’m sure, so anyway.

Caryn Hartglass:  Oh, yes.  Anyway, so we all want to talk about because you’re just doing everything and we want to get to all of that.  Ah, I think right now the things that most people are excited about is your cheese.  I noticed VegNews on the front of their website is talking about your new vegan mozzarella.  Let’s talk about that.

Miyoko Schinner:  Ah.  Oh, yeah.  The mozzarella is fantastic.  You know, I’m really excited about it because it’s our first truly meltable cheese, but what makes it different from all the other meltable cheeses on the market, well there’s several reasons: one is that it’s something that you can truly enjoy either cold, sliced in a caprese salad or in a sandwich or melted on a pizza or in a sandwich and the melting ability of this cheese is absolutely phenomenal.  You can’t tell it apart from regular cheese.  If you put it on a pizza like a margarita pizza it really looks like fresh Buffalo mozzarella.  It bubbles, it browns, it’s truly melty and gooey.  It’s absolutely lovely.  Once again it’s like all of our other cheeses in that it is a cultured cheese so we add cultures to it which is what gives it the unique flavor of cheese rather than adding cheese flavor to it.  So we make it in a very traditional mozzarella type of way.  We also brine it in brine which is salt water to give it extra flavor so it really is a bit of artistry involved in making this cheese and I’m really thrilled that we are able to produce this one.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah, well everybody’s excited about it so this is a great thing and I’m glad it’s out there so we can pretty much get it at like Whole Foods or where can people find it?

Miyoko Schinner:  Yeah, you can buy it at different Whole Foods stores throughout the country and a lot of independent supermarkets.  Natural Food Source also carries it.  Have we sent you any, Caryn?

Caryn Hartglass:  Not the mozzarella.

Miyoko Schinner:  Okay.  We need to send that to you.  Okay.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yes.  In fact I was talking to Gary earlier and he said, “Are we getting any cheese?” [Laughter]

Miyoko Schinner:  Okay. Gosh, I got to put that order in with my marketing director.  I am so sorry.  I’m going to make sure that you get some next week.  So, we’ll send you some.

Caryn Hartglass:  Oh. Wow, I’m a winner and you know what, I’ll take that like as a birthday present.  My birthday is in April, so ah.

Miyoko Schinner:  Oh, good.  Yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  That’ll be like the beginning of my birthday celebration.

 

Miyoko Schinner:  What do you think of having a birthday pizza?

Caryn Hartglass:  They’ll be lots of good things we’ll be making with it that’s for sure.  Whew.

Miyoko Schinner:  Absolutely, yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  All right, so here’s something I want to ask you.  Ah, you started making vegan food available for the public with a restaurant in San Francisco a long time ago you started manufacturing food a long time ago then you took some time off you raised your family you came back.  What’s different now?

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, the whole market place is different the whole world is different.  I think people are waking up to the necessity of changing the way they eat because they’re beginning to realize the huge impact it makes not only on their own health but on the planet on animals.  I think when I first became a vegetarian or vegan back in the ’70’s and then vegan in the ’80’s, you know most people who went vegan did it for health reasons.  They’re really wasn’t that much information out there about the environment nor about the unethical treatment of dairy cows so people who didn’t want to hurt animals basically just didn’t eat them.  They were vegetarian but unless you were really, really worried about lactose or something you know a lot of people just didn’t go vegan and just they didn’t understand why.  Today people understand why.  There’s so much information out there thanks to the internet and so many wonderful books and publications.  All the information that’s out there today fits almost you know it’s impossible when you look at the facts straight in the eye and realize the suffering that happens to you know the whole veal industry exists because of the dairy industry for example when you realize the cruelty that dairy cows have to undergo in order to be able to provide milk for us you know it’s really hard to continue using dairy products.  I mean, it’s hard not to go vegan when you really, really get it so I think that’s really the main difference is that the world is just so much more ready to make that transition.  The world, mankind, humankind has evolved is changing slowly and surely towards a more compassionate life. You know, I really do believe that we as a species are evolving for the better and this is sort of the last hurdle that we have to get over is I mean, we are treating other humans better, I know there’s still a lot of suffering in the world and a lot of wrong doing, but just overall compared to, you know, the crusades [laughter] or something.  We’ve made progress.

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay.  I’m thinking of a couple of things I want to say.

Miyoko Schinner:  I’m sorry.  I’m kind of rambling, aren’t I? [Laughter]

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay.  I want to talk just briefly about those cows, those precious cows.  There are still people that think if they’re buying organic milk, organic dairy that they think that the cows are treated better and maybe it is some degree they have a little more space maybe they’re getting some better food, but they’re still being raped period.

Miyoko Schinner:  They’re still being raped.  They’re babies are still taken away from them upon birth so that we can in turn drink their milk.  So, they’re having their children abducted immediately and they are very emotional creatures and sometimes they chase after their calves.  There’s lots of stories and videos you can watch about that. Not only that, they’re still foddered.  It’s not like they spend the rest of their life grazing in the grass once their milk production goes down.  Once their milk production goes down, they’re no longer needed.

Caryn Hartglass:  They’re hamburger.

Miyoko Schinner: And so they go off, yeah, they become hamburger.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah.

Miyoko Schinner:  So.  It’s almost worse than if you’re just a beef cow. At least, you know, the cows you see grazing in the grass outside are typically beef cows and if you see a cow with a calf then they’re usually beef and they look like they’re happy and they probably are for a couple of years until the slaughter truck comes along to carry them off to the slaughter house.  So, but dairy cows tend to live most of their lives indoors because they have to be.  In fact, it’s not just dairy cows, it’s the same thing with goats.  I live sort of in the center of artisanal cheese production.  There’s lots and lots of very high end artisanal creameries where I live and I was just at a trade show last week where I was my table the Miyoko’s Kitchen table was right next to a high end goat cheese table [laughter] and the woman was really nice and I was chatting with her about goats because I started a little rescue little sanctuary at my house. I have a little farm and I have goats I’ve been rescuing so I struck up a conversation I asked her you know, “What do you do with your male goats?”  She said, “Oh, you know they sell them usually when their babies for meat or whatever.”  She made kind of a strange comment she goes, “Well you know goats are very picky eaters.”  Which I know you know it’s not true that they eat anything you know for example they don’t eat grass and I’m like, “What do you mean they don’t eat grass?”, you know, my goats eat grass they’re grazing in the grass all the time they also graze on grouse on trees especially willow and all kinds of things like that but they definitely are out there chomping on tall green fresh spring grass and I kind of looked at her quizzically wondering and she goes, “Oh, you know but I mean out goats they only go out three or four times a year and I said, “What do you mean they only go out three or four times a year?” and she’s like, “Well, you know they have to be indoors cause they’re for milking.” So that’s why she doesn’t even though she’s had goats for thirty years she doesn’t know that they actually do eat grass because her goats are indoors I mean this is how the industry operates.  These poor goats that are chevre makers are confined to a live indoors except for three or four times a year so that’s the industry and then their babies of course are taken away at birth and sold for whatever for slaughter or whatever else maybe Four H if they’re lucky so.

Caryn Hartglass:  This is the romance around goat cheese, goat butter and goat milk.

Miyoko Schinner: Oh, there’s so much romance around yeah goat cheese and it’s not very romantic when you see the lives they lead.

Caryn Hartglass:  The goat milk molecule is supposed to be more like the human milk but it’s not without exploitation as you just described.

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, why don’t we just have mom’s donate milk you know like human moms and we can start making breast milk cheese.

Caryn Hartglass:  Sure and pay them for it.

 

Miyoko Schinner:  That would be cruelty free.

Caryn Hartglass:  [Laughter]

Miyoko Schinner:  Right?  I mean and you know and moms could get paid for contributing their milk and they what would their babies eat?

Caryn Hartglass:  But you know the natural reaction is what?  Ewwwww.

Miyoko Schinner:  Ewwwwww.  It’d be ewwwww and then you know then what do the babies eat?  Well, the babies would then have to drink formula and then the people would say, “Well that’s really cruel that’s unnatural but that’s exactly what happens to these poor dairy cattle and goats.

Caryn Hartglass:  You know, I’m wondering, you said that your Miyoko’s Kitchen your cheese factory is near some other artisanal creameries and that must put a lot of cultures in the air that all of you share.

Miyoko Schinner:  Oh, you know, there’s cultures everywhere in the air.  It doesn’t matter where you are and there’s cultures on apples and lettuce and just about everything.  There’s basically the cultures are lactic acid and bacilli – they’re everywhere.  They’re everywhere to be found in the air on fruits and vegetables it’s all over the place but you know it’s a small batch artisanal operation you know we have clean rooms and air filtration all of this.  They all operate the same way and we buy nondairy cultures from proprietary blend that we buy that we source that are made in a lab they’re grown in a lab so we’re not making but as they ferment as they age they do capture additional cultures or bacteria or yeast from the air which of course gives it a unique flavor and that’s the case wherever you are in the world if I make cheese here and then take it and make it in let’s say France in a certain area it could taste slightly different because of whatever is present in the air.

Caryn Hartglass:  Now speaking of France, the last time we spoke I think your cheese company was just starting and you told me that you were working with these French cheese makers and they were actually becoming curious about what you were doing.  So, is there an update on that story?

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, the people that I was working with were sort of consultants who helped us design our aging room.  So, you know, they kind of played their part.  We’re not working with them right now.  So, they were very intrigued by what we were doing.  In fact, they were teaching a cheese class and giving some lectures on cheese at a cheese festival locally a big one and they thought it’d be interesting to sample our cheese.  So, we sent it to them and I don’t know if I told you this story or not but somehow there was a mix-up and our cheese got served at the wrong event not the one where there were going to be you know deliberately talking about it but it got served at the regular cheese event not the alternative cheese event but it got served at the regular cheese event and just served alongside all of the other cheeses and presented to people as dairy cheese.

Caryn Hartglass:  Hmmm Hmmm.

Miyoko Schinner:  And no one knew the difference course people loved it so there you go and these weren’t vegans you know they weren’t vegan.

Caryn Hartglass:  And it happened by mistake or maybe the universe wanted that to happen.  That’s a great story.

 

Miyoko Schinner:  That’s right.  That’s exactly right.  Yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay.  So, the cheese is really good and I don’t know but I think history is going to look back on you Miyoko for really doing some groundbreaking work in terms of some plant based cheeses.

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, that is very, very generous of you to say that.

Caryn Hartglass:  It’s true.  I mean a lot of people have worked on cheese but I think you’ve done more than anybody in my personal opinion.

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, thank you very much.

Caryn Hartglass:   Hmmm. Hmmm [laughter]

Miyoko Schinner:  I’ll let you record history, okay?

Caryn Hartglass:  [Laughter] Oh, history, if we’re here in the future, I hope so, but that will just require everything moving from dairy cheese to plant based cheese amongst a few other things.

Miyoko Schinner:  It’s going to happen, because the alternative isn’t viable and it’s not sustainable, so.

Caryn Hartglass:  That’s right and now

Miyoko Schinner:  And we’re running out of land, we’re running out of resources, we’re running out of all sorts of things that will make us history. We’ll just sort of self destruct eventually.  I don’t think we’re too far off from that.

Caryn Hartglass:  No.  I want to talk more about deliciousness.  Can we talk about butter?

Miyoko Schinner:  Yeah.  Oh, butter. Oh, yes.  Slaughter me in vegan butter.  You know, it’s delicious.

Caryn Hartglass:  [Laughter].

Miyoko Schinner:  We just came out with a cultured, European style butter and you’re in New York so Whole Foods carries both our mozzarella and our butter.  We start out with cashew milk.  We make our own cashew milk and we add cultures to it.  We ferment the cashew milk so it develops this sort of tangy flavor and then we combine it with organic coconut oil of course and some other ingredients, too, and then we churn it and so it’s a whole new turn on butter and it’s shaped like butter it looks like butter like a European style butter and you can do whatever you want that you would normally do with dairy butter with this butter whether slathering on your pancakes or you know on toast as thick as cheese or you can melt it, you can whip it to make butter cream.  It browns like butter which is margarine doesn’t brown but this does brown.  It’s absolutely lovely and we’ve won a couple of awards for it.  We were at the natural products expo which is the largest natural products trade show in the world.  We were there a couple of weeks ago and we won the coveted NEXTY award and this is an award for innovation, innovative new products and we won out of 500 nominations.

Caryn Hartglass:  Oh, everybody!  Give Miyoko a big round of applause. Whew … That’s awesome!

Miyoko Schinner:  So we were thrilled.  So, yeah, the butter did great.

Caryn Hartglass:  So, now is the butter you’re selling similar at all to the recipes you have in the homemade vegan pantry?

Miyoko Schinner:  It is similar.  It’s better because the one in my book is not fermented.  It’s not cultured.  It’s kind of a quickie recipe for someone to make at home.  The one we make here is a three day process so that gives you an idea of there’s an extra layer of flavor that is hard to capture when you just do it at home unless you go through the whole fermentation process so you know there’s a lot of wonderful things you can do at home.  You can definitely replicate almost everything we do you can do at home if you want to take the trouble to do so.  You know just like with any good dairy cheese, you can make it at home, too if you take the time and the effort and have the proper equipment so we just want to make it easy, I mean, not everybody wants to spend a month making cheese so we want to make it for you.  It’s the same thing with butter.

Caryn Hartglass:  Now the cultures they’re actually good for us.

Miyoko Schinner:  They are.  They’re lactic acid bacteria so there basically you know we like to call probiotics or what not.  They’re healthy for the gut and you know fermentation is one of the keys to health.  Man has been fermenting food for thousands and thousands of years so definitely any food that contains a fermented component is going to be good for you.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah, let’s move on to travel.  Tell me about what’s going on with you and travel and how people can get involved and where that’s going to be and very soon.

Miyoko Schinner:  Oh, okay, well actually the big trip that I’m taking this year, you know, I’ll be at various events, I’ll be at Marshall, TX this weekend speaking at Health Fest and I’ll be in Hawaii later this year speaking for the Hawaii Vegetarian Society and I’ll be at Summerfest in Pennsylvania in July, but the big trip that there’s actually only two spots left for people.

Caryn Hartglass:  Wow.

Miyoko Schinner:  Is the trip to Italy in Puglia, which is the heel of Italy.  It’s a very remote sort of rural area.  I’ll be going there as part of the Vegano Italiano in September 25th to the 1st.  It’s really a culinary tour into the heart of Italy we’ll be going into places that are off the beaten track spending the entire day at a winery we’ll be going to farms and picking stuff and cooking it together.  Learning how to make fresh pasta just feasting lunch and dinner on just delights of the region which are largely vegan because it’s an agricultural area where they’ve been eating largely vegan foods for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years so that’s going to be a phenomenal trip and if you’re interested you know you can just google the Gana Italiano or called greenearthtravel.com or veganoitaliano.com. If you can’t make the trip with me, Julieanna Hever, the plant based dietician, is leading a tour in July and Fran Costigan the diva of vegan chocolate desserts will be doing her own tour in Sicily in October so there’s opportunities for people to come and participate but I hope you’ll be able to join me two more spots.  You know two of your listeners.

Caryn Hartglass:  Two more spots.

Miyoko Schinner:  Are available love to have you join me.

Caryn Hartglass:  Will you be bringing any of your cheeses for this event?

Miyoko Schinner:  I will.  In fact we’re going to be doing a wine and cheese sampling at the winery that we’re going to be spending a day at so I’ll be bringing cheese and we’ll be doing a very, very leisurely wine and cheese tasting along with tasting many other things of course but it’s an area where everyone makes their own olive oil.  People make their own wine.  Everyone grows their own vegetables.  People live today much as they have for hundreds and hundreds of years so you get a real insiders perspective of Italy.

Caryn Hartglass:  Really beautiful, lovely, romantic, delicious.

Miyoko Schinner:  Absolutely.  It’s all about food.  You know that’s really what.

Caryn Hartglass:  [Laughter].  It’s all about food and not about convenience.

Miyoko Schinner:  When you can have good quality food.  Yeah.  I’ve never heard that before.  It’s all about food.

Caryn Hartglass:  It’s all about food.

Miyoko Schinner:  Yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  We have to okay sure you can go and travel to a place but you have to appreciate the time, the effort, the love.  They’ve required quality and nothing artificial and cheap and assembly line.  This is art and it’s worth it.

Miyoko Schinner:  It really is.  It really is and that’s where we have to go back as a species as humans we have to go back to the way we’ve been eating for hundreds and hundreds of years really I mean you know and just really get in touch with the foods that really matter to us which is pure and clean.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah.  Now, you mentioned the goats and this sanctuary so tell us a little bit more about that.  How many goats do you have and where do they come from?

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, we moved to a ranch last summer with this crazy idea that we’d start rescuing animals and the first animals we rescued were two goats from Animal Place which is a wonderful sanctuary in Grass Valley.  In fact, we’re going to be doing a fundraiser for Animal Place at my house on May 22nd so anybody wants to attend that be sure to just go to animalplace.org but anyway so we got these two goats and they were strays they were males they’re of a breed that specifically known for dairy production but the males of course don’t produce milk so they’re usually as I mentioned either sold off or sometimes abandoned if they don’t grow big enough for meat so anyways these two were abandoned in a field that’s where they came from and then I have another goat and another sheep that are in love with each other Bennie and Joon.

Caryn Hartglass:  [Laughter].

Miyoko Schinner:  Named after that Johnnie Depp movie, but anyway Bennie and Joon are two odd ball different species that love each other and they were raised in a dog run isolated in a dog run without any grass or anything.  They really had never walked more than four feet and like they spent six of their years.  They’re about six years old so we rescued them from Farm Sanctuary or not rescued them from Farm Sanctuary rescued them and then we adopted them from Farm Sanctuary.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah.

Miyoko Schinner:  And then we also have three pigs.

Caryn Hartglass:  Hmmm.  Hmmm.

Miyoko Schinner:  Three pot bellied pigs that were once again purchased by somebody as pets and then the man died and then they had to find a new home.  Then we have seventeen chickens including two roosters.  One transgender rooster one rooster that everybody thought including Farm Sanctuary thought was a hen and after nine months all of a sudden displaying rooster like qualities and then turned into a full blown rooster about you know five or six months after they normally you know become roosters or reveal those rooster like characters.  So that was sort of unusual.  We’re going to be adopting more animals we have plenty of room.  We have lots of acres so and it’s wonderful.  I have wonderful volunteers that have stepped up and helped me, you know, when I travel or what not, so.  Animals are getting attention and lots of acres to roam.

Caryn Hartglass:  And where is this?

Miyoko Schinner:  We are in West Marin which is kind of north of San Francisco.

Caryn Hartglass:  Hmmm.  Hmmm.

Miyoko Schinner:  And it’s absolutely lovely and I don’t know, I find so much peace being with the animals like I’ve never felt.  I could spend hours and hours and hours and when I’m with the animals you’re just sort of in the moment with them connecting and you’re not thinking about anything else and all your worldly troubles just go away because nothing really matters except, you know.  I don’t know giving them another willow branch to chomp on.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah.  I was just talking earlier about the Easter holiday and one of the things that’s important for many people during Easter after they’ve gone through their services and talked about the precious, peaceful lamb is to go and eat lamb and.

Miyoko Schinner:  Isn’t that strange.

Caryn Hartglass:  [Laughter].  Isn’t that strange.

Miyoko Schinner:  I just don’t get it.  I just don’t get the disconnect at all and you know where I am.  I’m in farmland so we’re surrounded, the name of our little sanctuary is Rancho Compassion.

Caryn Hartglass:  Awww.

Miyoko Schinner:  But, we’re surrounded by all these ranches with everything from.  There are lots of horse ranches, but lots of lots of cattle, sheep.   There just all over the place.  Down the street you see the little veal crates.  You know the little white huts that you didn’t know what they were before if you every drive to the country you see this little white little huts that are lined up one after the other.  They house individual veal calves that are very sad and lonely and are just waiting their day of slaughter so to be your dinner.

Caryn Hartglass:  Just another human invention so anybody can google veal calf, what do you call them, containers or

Miyoko Schinner:  Yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  You can get pictures of them it’s just another obscene human creation.

Miyoko Schinner:  Yes.  It’s absolutely awful.

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay and you can see, you know, up in the West Marin area.

Miyoko Schinner:  Oh, yeah you see them and you know sometimes I just feel like pulling over and going and rescuing one of them.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah, of course, then they would put you in jail.

Miyoko Schinner:  They would, so I just keep hoping that one of them will escape or something and be on the side of the road and I can put it in my car and drive off or something.

Caryn Hartglass:  Oh, yeah, well I mean that’s again where money could really help because if we all could we could buy up all of those animals and save them but then they’d probably just artificially inseminate more and make more.

Miyoko Schinner:  Make more.  Yeah, yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  Yeah, so the trick is to stop eating them and one way to do that is to move from dairy cow based and goat milk based cheese over to the plant based nut milk based cheeses and that brings us back to Miyoko’s Kitchen.  There’s lots of choices.  In addition to the mozzarella are there some new flavors that have come out recently?

Miyoko Schinner:  No, the mozzarella and the butter are two big, regular SKUs that we just introduced.  We’ll probably do more limited edition ones.  Last year we had kind of a very small, limited edition run of a new flavor almost every single month just for fun and we’ll probably start that up again.  We’re growing so fast.  We haven’t put any energy into new flavors at this time, but we definitely, we have a lot of other new retail products that we have in the pipeline for introduction later this year and next year so keep tuned and if you can’t get it at your current natural foods store just ask for it.  We’ve got nationwide distribution now so if it’s not near you now.  It will be soon so just talk to your store if you can’t find our product.

Caryn Hartglass:  That’s good.  Is there a favorite flavor cheese that a

Miyoko Schinner:  For me?

Caryn Hartglass:  For you and your customers.

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, definitely mozzarella is selling like crazy.  There’s pictures all over the internet of people making the pizza with our mozzarella so that’s really popular.  The butter also is phenomenal and then in terms of the artisanal cheeses, my personal favorites are probably the Mt. Vesuvius Black Ash.

Caryn Hartglass:  Hmm.  Hmm.  Love that.

Miyoko Schinner:  Which is the aged cheese.  Yeah, I love the Smoked Farm House and then the War Valley in a Fig Leaf which is a seasonal item.  We’re out of stock now ‘cause we ran out of fig leaves and we’ll start producing it again probably in May when fig leaves come back in season.

Caryn Hartglass:  So, I’m just curious you started this what two, three years ago now?

Miyoko Schinner:  No, September of 2014.

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay.

Miyoko Schinner:  It’s been a year and a half.

Caryn Hartglass:  Not even two years.

Miyoko Schinner:  No.   Oh, gosh.

Caryn Hartglass:   Have the flavors developed at all or they’re pretty much the same for the cheeses and do you have some that you’re aging a little longer or not really?

Miyoko Schinner:  Well, you know that’s the issue right now.  We’re actually looking for a larger facility to move into.

Caryn Hartglass:  Sure.

Miyoko Schinner:  Because we have a limited aging capacity and we can only age so many thousands of units per month in our aging room and that limits our production.  I would love to age, we do have cheeses that we have aged just as an experiment for several months and they are absolutely phenomenal and we’d love to be able to introduce a line of cheeses like Parmesan and things that are aged for you know eight to twelve months.  We don’t have the capacity right now.  So, right now we have to kind of I would say the cheeses that we release are on the young side meaning that they could be aged longer, but we have such demand that you know we’re pushing them out a little bit sooner than we would like to but they’re still delicious and if you ever get a young cheese like one of the farm houses that seems not quite as hard as you like you know wrap in wax paper and keep it in your refrigerator. It will actually continue to age in your fridge and get harder.  Some of the cheeses I’ve had in my fridge for over a year and they can become like a parmesan and you can grate it very finely over pasta or something so.

Caryn Hartglass:  Wow, that’s exciting.

Miyoko Schinner:  Yeah.

Caryn Hartglass:  We have a lot to look forward to so Miyoko, thank you for joining me on It’s All About Food and for everything that you’re doing.  For cheese and butter and everything.  This is really wonderful.  Thank you.

Miyoko Schinner:  Thank you so much for having me on your show.

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay.  Take care.  Be well.  Travel safely.

Miyoko Schinner:   Okay, you too.  Thank you.

Caryn Hartglass:  Okay.

Miyoko Schinner:  All right, bye bye.

Caryn Hartglass:  That was Miyoko Schinner and you can check out more at miyokoskitchen.com and if you haven’t tried her cheeses and now her butter and mozzarella cheese I hope you do that soon.  I’m Caryn Hartglass. You’ve been listening to It’s All About Food.  Join me at responsibleeatingandliving.com.  Send me e-mails at info@realmeals.org and remember have a delicious week.  Bye bye! [music].

Transcribed by Nanette Gagyi, 5/7/2016

 

  2 comments for “Miyoko Schinner, Cheese, Cookbooks, Travel, New Sanctuary!

  1. It’s fraudulent to call this product “cheese.” Why is appropriation of our traditional dairy names OK? Why do you disrespect farmers? If you hate dairy so much , why do you steal the dairy, creamery name? There are thousands of beautiful family dairy farms in my part of the country. “Raped” In nature, bulls impregnate cows nonstop. You can’t breed a cow unless she is in heat. There are thousands of grazing herds across the northeast . You don’t even know your facts. Will the farmers have a chance to speak ? Or is this another foodie show that marginalizes rural people and shuts our voices down ?

    • Hi Lorraine,

      Thank you for your message.

      I disagree that there is anything fraudulent going on. There is no deception, and certainly not any criminal deception. People who are buying vegan cheeses are specifically looking for cheeses made from plant milks, not animal milks. There are more plant milk cheeses on the market today because the demand is growing. Miyoko’s Creamery sells “cultured nut products.” We all know these products are cheeses made from plant milks.

      There is a growing demand for products that are healthy, environmentally-friendly and kind to animals. People like cheese and cheese products. They don’t like foods that cause chronic disease, pollute the environment and are cruel to nonhuman animals. Making cheese using plant ingredients is the solution.

      Using plant ingredients in place of animal ingredients (dairy, eggs, meat) is the wave of the future. Mayonnaise is now being made by numerous companies without eggs, making a healthier, cholesterol-free, cruelty-free product. There are many non-dairy milks on the market today made from soy, rice, oats, hemp, coconuts, almonds. There are all kinds of meats available today made from plant ingredients, not animals – deli slices, burger, nuggets, etc. We do not need to exploit innocent nonhuman animals to make traditional foods!

      There is no disrespect to farmers. Farmers have a hard job to do. But there is no need for nonhuman animal milk in the human’s diet. It is unhealthy for humans to consume nonhuman animal milks and nonhuman animal milk products. I do not see how artificially inseminating a cow without her permission is beautiful. There is nothing beautiful about taking a new born calf away from its mother so that we can slaughter the calf for veal and steal the milk that was meant for that calf to grow. I do not believe in breeding. Breeding is equivalent to rape in my opinion. There is nothing beautiful about slaughtering a cow to make hamburger meat when she is “spent” because she can’t give enough milk to be profitable to the farmer. Dairy farmers should be looking for ways to transition out of the dairy business. The government should be giving financial incentives to assist in the transition. We need more small family farms that can make a good living growing a variety of organic produce. Subsidies and incentives should be given to growing organic produce, not for growing animals or monocrops to feed animals or create junk foods. My radio show, It’s All About Food, recognizes that farmers have voices and can speak for themselves whereas nonhuman animals cannot speak for themselves. If they could, I am sure you would not like what they would have to say.

      It seems to me that you are ignoring the facts regarding dairy being linked to increase risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and auto-immune diseases. You are ignoring the facts regarding the release of methane gas from cows, increasing greenhouse gas emissions which is causing the climate to warm. Animal agriculture is devastating to the environment and a very inefficient way to feed humans.

      I recommend reading Joseph Keons, “Whitewash, The Disturbing Truth About Cow’s Milk.” You can listen to my interview with the author here: https://responsibleeatingandliving.com/favorites/joseph-keon-interview/. Listen to my interview with Shira Lane, creator of Got the facts on Milk? The Milk Documentary: https://responsibleeatingandliving.com/favorites/shira-lane-interview/. Dr. Michael Greger’s new book, How Not To Die, a New York Times best seller, will give you all the facts you need on why dairy products should not be consumed by humans.

      Last but not least, I invite you to watch our documentary, The Lone Vegan Preaching To Fire. I was invited to speak about animal agriculture’s impact on climate change to 250 cattle ranchers. This documentary tells the story of what happened.

      Regards,
      Caryn

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