Can't digest cheese? Maybe you can tolerate cheese made with natural rennet instead of Pfizer's GMO version

The Gold Report Staff

March 12, 2024

GMO rennet — missing safety and toxicity data

The FDA gave GRAS status (generally recommended as safe) to bioengineered rennet about 25 years ago, allowing it to bypass the approval process generally required of food additives. Rennet is the enzyme that promotes the curdling of cheese, allowing the separation of the curds from the whey. About 90% of cheese produced in the U.S. today is made with synthetic rennet, called FPC (fermentation-produced chymosin, chymosin being one of the two enzymes found in natural animal rennet), a product first developed by Pfizer.

Global Research's Dr. Ashley Armstrong believes that the natural product is far superior to the synthetic version. She is also concerned that, even today, there are no long-term safety or toxicity studies for this synthetic food additive and harms remain unknown:

So there are no long term studies evaluating the safety of eating a small amount of this genetically modified food additive every single day.15 But there are two main concerns: 1) toxicity and 2) digestive issues since these rennet alternatives can serve as an allergen.16

Toxicity meaning that the enzyme solution contains bio toxins from the genetically modified host (mold or fungus) that is being cultured and fermented in the lab. The producers of these enzymes claim the final FPC enzyme solution is highly purified, but some people react as though they still contain some of the allergens from the host microorganisms themselves.

Armstrong explains that the lack of regulation leaves companies responsible for their own quality control:

So, some are concerned about continuous ingestion of these bio toxins over time, and the negative health consequences those would have over the course of years. And unfortunately, there isn’t much regulation here. “Currently, the companies themselves are responsible for the quality control of their products.”²¹ Gee, that’s not helpful!

FPC at the root of allergies and digestive issues?

Armstrong does have some good news for cheese lovers who seem to be intolerant or allergic to cheese products — it may be the FPC, not their inability to digest cheese that's the problem:

So as a result of a small amount of these toxins potentially showing up in the final cheese product (and slight structural changes in the final proteins), the cheese can now serve as an allergen and can cause an allergic reaction, or digestive and respiratory issues.

Stomach upset or discomfort
Runny nose, increase in mucus production

Consumers then may think they can’t digest cheese — but hey, maybe it is just the cheese that was made! It may not be the dairy itself, but the microorganism residues that elicit an allergic response, or irritate the gut lining.

Responding to the recent attention given to this topic, Raw Egg Nationalist on X (formerly Twitter) commented not only on the GMO rennet but on other novel forms of engineered “foods” that don't have to be labeled as GMO either:

This isn't restricted to dairy. Recombinant microorganisms are being used to produce a wide variety of foods from ice cream to cooking oil (including Zero Acre Farms' "cultured oil") and the manufacturers don't have to tell you because technically the microorganisms used to make the product aren't "part of" the final product.

She wrote about the serious adverse effects and fatalities caused by some of these products:

The truth, however, is very different. We don't understand the knock-on effects of GM well enough to know whether harmful compounds might also be produced that end up in the final product. This notoriously happened with a tryptophan supplement made by Showa Denko in 1989. People died or were horribly injured.

. . . [the Japanese company] Showa Denko decided to splice new genes into the bacteria to increase the yields of tryptophan produced. Between five and ten thousand people in the U.S., the company’s main market, quickly fell ill with a vanishingly uncommon illness called eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS). In a few months, dozens of people were killed, but the final death toll may now be in the hundreds. Thousands were permanently disabled. Thankfully, the illness was quickly traced back to the tryptophan supplement all of the victims had been taking.

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