Cheese-like Food Production from Various Nuts

Abstract

Nuts are rich in vegetable proteins and lipids, and can be easily made into a milk-like emulsion such as coconut milk or hemp milk. In this study we attempted to produce a cheese-like food from various nuts instead of from cows' milk. First, we investigated the curdling activity of various proteases on emulsions made individually from 13 species of nuts. The proteases bromelain, papain, subtilisin, thermolysin and a protease from E. faecalis could curdle the milk-like emulsion made from 12 species of nuts. The emulsions made from hemp nuts, coconuts, almonds, pine nuts and macadamia nuts curdled especially well. We then successfully produced cheese-like foods from 6 species of nuts (hemp nuts, coconuts, almonds, pine nuts, cashew nuts and macadamia nuts). Compared to cheese made from cows' milk these nut-cheeses were softer, the curd yield from the emulsion was almost the same, the protein content was lower and the lipid content was higher. Hemp nut cheese was the most similar to cows' milk-cheese in its composition and gave the highest yield of cheese among all of the tested nuts.