Why cheese is no longer my friend

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Northerner

Northerner

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Type 1
My name is Tim and I'm a cheese addict. But what I've been discovering recently has shaken me to the core.

I can barely look a Babybel in the face. A half-eaten halloumi squeaklessly lies yellowing in the fridge. My cheese dreams are shattering.

For, after a lifetime of unfettered devotion, could it possibly be that cheese is more foe than friend? That I am addicted to something that is not so good for my body? That cheese should be toast?

These are questions that began surfacing a couple of months ago when I began making an episode for my new podcast for the BBC, All Hail Kale, looking into whether dairy was scary.

For some time, I'd increasingly been questioning the logic of adults drinking milk.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46638419
 
I drink Milk for England & have done from being young. 6pints a day when I was at school ? still have all my own teeth , strong bones & teeth ? o_O
 
Not sure about the logic behind that piece. Why not drink milk? Taking that logic to the extreme. Why eat eggs? Why crush wheat? Why eat meat? Why dig up roots? Why nibble on nuts?

Because we can and they provide us with minerals, vitamins, protein etc.

Balance! That's the ticket. 🙂
 
We’ve evolved to still produce lactase, thats enough for me. Plus I love cheese, and it’s one of my few available treats.
 
I luvs cheese and eat it for England but have a sneaky feeling we shouldn't over indulge. Johnny Vegas was an addict and he's had to stop eating it due to gout! I'm working my way through all the Christmas cheeses at the minute...everybody was too full after dinner to have any. I really want to make my way through all the chocolate that was left over too but nope, I'm being sensible now. It's proper boring being sensible. 🙄
 
I’m looking forward to hoovering up the cheese leftovers when I get home.
 
I don't think in the case of dairy fat that it's very "bewildering it is to get definitive answers around nutrition".Quoting the AHA's Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease:

Many controlled trials showed that dairy fat, often the
major source of saturated fat in a study, increased LDL
cholesterol compared with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated
vegetable oils, reflecting the preponderance
of saturated fatty acids, as reviewed previously in this
report. Prospective observational studies found that the
substitution of polyunsaturated fat for dairy fat, 5% of
total daily calories, was associated with a 24% to 25%
lower risk of CHD and stroke.101 In contrast, substituting
refined carbohydrates for dairy fat was not associated
with reduced risk of CVD, whereas substituting carbohydrates
from whole grains for dairy fat was associated
with a 34% lower incidence of CHD and a 16% lower
incidence of stroke.

And on cheese specifically:

For many years, there has been sporadic speculation
that cheese is a unique food category, protective
against CVD because it is manufactured by
fermentation.
To the best of our knowledge, no information
from controlled studies supports the hypothesis that
fermentation adds beneficial nutrients to cheese that
counteract the harmful effects of its saturated fat.

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000510

Of course, there are always individual studies which go against the mainstream.
 
I used to have the occasional macaroni cheese (home made, I hasten to add). A large plateful of the stuff plastered with ketchup. I knew it wasn't doing me any good because I was sweating heavily by the end! I think that my liver was complaining mightily.

Of course, now being a little more sensible in my old age, I haven't had any macaroni cheese for probably seven years now (my partner doesn't like it, so that was helpful!) 🙂
 
Isn't Christmas the time of year when we celebrate cheeses? 😉 I always buy a good selection...

I love a good cheese, provided it has some flavour to it (I reckon that "mild cheese" is a contradiction in terms); I don't like Wensleydale (unless it has apricots or cranberries in it for flavour), but I do like feta, which is like Wensleydale but much stronger. Unfortunately, the "cheese" my carer buys for my breakfast sandwiches is mousetrap.
 
Pro Libertate et Caseo <waves sword>
 
"I'll give you my moderate portion of feta cheese contributing less than 5% of daily calorie intake when you pry it from my cold, dead hands."
 
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