section_path: Cultural attitudes
section_name: Cultural attitudes
paragraph_text: Cultural attitudes
  
  Although cheese is a vital source of nutrition in many regions of the world and it is extensively consumed in others, its use is not universal.
  
  Among the few cheeses in Southeast and East Asian cuisines is paneer, a fresh acid-set cheese. In Nepal, the Dairy Development Corporation commercially manufactures cheese made from yak milk and a hard cheese made from either cow or yak milk known as chhurpi. Bhutan produces a similar cheese called Datshi which is a staple in most Bhutanese curries. The national dish of Bhutan, ema datshi, is made from homemade yak or mare milk cheese and hot peppers. In Yunnan, China, several ethnic minority groups produce Rushan and Rubing from cow's milk. Cheese consumption may be increasing in China, with annual sales doubling from 1996 to 2003 (to a still small 30 million U.S. dollars a year). Certain kinds of Chinese preserved bean curd are sometimes misleadingly referred to in English as "Chinese cheese" because of their texture and strong flavor.
  
  Strict followers of the dietary laws of Islam and Judaism must avoid cheeses made with rennet from animals not slaughtered in accordance with halal or kosher laws respectively. Both faiths allow cheese made with vegetable-based rennet. Many less orthodox Jews also believe that rennet undergoes enough processing to change its nature entirely and do not consider it to ever violate kosher law (see Cheese and kashrut). As cheese is a dairy food, under kosher rules it cannot be eaten in the same meal as any meat.
  
  Rennet derived from animal slaughter, and thus cheese made with animal-derived rennet, is not vegetarian. Most widely available vegetarian cheeses are made using rennet produced by fermentation of the fungus Mucor miehei. Vegans and other dairy-avoiding vegetarians do not eat conventional cheese, but some vegetable-based cheese substitutes (soy or almond) are used as substitutes.
  
  Collecting cheese labels is called " tyrosemiophilia ".