I really like cheese. I like cheese in my salad, I like cheese on my popcorn… I just like cheese. But, I have now stopped eating cheese and with it all processed dairy products including yogurt and milk. I have gone cold turkey.
Americans eat way too much-processed cheese
According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
“Americans eat more than 33 pounds of cheese per person per year—three times more than they did in 1970—and our country is more obese than ever … Cheese is a high-calorie product loaded with fat, sodium, and cholesterol. Typical cheeses are 70 percent fat. And the type of fat they contain is mainly saturated (“bad”) fat.”
We should consume healthy saturated fat: We should consume 2 tablespoons of healthy saturated fat daily from good sources such as coconut oil or avocados. However, consuming a boatload of processed, unhealthy saturated fat such as that found in processed cheese, is very hard on your body. Yes, we need saturated fat to function but only when it comes from healthy sources.
The Bad News
So here are just some of the reasons why I decided to ditch processed cheese:
Too many ingredients: Ok, have you ever turned over the package of a bag of cheese only to find a huge list of ingredients, many of which you can’t even pronounce? The list includes things such as emulsifiers, saturated vegetable oils, excess sodium, food coloring agents, preservatives, and sugar.
Vegetable oils: A variety of nasty, industrially produced oils, such as soy, sunflower, canola and corn oil, are used in processed cheese products to improve flavor and texture. They also serve as cheap fillers to bulk up the product so that less real cheese needs to be used.
Sodium and sugar: Processed cheese normally contains at least twice as much sodium as is used in the making of natural cheese. This is because food manufacturers have become wise to the particular combinations that trigger our taste buds and brains most effectively.
Cheese can contain pus from bladder infections in cows: This is just gross and enough of a reason for me to stop eating processed cheese. Peta has this to say,
“They [the cows] are treated like milk-producing machines and are genetically manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones that cause them to produce more milk. While cows suffer on factory farms, humans who drink their milk increase their chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and many other ailments.”
Many kinds of cheese are made with rennet: Perhaps you have not heard of rennet before. It is actually an enzyme that comes from calves’ stomach linings. Unless the cheese is labeled vegetarian, there is a good chance that it contains rennet. The Vegetarian Society tells us this about rennet.
“The traditional source of rennet is the stomach of slaughtered newly-born calves. Vegetarian cheeses are manufactured using rennet from either fungal/bacterial sources or genetically modified micro-organisms.”
Artificial colors: Along with the other carefully composed properties of processed cheese, the color is also made “just right” to tempt the eye of purchasers. Some examples of coloring agents include apocarotenal, yellow dye and yellow tartrazine. All considered dangerous substances.
In Summary
I could go on and on about processed cheese, but I am sure that you get the picture. Better to stay away from it all together. It is best to eat only high quality, real cheese made with no artificial ingredients and do so in moderation than to risk the health dangers of the processed stuff!
-Susan Patterson