Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image/Getty/MARCO BERTORELLO
Topics: Food and Drink
Callum Jones
I think it comes as a given as to how some foods are made, though parmesan cheese is seemingly not in that category.
Whether it be a spaghetti bolognese or a carbonara, a sprinkle of parmesan cheese really can take such dishes to the next level.
There are so many delicious cheeses out there: from cheddar and feta to gouda and brie - but parmesan is the one for such Italian classics.
But when it tastes so nice, it can certainly be easy to forget how the food is made. But after much of the internet recently discovered how parmesan cheese is made, it has left a lot of people in utter devastation.
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Typically, the much-loved cheese - which many are surprised to learn isn’t vegetarian - is made up of cow's milk that has aged for at least 12 months in copper vats.
During this process, the milk is heated and other ingredients such as whey and rennet are added to the mix.
The Courtyard Dairy explained: "Animal rennet is an enzyme obtained from the fourth stomach of an unweaned calf (this can include veal calves, or even lamb and kid).
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"At that stage in their life they’ve only consumed milk, so the natural enzyme for coagulating milk (chymosin) is present in large quantities.
"As the calves get older the amount of chymosin reduces and other enzymes take its place (those necessary for digesting other foodstuffs)."
Essentially, when a baby cow is killed, the cullers will remove its stomach and let it dry out.
The dehydrated stomach is cut up into small pieces and added to the cheese mixture.
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The mixture will then coagulate to the point where you have a block of cheese.
Such revelation has recently made its way onto Twitter, with one user penning: "Parmesan cow cheese contains rennet, a stomach enzyme.
"For this, a baby cow is killed only so its stomach can be taken, cut open, dried, cut into cubes & added to the cheese mixture to curdle it.
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"The dairy industry is the meat industry tbh but yea parmesan is extremely cruel."
Many have flocked to the comments section of the viral Twitter post, with one person writing: "Omg I didn't know this and now I'm even more disturbed. Brb gagging over how much parmesan I consumed before going vegan."
A second added: "I didn’t even know this that’s so upsetting," while a third quipped: "Why do I keep learning about horror film worthy techniques people keep trying to make food with.... This is disgusting, I had no idea."