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When Seiko beat the Swiss at their own mechanical watch accuracy competitions, they decided to cancel the long running prestigious competition entirely instead of make a better watch.

Capitalism breeds innovation!

Indeed, and while they might have been initially furious at the snub, this is going to wind up being VERY good for business. Now they have an incredible story to tell, complete with mystery and intrigue that consumers love. Their marketing department must be salivating right now.

Right, first thing I thought when I read this is “where can I get some of that ‘cheese’”

Wasnt that what they did with monty python's holy grial when it was banned in norway*?

A lot of vegan "alternatives" are actually really good when you know what you're doing with them. I will take tofu or mushrooms over meat any day tbh. Problem is some people don't know that and will just prepare tofu like it's meat, and then wonder why their tofu tastes like shit.

Would you consider reducing according to carbon footprint?

Same. I had some green Thai curry "duck" at a vegan restaurant once and it was the bomb!

Might want to switch to other animals, beef is questionable ATM.

It's even worse than that. The makers aren't even sure what was in their product to begin with.

Zahn says the kokum butter shouldn’t be an issue anyway: The company has since replaced it with cocoa butter, which does have GRAS certification. Initially, he told the Post the cocoa butter version was what he submitted for the awards, but after this story was published he said he determined that it was in fact the kokum butter version. (According to Weiner, Climax submitted an ingredient list that included kokum.)

So it might have been labeled with having kokum butter, it might not. Who knows? Seems to depends what answer is needed at the time.

Also,

Climax, it turns out, wasn’t just a finalist — it was set to win the award, a fact that all parties are asked to keep confidential until the official ceremony in Portland, Ore., but was revealed in an email the foundation sent to Climax in January.

If I'm reading this correctly, out of all the contestants, only they knew they won. Makes it a further stretch that it was a dairy company that "out" them as they wouldn't have known that the vegan cheese won.

My guess for the change about GRAS was it most likely was assumed everyone would only submit GRAS items, and since someone broke that non-spoken rule then they had to make it a clarified rule. It is something you'd just assume everyone made sure their food was most or less FDA approved (which is a logical assumption).

The Washington Post article is much clearer about this whole issue (which is linked to in this badly written Boingbonk article.)

Kokum butter is edible and occasionally used to make chocolates and other confections.

Yeah but it's blue cheese

The article suggests it’s bacteria creating the milk from plants rather than cows and then normal cheese past that

However the article also says the dairy industry wasn’t the one complaining about it

I've had a few good vegan cheeses. Not all of it is 1 to 1 with the real deal, but a lot ends up being good in its own way. Just wish it wasn't so damn expensive. Hopefully that changes over time. Lactose doesn't agree with me so the more (affordable) non-dairy options there are, the happier I am.

While we're at it, I need recommendations for decent Mozzarella, Parmesan, and Asiago with a melting point below 300F.

I make a lot of Focaccia stuffed with cheese and jalapenos, as well as pizza, but it would be nice to be able to serve a guilt free option to my more discerning guests.

I was going to post the original wapo article, but then I saw wapo wouldn't even let me read the whole thing. I don't knowingly link to articles that are paywalled.