Move over, chocolate, and
make room for cheese. And let’s thank those cows for making cheese possible,
and Wisconsin for being America’s dairyland, our home of cheese.
Cheese is very popular. In
about three minutes I made a list of foods made of or containing cheese, from
natural cheese to junk food: pizza, macaroni & cheese, grilled cheese
sandwiches, lasagna, quiche, cheesecake, fondue, appetizers, soup, chili, soup
and soup topping, casseroles, deep fried cheese curds, cheese flavored chips
and popcorn…and more.
Apart from eating cheese
nearly every day, I have a somewhat remote connection to the cheese industry.
Long ago, before I knew him, my late father-in-law was a dairy farmer who named
his cows after the Presidents’ wives. He sent their milk to the Arena Cheese
Company to be made into cheese. That company continues to function today and
exists also at www.arenacheese.com. I
bought a package of Arena cheese today at Whole Foods. It’s good cheddar
cheese. Arena is west of Madison.
The Wisconsin Milk
Marketing Board is working to ensure that people will eat plenty of cheese. Its
website, www.eatwisonsincheese.com,
takes the person on a positive tour of everything cheese related, including how
cheese is made. Everyone should know that the website has a Cheesecylopedia, a
history of Wisconsin cheese and a traveler’s guide to cheeses.
Cheese has pluses and
minuses. On the good side, we can find taste. Of course it tastes good because
it is made of fat, and fat makes food taste good. (I don’t include soy cheese
in what I just said since I never tried it.) Variety is on the list, on a
spectrum including natural, processed, cheese food, and powder. On the
nutrition scale, I believe that only natural cheese is good for people to eat,
but the other forms have been very good for sales of cheese products. Cheese is
widely available with many varieties on grocery store shelves.
Cheese is versatile. Think
of lasagna, pizza and the many things I itemized above. It is available in
chunks or shreds, in spreads and dips. Some cheeses are good for some dishes
and others for others. Cheesecake exalts cream cheese; limburger stands in the
corner by itself.
On the minus side are a
few drawbacks. Products made with cheese can be junk food and not good for
anyone. Cheetos anyone? Some people say cheese is constipating. Cheese must be
refrigerated and molds in time. Some cheese companies age cheese for years,
which seems to work for them but not for me in my refrigerator. People with
dairy allergies probably stay away from cheese, as do vegans who eat no animal
products. Processed cheese is among the not-for-us trans fats, although it
thrived until someone discovered that trans fats are bad for people. Think of
Velveeta and all those grilled cheese sandwiches.
Did I mention saturated
fat and cholesterol? That brings us to cheese controversy. Dairy products have
saturated fats. For more than half a century the medical people said that saturated
fat causes heart disease, especially in full fat dairy products. Skim milk was
in; butter was out. Now this view has changed. The medical website, www.mercola.com, says:
“People who eat full-fat
dairy may have a lower risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and
obesity than those who eat low-fat dairy. When you replace saturated fat with
refined carbohydrates, you exacerbate insulin resistance and obesity. There is
no conclusive proof that a low-fat diet has any positive effects on health.”
(mercola.com, Nov. 18, 2015.) Other doctors agree with this, such as Dr. Mark
Hyman, who is promoting his latest book, Eat
Fat Get Thin. So let’s all enjoy the fat but in moderation.
Another issue is whether
to eat raw or pasteurized cheese. Some stores sell raw milk cheese, but raw
milk is mostly unavailable. Pasteurization removes or reduces some nutrients
that occur naturally in milk. In
addition, the diet of the cow gets mentioned because it affects her milk; grass
fed is believed to be best.
I eat mostly cheddar and
Swiss cheese, and cream cheese occasionally. Low fat cheese is an oxymoron.
