Let’s Go Out For ... Cheese

If you want to eat well and eat for wellness, you need to be well educated about cheese. Considered the oldest of manmade foods, cheese is a staple of the American food scene. Per capita U.S. consumption was 32.4 pounds in 2008, up from 23.8 pounds in 1989. But most of us aren’t too adventurous, reports the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, as two-thirds of what we eat in the United States are the cheddar and American variety.

“Cheese is a good food, and it’s universally popular,” says Pat Ode, dietetics program director at St. Catherine University in Minneapolis. “It provides protein, calcium, and in some cases, Vitamin D. The downside for cheese is that it tends to be high in saturated fat.”

So let’s lay our cards on the cheese board—this is a high-calorie menu item. A 100-gram serving of cheddar (two fairly thick sandwich slices) contains 415 calories and 33.5 grams of fat. The bread, the mayo and whatever meat you add would be extra.

Echoing many in her field, Ode stresses portion control when it comes to cheese-eating. Luckily there’s an effective and satisfying way to do that: Buy the good stuff. Specialty cheeses offer complex flavors and pleasing textures—the “slow food” attributes one enjoys in smaller servings at a leisurely pace.

These gourmet cheeses are also expensive. Share a thick wedge of Saint Agur blue at home with your date (yes, she’ll be impressed) and you’ve sliced your way through 10 bucks before heading to the restaurant. So, another reason to nibble knowingly.

At the high-priced end of the cheese market, you’re also getting an organic, small-batch product. Artisan producers like the Crawford Family Farm in Whiting, VT, graze a rare Ayrshire breed of cattle on pesticide-free grasses and craft their “Vermont Ayr” cheese with no chemical additives.

“A lot of what people eat these days comes from big corporate food labs,” says Sherry Crawford, co-owner of the creamery. “Our cheese is the opposite of that. And it’s made from higher-protein milk, so you’re getting significant nutrition along with the natural fat.”

Stay on the Firm Side
You can expand your cheese horizons and still keep portions small by favoring the semi-hard category (one notch up from the semi-hard cheeses are the ones you have to grate, like Parmesan and Pecorino Romano). Semi-hard cheeses, also called “semi-firm,” tend to be aged, which intensifies their flavor. They also have a low moisture content, which discourages the scoop-and-scarf action that a soft, moist cheese like Brie or Camembert inspires.

Edam, Gruyère and Jarlsberg are well-known examples of the semi-firm group, but you could also splurge on Gamonedo, a smoked cheese made in Spain from the milk of cows, sheep and goats.

A little also goes a long way when you opt for one of the many blue cheeses. Injected with penicillium mold before it ripens, a blue cheese will become permeated with blue veins that bolster its flavor. Gorgonzola, Roquefort and the strong-smelling English Stilton are prominent blues.

As long as the PointsPlus™ value count matters to you, avoid the guilty pleasures of double-cream and triple-cream cheeses. These are the frosted donuts of the cheese cooler, enriched with cream to hike their fat content up to 60 percent (or 75 percent, in the case of the triple-creams). Brie is given this treatment fairly commonly, so check the label.

Quality in Smaller Quantities
As you move from cheese shops to restaurant tables, the price they’re charging still governs your PointsPlus-to-pleasure equation. An extra-cheese pizza won’t cost much in money, but it loads on PointsPlus values fast.

Keep that cheese-vegetable ratio in mind as you hover around hors d’oeuvre stations at parties and banquets. “You’re making conversation, perhaps drinking wine, and it’s easy to load up your plate with interesting cheeses,” says Pat Ode. “That little plate might have one-third of your recommended daily calorie intake.” Best strategy is to take up real estate with vegetable crudités, leaving one corner for cheese as a taste accent.

Cheese is part of our diet and an important facet of human culture. Eating it wisely is mostly a matter of how you slice it.