Symbolic Forest

Regular readers might remember that a few days back, in a rant about vegan food, I mentioned a vegan cheese substitute product I came across called “Sheese”, a kind of oil-water-soya paste packed to the gunnels with artificial flavouring to make it vaguely cheeselike.

Well, since I wrote that, I’ve had an email from someone I know in Glasgow, who, coincidentally, has encountered some of the ingredients that go into the stuff. They came into contact with one of their “brown cardboard barrows”, in which the “flavouring” mentioned in the ingredients list arrives at the factory. Their advice: avoid it.

Because the manufacturers, Bute Island Foods, are (as you might have guessed) on an island, they can’t get their supplies delivered straight to their factory, and have to pick it up from a Glasgow warehouse, where my source was visiting and happened to bump into it And it is, on their account, foul. It comes, I’m told, in sealed barrows, but despite the seal they smell so awful that my source couldn’t bear to be near them; they made him/her gag and want to throw up.

They said:

It’s like cheese powder that you buy in a packet to make cheese sauce, but I swear the smell was awful and the barrows were sealed. Honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you how bad the smell was.

So, there you go. Me, I’m going to stay eating real, low-on-the-additives food – and that includes real milk and real cheese, never mind how much “cow torture” I’m told it causes.

Keyword noise: Bute, Bute Island Foods, disgusting, food, nausea, Rothesay, Scotland, sheese, soya, vegan, vegetarian.