That's... a lot of fucking cheese...
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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Really? Cheese DRM? What's next, they hit you with a DMCA claiming it's nacho cheeze?
I wish they showed what it looks like. I honestly can't understand how this works. Almost all parm i have is grated so wouldn't it be noticeable during the grating process? Or is it that small it avoids being chopped up.
Presumably the counterfeit cheese doesn't have these chips. Therefore I'll make sure to only purchase counterfeit cheese.
OK, but how does this even work? Is it a tiny NFC tag or something? Does your body digest it, or does it just pass through you because it's really small, like a single microplastic?
Basically passes through, yes
Chips in my cheese? Could you toss in some ram, hdd and a gpu plz?
Eat verification wheel.
Big cheese was never going to let anyone else get away with a slice of their cheddar.
I can't believe they're putting chips in my cheese dip.
This made my contempt for the microchip conspiracists curdle.
I imagine organized crime would probably be big into counterfeiting like that. It's less risky than drugs, doesn't bring as much heat. I know there have been more than one exposure of olive oil fuckery, mixing lower grade and other oils in. So counterfeiting fancy cured meats and cheeses would make a lot of sense. The Albanians, Calabrians, Sicilians, Sardinians, and whomever else, it sounds right up their alley.
I know in the US liquor counterfeiting has long been a thing, mixing in rotgut booze into fancy bottles. Done by organized crime. People have this romanticized vision of organized crime because all of the movies. But truth be told, they are pieces of fucking shit. They are parasites, they make things cost more and work less well. You pay more for less, and people get hurt, so those that add no value can make money. With the exception of course of bootlegging around bans on substances, in which case they do provide a valuable service.
The problem with parm is that "fake parm" can just be literally the exact same product, but just made outside the borders of the legally defined region, or even made within the region with the same methods, but not under the control of "big cheese". It can still be a high quality product.
Counterfeit honey is a big problem. Honey is mostly glucose and fructose, which you can just buy. You can detect a lack of the pollen you'd expect in real honey, but that only makes it so that you can thin out real stuff. There's other methods to detect it, but it's on ongoing arms race. Buy honey from local beekeepers you trust, if you can. P.s., there idea that local honey helps with allergies is bunk because allergies are typically caused by windborne pollen, which bees dont collect.
Maple syrup has similar issues.
Seafood and truffles are commonly "fake", as in substituted with cheaper stuff.
Not "counterfeit", but a similar problem in Mexico is that the cartels have gotten into the avocado industry.
You just aren't allowed to call it literally "Parmigiano Reggiano", no one is stopping you from making it. "Reggiano" means "(of/from) Reggio (Emilia, a city)", I don't see why it's a problem to forbid calling it that if it's not made there-ish.
"Grana" is the generic name for that kind of cheese. Its use is not protected
I'm not making a moral statement on the rules. I was just pointing it out.
Also I believe "Parmigiano Reggiano" is a trademark name (i.e., protected) in the US and other non-EU countries, but other versions of the name, like "parmesan" are not. In the EU, you cannot call cheese "parmesan" unless it's parmigiano reggiano.
Despite the fact that grana padano is widely available in the US, the style is still just referred to as "parmesan" even if it's the notorious green cannister of pregrated "cheese".
I make maple syrup, and much of it has wildly different taste, the only ingredient is maple sap, but it doesn't all taste like the syrup in stores. I'm afraid when selling it I will be accused of faking it too, even though other producers will tell you that as well.
I do know someone that bought a gallon at a farmer's market that turned out to be some nasty corn syrup abomination, guy disappeared. As to fake honey, honey has a particular taste, as does maple syrup, even the stuff that's different, it's more than just sugar, just as you can't well fake fruit juice with sugar water. Mapoline is easily identifiable, I suspect honey would be the same, but I think your cases is probably more them mixing real honey with syrups and the like?
Because artificial flavors, known as natural flavors to the US government, (as they were naturally made in a lab from chemicals, after all isn't everything part of god's plan?) are a poor substitute for real ones, in my experience. Artificial strawberry, blueberry, Vanilla, mapoline, and so forth are all easily identifiable, and abominations to anyone used to the real thing.
From what I understand, they dont try to build syrup from scratch, it's more that they cut the real thing with sugar and water. According to wikipedia, maple syrup is basically 2/3rds sugar and 1/3rd water, with about 1% "other".
If you added the right proportion of sugar and water to real stuff in a 50:50 ratio, I'd have a really hard time distinguishing that from the natural variation in taste strength.
Luckily I have a steady supply from people I trust. I can't get enough of the stuff made over a wood fire.
P.s., there idea that local honey helps with allergies is bunk because allergies are typically caused by windborne pollen, which bees dont collect.
It completely depends on the allergy
Just read the paper (well, skimmed is more honest). They cite 5 human trials. The first study was not blind, and it also did not show a difference between the control group and the treatment group. The "mini-review" author made it seem like there was an improvement to the honey group over the control, but this was not the case.
The second study, I can't access. The conditions were a bit more complicated, so I can't fully assess, but the "mini-review" author notes that they were also treated with olive oil and corticosteroids. Also, the group sizes were tiny (11 people split into 3 groups), which makes me highly suspicious of any statistically relevant effects. There's also no placebo.
The third study seems legit from a quick skim. They placebo controlled with flavored corn syrup. At the end of the study, the treatment group does not have a significantly different symptom score than the placebo group. The fact that both groups improve is again misinterpreted by the "mini-review" author. In their defense, the authors of that third study really wordsmith their abstract to make it read that way.
The forth and fifth study both show no improvement due to the treatment.
So 4/5 studies show no improvement over control/placebo, and the 5th study i can't read.
I did find a randomized, controlled study on birch honey which seems good, and it shows an improvement over a regular honey control. That's not in the minireview.
Overall, if there's 4 studies saying no, 1 saying yes, and 1 inconclusive, I'm going to take that as a no.
Someone else already pointed it out with a credible source, but since you haven't edited your comment, I wanted to add another reply letting you know your "bunk" comment about allergies is wrong
Read my response to them. If you can find more randomized, controlled, human trials, I'd love to see them.
Counterfeit honey is a big problem
Why is it a problem? If you literally can't tell the difference, what is the problem?
If the fake product is literally indistinguishable, I don't think it's actually fake. It's the same product.
Like "fake" diamonds, which are actually literally better in every way.
‘Fake’ diamonds are not really fake, just synthetic, since they are chemically indistinguishable from real diamonds. Many (but not all) fake foods are not like this, since they have different core ingredients
Right, but in the case of honey, its (according to OP) not a different set of ingredients.
Similarly, parmezan cheese made outside the region can be literally the same, chemically exactly the same, but still fake, because of its origin. Just like diamonds.
If you make honey in a machine, and you can't tell the difference, is it not honey?
If it’s chemically indistinguishable from honey then I’d say yes it’s real honey. It might be preferable to real honey for the same reason lab grown meat is preferable to real meat.
curdle
Hehehe cheese joke heheh
They are parasites, they make things cost more and work less well. You pay more for less, and people get hurt, so those that add no value can make money.
sounds like corporations who are also just making the products.. not even talking about the bootlegged shit but the actual legit products. we pay more, for less.. they hurt/kill people, these companies don't add value to the world anymore. they are forcing costs to go up, while making the products also fail more so they work less well. Corporations are parasites
Big Cheese is in charge of everything.
to be fair that wheel in the picture is $1000+. i imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to make a shitty fake one at a fraction of the cost that looks exactly the same, sell it for the same $1000+, and no one but a connoisseur of high end cheese would be able to taste a difference
If nobody but a connoisseur can tell the difference, why exactly should we, the consumers, care that their monopoly on this type of cheese has competition at a lower price?
Isn't capitalism supposed to "breed innovation" in a "free market" built upon "competition" and "supply and demand"?
There's a ton of cheap Parmesan cheese out there which isn't intentionally defrauding people.
if you're a consumer who doesn't care, you're probably not buying a $1000 cheese wheel because it looks like the "real" $1000 cheese. you're buying the cheaper product that's not counterfeited to pretend to be something it's not
But that's the point. If it tastes the same to everyone but those who make it their obsession, it's got nothing to do with not caring. Whether you can afford to drop $1000 on a cheese wheel or not doesn't factor into it.
Cheese isn't branding and marketing, it's coagulated milk. If a "counterfeiter" has figured out how to make the same cheese then they're not making counterfeit cheese, they're making the same cheese without the monopoly, branding, and price gouging.
The very thing capitalism is supposed to reward, but doesn't in the bastardised protectionist form that exists in reality.
Why should consumers care about the financial exploitation of a monopoly? Restaurants that buy this regularly will happily buy a $500 wheel from someone else if it tastes the same to everyone but the snobbiest of cheese snobs, I'm sure.
This is DRM for physical products because they want to protect their monopoly and monopolistic prices.
i mean i'm not simping for capitalism here, but i think you're confusing what a "monopoly" is. parmigiano-reggiano cheese is a legally protected term designating that only cheeses produced in certain areas can be labeled as such. no one's saying you can't copy the cheese and sell your own products, just that you can't label it parmigiano reggiano if you're not making it in those areas. people pay extra for it because it has higher standards of quality. the problem with counterfeiters is they're basically making whatever quality they feel like and passing it off as the more expensive version.
"monopoly" means a company is taking over the entire market by snuffing out competition, not even allowing anyone to get a foothold in producing a competing product (see google). that's not what's happening with this cheese. some people buy the $1000 cheese. many, many more people buy just plain "parmesan" because it's good enough for their needs. neither is the "wrong" choice, but there are definitely choices. but surely you can agree that false advertising can't be a good thing?
First, things like Parmesan cheese are as much cultural products as they are commercial products, so calling parmesan to something done outside of that cultural context is cultural appropriation - you can make parmersan style cheese but you have the moral duty to make it clear it's not the actual thing. Second, a free market is only a free market if there's transparency about the products, including their origin.
First, things like Coca Cola are as much cultural products as they are commercial products, so calling Coca Cola to something done outside of that cultural context is cultural appropriation.
Do you see how silly that argument is?
It's coagulated milk, the only culture is the bacteria. This isn't a family recipe being made in a farmstead by 5 people who personally milk the cows themself. It's a factory. With rows upon rows of cheese produced every day, worth millions of $. Stored in giant warehouses and transported all around the world. It's big business, not culture. Just because they have great marketing doesn't mean they're producing any form of culture.
The same applies to the Scottish whisky trade and Champagne in France. If it's so cultural then locals would be making the stuff, but they're not, it's a large monopolistic business. In the same way the scotch whisky trade is becoming monopolised by the likes of Chivas via Pernod Ricard.
If you genuinely believe that this is cultural appropriation then you should be having a word with the giant corporations that have put so much legislation around these products that it's near impossible for small independent competitors to try their hand at it. If it were truly culture there would be a thriving craft scene like there is with beer.
Short answer: rich people are dumb and spend their money on dumb shit to flex on us poors
Fake real cheese? Like the stuff that comes in a can?
You might be thinking of peaches.
Cheese comes from a can. It was put there by a man. In a factory, downtown!
If I had my little way, I'd eat cheese every day
Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of cheeses...
exactly. pasteurized processed cheese food product
Something something Cheese Pizza conspiracy. It all comes together.
When every letter counts...