What’s the difference between ‘nutritional yeast’ and the yeast used in baking? Can one bake with ‘nutritional yeast’?
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Bakers yeast is a fungus called *Saccharomyces cerevisiae* (which, if you know your Latin, means sugar-eating fungus that makes beer.)
Essentially, *Saccharomyces* consumes sugar, and poops out alcohol and carbon dioxide, and that’s how you get things like bread to rise, or grapes to turn into wine.
Nutritional yeast was once *Saccharomyces cerevisiae,* it has been given some sugar to eat to allow it to grow a bit, and then it gets heated so that the yeast cells die. The resulting product is kind of a nutty powder that tastes a bit buttery or cheesy, and is commonly used by vegans as a butter substitute. You cannot bake with it, because the yeast cells are dead.
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