Everybody loves cheese. Even most of those who are intolerant of cheese still gamble with having it like they’re at some casino trying to win a Jackpot Capital bonus.
Cheeses are almost a central piece of every diet and menu of cultures around the world. Few people throughout the world can say they don’t like cheese (at least relative to the size of the world of course) and even fewer can say they’ve never tried any form of cheese.
Cheese is a staple of arguable the greatest foods on the planet. It’s on pizza, lasagna, cheese burgers, grilled cheese, nachos, omelets, cheese cake (arguable) and many many many more.
Of course not all of those are particularly healthy choices but that’s not the argument right now.
If there was a healthier idea of something you wanted to eat that required cheese what would be the best choice for that dish?
If you don’t have a flavor in mind already what’s the healthiest cheese you could choose for a dish?
Well, here is a list of the top cheeses out there in terms of health. I guess you get to decide which one you want to use next in whatever you make.
Mozzarella
Mozzarella cheese is one of the most common cheeses out there. It’s used as the base cheese for the vase majority of cheese based dishes out there. Specifically pizza and pasta dishes.
It’s one of the simplest cheeses you can make and that is probably a big reason for its massive popularity and its common place in stores around the world.
Because of how simple it is to make and how few ingredients go into it it’s not a surprise that it’s very healthy. The largest ingredient is milk and milk is quite amazing for you.
Mozzarella can come from a wide variety of different milks though. Mozzarella is called mozzarella not because of what ingredients go in but the process that is used to make the cheese.
The word mozzarella itself is derived from the words “mozza” which means cut and “mozzare” which means to cut off. This has to do with how the cheese is made.
Mozzarella cheese is made by using rennet and normal milk, non ultra pasteurized milk that is, because it can’t be curdled like normal milk can be. The rennet mixed in with the milk causes it to curdle and split into curds and whey, which is what you need to make mozzarella.
Once it splits, the curds can be used to make mozzarella. It’s a surprisingly simple process compared to most other methods used for making cheese.
Which is probably another reason that mozzarella is such a popular cheese choice. Being relatively easy to make makes it a much cheaper cheese choice than most other flavors of cheese.
From the fact that it can also be made from so many different types of animals milk it’s no surprise it’s so wildly known and healthy.
There is mozzarella made from cows milk, sheep milk, goat milk and even buffalo milk.
Blue Cheese
The cheese itself isn’t actually blue, or made from blue milk sadly. It’s the mold inside the cheese that causes the blue spots and veins throughout it.
The mold inside blue cheese isn’t the same as the mold that grows in your house or on your bread either. Blue cheese mold is a specific type of that’s closely related to penicillin. It’s completely harmless to humans to eat.
The bacteria that goes along with the mold is in the same family as the bacteria on your feet that causes them to stink. That’s why it smells so bad. I guess you have that to think about next time you have any sort of smelly cheese at least.
Blue cheese is one of the healthier versions of cheese because of the way it’s made and the bacteria and mold in it being very high in calcium.
Calcium is an essential vitamin that humans need for bone growth and bone density. Without calcium your bones can become very brittle easily.
The production of blue cheese is a lot more complicated than making simple mozzarella. It requires pasteurizing, acids, cultures and aging.
The European Union actually has types blue cheeses as a protected term in the union. Where stuff sold there can’t be labeled as certain types unless it comes from specific regions of Europe. This stops big businesses from being able to come in and produce something that’s technically blue cheese and flood the market with it.
There are a lot of protected titles like this throughout the European Union, like Champagne, which needs to come from Champagne, France.
Feta Cheese
Feta cheese is the most unique type of cheese on this list yet. It’s made out of only sheep’s milk and much lighter in texture than the other cheeses mentioned so far.
It’s a cheese that’s not Italian like the other two either, as it’s a cheese that comes from Greece.
It’s a very dense cheese in a texture sense that’s formed in very large blocks that are submerged in a type of brine while the cheese ages. Its flavor is also more unique with a strong tangy and saltiness to it.
Feta cheese since 2003 has also been a protected product in the European Union. It needs to come from the traditional sections of Greece while also being made entirely from sheep’s milk, or in a rare exception, up to thirty percent goats milk for select producers.
Those producers have always traditionally made “feta” cheese using a small part goats milk for the added flavor and thus it counts as traditional Feta cheese too.
Along with the requirements for the type of milk used in the cheese lots of other things are also controlled and over looked to make it real Feta cheese.
These include what types of brine can be used for the fermentation process along with where it is made.
Feta cheese is also one of the least calorie dense cheeses out there. It has almost twenty percent less calories than the same amount of blue cheese.
That’s pretty impressive. Along with that sheep’s milk can also sometimes be consumed safely for people who are allergic to milk or lactose intolerant. So Feta cheese can be enjoyed by a wider variety of people with less risk of discomfort.
Cottage Cheese
Cottage cheese is one of the oldest known cheeses and that’s mostly because of how incredibly simple it is to make. It’s started a lot like how mozzarella is made, by heating milk and then adding rennet which causes it to split into curds and whey.
But it’s even easier to make than mozzarella because the curds and whey aren’t separated. This is why cottage cheese is sometimes called or labeled as curds and whey.
For most cottage cheese you buy at the store usually some form of cream is added to enhance the flavor of the final product. But other than that the process is the same around the world.
While cottage cheese is arguably an acquired taste, both in terms of flavor and texture, there’s no arguing that it’s one of the healthiest cheeses.
It’s absolutely packed with protein while also being incredibly calorie light. This is also why it’s recommended by a lot of dietitians for a thing to add to your diet if you’re trying to lower your calorie intake.
Swiss Cheese
Swiss Cheese, as one might guess from the name, is a cheese native to Switzerland. Native as in it’s produced there. It doesn’t run wild on the Swiss alps sadly.
It’s a bright yellowish orange cheese that is riddled with its signature holes. It’s the cheese of choice for any rat in a children’s cartoon and maybe that has to do with all the health benefits it has.
It’s one of the cheeses with the lowest sodium and fat concentration. This is great for anyone who needs to lower their salt intake or for people with high blood pressure who need to lower their fat intake.
Along with that there is also research that shows that Swiss cheese also has an enzyme called ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) which is used for narrowing blood vessels.
This helps aid with lowering blood pressure and is another reason that people with high blood pressure should eat Swiss ch