Secret 8: Choose Organic Goat's and Sheep's Cheese

Since I failed miserably in the last blog entry at keeping the entry short, I will give it another try in this entry. 

Sally's two main points are:

i. limit your consumption of saturated fats

ii. if you eat dairy products, choose organic yogurt and organic cheese

So off I went to Whole Foods, figuring if anyone sold organic goat's and sheep's cheese, this was the place to go. And indeed, Whole Foods had two whole shelves of various kinds of goat's cheese including goat's cheddar.  But was it organic? Only one brand stated 'organic' and I eyed the plastic packaging suspiciously. How 'organic' is it to put organic cheese in a non-organic plastic wrapper (is that like paying more for organic fruit than conventional fruit and then washing the expensive organic fruit with unfiltered tap water)? And was there any truth to the suspicion that fats in food react with substances in plastic to possibly form toxic or carcinogenic by-products? My thoughts started wandering... But let's get back to secret 8. Apart from cheese made by 'Organic Valley', I was not able to find any other organic cheeses. So I asked. "All of these goat cheeses are pretty much organic", a helpful Whole Foods employee offered," the process of obtaining organic certification is very expensive, and these cheeses are all natural and fresh." I checked the ingredients. In every instance, the milk used to make the cheese was pasteurized. It is against the law in the U.S.  to sell unpasteurized milk in supermarkets. If you would like to obtain unpasteurized milk, you can join a farmer's coop on-line and buy a 'share' in a cow. This way you can legally obtain untreated milk.  So if you would like to consume the type of cheese your blue zone centenarian enjoys, even a 'Whole Foods' supermarket will not be able to deliver this product. Still, just like food there is 'real' cheese and there is highly processed American cheese. It is probably wise to choose pure cheeses or, in other words, cheeses that do not contain artificial flavorings, emulsifiers, food colorings, sweeteners, stabilizing agents such as xanthan gum and carrageenan (quick, cover up this c...word and try to write it from memory. How did you do?), dry milk, or anhydrous milk fat.  Would you rather enjoy real cheese such a Gruyere or Comte (both made with unpasteurized milk) or does "pasteurized processed cheese food" sound more enticing?  

This:

A most delicious cheese - not organic, not goat, but made from unpasteurized happy Swiss cows' milk

One well-known example of "pasteurized processed cheese food" consists of milk, water, milk fat, whey, whey protein concentrate, sodium phosphate, milk protein concentrate, alginate, sodium citrate, apocarotenal, annatto, enzymes, cheese culture.  Can you guess what this might be?    

Or that:

Uggh!  Looks like something made in China or some country with terribly lax food regulations

It is Velveeta. Do you go to the grocery store to buy sodium phosphate, apocarotenal or sodium citrate?' If these chemicals are not part of your staple food, then why buy a 'pasteurized processed cheese food' that contains these substances?

For those of you who will only put the most expensive gas in your cars, how about using the same standards when buying cheese for yourselves and for your loved ones?  

Take-home messages: 

i. everything in moderation including cheese

ii. choose quality over quantity