The Food Cillian Murphy Misses The Most After Going Vegan (It's Not Meat)

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If you're vegan or vegetarian, you've probably grown tired of people asking where you get your protein from or if you miss bacon. Like many who avoid eating meat, Cillian Murphy, the star of the movie "Oppenheimer" and the series "Peaky Blinders," follows a vegan diet, but he doesn't feel like meat is something he wants to eat again. The one non-vegan food he admits he misses is cheese.

In 2023, Murphy spoke with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast and shared about his diet. Before avoiding all animal products as part of a vegan diet, Murphy had been a vegetarian for 15 years. He originally cut out meat due to fears over mad cow disease, and transitioned to a strictly plant-based diet for health and ethical reasons. Still, he told Maron, "I miss cheese terribly."

According to People, Murphy ate a lot of cheese after he finished filming "Oppenheimer." His co-star in the movie, Emily Blunt, who played his wife, explained to the magazine why this was his snack (meal?) of choice: "Because he needed to decompress. Cheese is a great decompression." Naturally, you're probably wondering specifically which cheese Murphy went for. He mentioned to People that cheddar and parmesan were his go-tos.

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Cillian Murphy grew up in Cork, Ireland, and currently lives in South Dublin – the man has been surrounded by incredible cheese his whole life. Ireland is world-renowned for its dairy, sourced from cows on grass-fed pastures. Small producers of farmhouse cheeses make everything from raw milk cheddar to semi-soft and pungent Ardrahan. Given Murphy's proximity to such a singular cheese culture, it's not surprising that his snack of choice after an intense movie role would be something comforting from home.

Cheese also contains certain compounds that make it crave-worthy. A dietitian writing for Men's Health explained that casomorphins, peptides derived from the casein protein found in cheese, attach to opiate receptors in the brain and release dopamine. In plain language, eating cheese makes us feel great. For Murphy, this dopamine release was probably very welcome post "Oppenheimer."

There is, of course, plenty of vegan cheese available in supermarkets now, and you always have the option to soak cashews and make dairy-free cheese yourself. Vegan cheese doesn't contain casein, the feel-good milk protein, and it's also the reason why plant-based cheese doesn't melt. Some plant-based brands and varieties struggle to live up to the high standards set by dairy cheeses (like Aldi's 'funky' vegan cheese, for example). If Murphy wants to stick with veganism, he might consider satisfying his cheese cravings with more artisanal vegan cheese brands, such as Miyoko's or Violife.