nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Where to find great course for raw vegan?

Fromage_Vegan_368647

Hello ChefSteps community, This is my first post on this forum and here is my question: As a raw vegan chef, I always seek better knowledge. I have hit a milestone and wish to learn more to make more out of raw veganism. I seek online course or great books which could help me enhance or replicate even better some cooked / traditionnal dishes. Or even course in France / England. I am also seeking the best recipe of raw vegan cheese (I have no idea how much raw vegan cheese recipes I have tried since 2010 but it always failed to satisfy me as a french.. I can't get that "Camembert" crust and inside or to have an emmental like cheese. If you have ideas or wish to help me in my journey, I would be thrilled! Anyway, Have a great day all! Thank you!

Find more posts tagged with

Forum Talk

Comments

artstype

I look forward to any and all information that your question will produce, but I am curious to know something more about what qualifies as "raw." Cheese is obviously a product that does not occur in nature absent the actions of people on a natural, raw animal product. I assume then that you are using another material to begin with in order for this cheese to be vegan, what is it that you use? If some form of cheesemaking qualifies as raw, then what other preparations qualify as raw, do they include natural processes like pickling or dehydration? (I hope this doesn't sound critical, I am genuinely curious to know more)

tshewman

@Clay Ruede asks some excellent questions and selfishly, I suspect many of us would also like to learn more. The definition of raw is already seemingly vague as the process of cooking as we know does not require heat (e.g. pickling or fermentation) so it would be good to know when the information is posted what is being qualified as raw (regardless of one's definition-just would help us understand to communicate easier).

Brandon_Byrd_40557

As I understand it, "rawness" is always defined in terms of exposure to heat, and where the line is drawn between cooked and raw varies depending on the source... some say 118F, some say 104F, others give other temperatures. Why the line is drawn is typically framed in terms of "enzymes" which are allegedly destroyed by heating. The raw food movement seems to think there's some sort of valuable vitalistic force attached to enzymes that is destroyed by cooking, and that raw food is therefore nutritionally superior to cooked food. Based on everything I've read, that's entirely false. Firstly, enzymes are non-essential and provide virtually no added nutritional benefit when ingested, and they're almost immediately ripped apart by your digestive tract anyway. But even if they were valuable, many types of enzymes have higher activity in "cooked" temperature ranges. It's curious that none of the literature I've read about raw foodism ever bothers to specify which particular enzymes they're interested in preserving and why those enzymes are supposedly valuable. In this respect, "enzymes" seem to play the same role in raw foodism that "toxins" play in huxtery juice cleanses.
Enzymes aside, leaving food raw seldom offers a nutritional benefit; cooking almost invariably increases the bioavailability of both macro and micro nutrients. The first chapter of Richard Wrangham's excellent book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" eloquently explains just how difficult it is for humans to have a nutritionally adequate raw diet (especially if it's vegan). Simply getting enough calories is tremendously difficult on such a diet unless one relies on modern mechanical marvels like the blender and juicer (and even with these, it's still difficult). Almost across the board, a person will reap higher nutritional benefits from 100g of cooked food -- any food -- than they will from the same amount of the same uncooked food.
In my (admittedly) limited experience with raw food vegans, the rationale underlying their dietary restrictions hasn't been scientific. It hasn't even been pseudo-scientific. It has been a sort of totemic vitalism that dogmatically values the raw and the "living" for no discernible reason. What little of the literature I've encountered about raw foodism online has been essentially the same. Maybe there's a compelling case for raw food diets out there, but I haven't seen it (or anything close to resembling it). That said, I love fermentation, juicing, dehydration, and many other techniques often employed by raw foodists. I also think that most people would benefit more from incorporating more whole foods into their diet. And "cooking" the occasional raw vegan meal is a fun exercise that forces you to think much differently about your process and menu than you otherwise would. But as a way of life, I think it's fundamentally misguided.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

That said, I'm quite looking forward to any resources that people can offer in response to the original post. Even if I don't buy into the dietic system of raw food veganism, I think it'd be pretty rad to be able to make a raw vegan Camembert!

Fromage_Vegan_368647

@Todd Shewman @Clay Ruede @Brandon Byrd this is quite exact! Raw is defined by what is not transformed by heat (more than 38C°). We tend to find natural products, but we still have access to lecithin, psyllium, gums etc... as long as it's vegan, in very little quantity or natural. It's okay. Here are some of my tryouts with raw veganism: https://fr.pinterest.com/amourawcru/plats-v%C3%A9g%C3%A9talien-cru-raw-vegan-amouraw-chef-guilla/ You will see I already have some raw vegan cheeses. Now, let me explain what those are! Raw vegan cheeses are made with or without fermentation and mostly based with nuts (Macadamia and Cashews are a staple). As you know, cashews and milk are quite different, no lactose, no casein so even if we used vegan rennet, it would not lead to a good cheese (in theory... because I will have to try out). Lately I have heard this rumour: as if good quality cashews could develop (or unleash) some kind of micellium after soaking them long enough in water, ferment them at room temperature for a day and leave the paste in a mold for a month in a fridge. Otherwise, I see you gentlemen tomorrow as I will write to you some basic recipes for raw vegan cheese making. I hope to see more of your comments until then!

Fromage_Vegan_368647

I promise, with your help, we will create a raw vegan camembert!

artstype

Beautiful work, Guillaume! I look forward to learning more, merci bien!

tshewman

Thanks Guillaume! I look forward to seeing the nut/cheese recipes. What few I've tried were purchased and were great for shipping things in, but not so much for eating (they tasted like cardboard).

tshewman

I tend to agree with a fair bit of your post. The only part that may still be up for debate is that very definition of cooking. Whether it's fermentation or the like, they are breaking down some of these nutrients for bioavailability. So cooking to me has very little to do with heat. So essentially some products can be broken down just as much as the temperature barrier mentioned which makes the theory a bit ambiguous. I thin this will be fun to learn regardless of our interpretation though. Suspect many others in the same boat. I'm praying the cheese is better than the vegan cardboard I tried.