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How to Serve Cheese

Serving a variety of cheeses before dinner, after dinner, or as horsdoeuvres, makes an elegant and tasty snack. With very little preparation, a chees...More

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Cheese as Part of a Healthy Diet

Submitted by Resident Cheesemonger

As a generally healthy person, as well as a cheese afficionado, I worry that eating too much cheese is bad for me, but can't seriously imagine life without it. What's the point of being healthy if you can't enjoy a good Comte, Brie or Pecorino? While it's true that cheese does tend to be high in fat and salt, it has certain health benefits and there are ways to enjoy a healthy life and eat cheese too!

Cheese can actually be a positive contribution to one's diet. One ounce of cheese contains around 20% of the calcium an adult needs for healthy bones. In addition, cheese is usually high in protein, and more and more cheese these days is being enriched with Vitamin D (the same way most milk is). And of course, there's the happiness a good cheese brings (although this point is harder to justify to a doctor or nutritionist!). But how can we try to cut down on some of the fat we consume through cheese?

My attitude toward cheese and healthy eating is very similar to my attitude toward brownies and healthy eating. I'm not a big fan of low-fat brownies. If I'm going to eat a brownie, I want it to taste good. That's the whole point! I'm not eating brownies to sustain my existence, more for the sustenance of my soul. And it's in large part fat which brings out the delicious flavor of both brownies and cheese. So my personal approach is one of moderation. This is not a new concept, but works very well for me. I enjoy a decadent brownie once in a while, but I never eat the whole pan-full. I'd rather have one good brownie than five low fat ones!

That being said, there are a few tricks you can use, beyond simple moderation, to seek out healthier cheese options without sacrificing too much by way of flavor and enjoyment. For example, when cooking or just munching on some cheese by itself, opt for stronger cheeses (longer aged cheeses tend to become stronger in flavor). This way, you need to consume less actual cheese for the same amount of flavor.

There are, in fact, "low fat" cheese alternatives available on the market, but no one has really figured out yet how to lower the fat but keep the rich flavor. However, when cooking with cheese, you can often get away with using half the amount of regular, delicious cheese and half of the low fat alternative mixed together. Be careful if you choose to use a higher percentage of low fat cheese because it just doesn't melt as well as its higher fat traditional counterpart.

Finally, I haven't been able to procure any myself to test out the taste, but cheese made with yak's milk (popular in Nepal) has been shown to be much lower in fat when compared with a cow's milk cheese. While I'm excited about the prospect, I will reserve final judgement until I've indulged and found the yak's milk cheese to be just as delicious as it is healthy.

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