Your post made me curious, so I did a quick search. Apparently, to qualify as cheese, American cheeses only need to be 51% cheese. Not that this is probably the best source: mashed article
So that article is indeed a little “shock bait”-y.
I skimmed the FDA regulations to the best of my ability.
There’s actually three four types:
Processed cheese, processed cheese food, processed cheese product, and prepared cheese product.
Processed cheese is around 90% cheese. It’s what you get if you melt cheese and add anything to it to keep it from splitting, as long as it’s not much at all, and the additive is something like “cream”, an acidic salt or something like that.
Processed cheese food is the same, but you can use more other ingredients, and a wider variety, like dehydrated milk, and it has to be at least 51% cheese.
Processed cheese product is the same as processed cheese food, but can be less than 51% cheese.
Prepared cheese product has no FDA standard of identity and can contain anything FDA approved for consumption in any proportion, as long as there’s something in the ingredients that’s cheese.
The best part is that you can find all of these right next to each other at the store, and they’ll all look and be casually called “American cheese”.
Kraft singles are the latter, because they got in trouble for using an additive that the FDA doesn’t consider a dairy food (milk protein concentrate).
Most other “singles” are food or product.
The non individually wrapped slices or bricks are most likely to be just “processed cheese”. They might also be called “deli style” so they can charge a little more.
Thank you! I was wiped out after driving a disabled neighbor around all day yesterday so I didn’t put much effort in my search. Like beer, I call it “cheese” with caution. I don’t know that any American-produced cheese actually uses rennet rather than whatever chemical imitation. I am well aware there is a huge difference in taste, having had the opportunity to have had imported cheese a time or two. But I obviously don’t buy it, with budgetary and other constraints. I’ve recently started buying American produced cheese either sliced, or block to shred myself. It’s just better without cellulose and rx antifungal.
Oh, there’s plenty of American cheeses that are basically the same as any other European cheese, but we have the difference that we either need to use pasteurized milk, or age the cheese at least 60 days.
We had a much worse time with listeria outbreaks around the time that food safety regulations were being put together, so our rules are a lot more strict for dairy products.
This can impact the flavor, but honestly the reason imported cheese tends to be better is because you don’t import cheap cheese, you import nice cheese.
Cellulose is only in shredded cheese, and it’s benign. It’s naturally occuring in every plant, and humans can’t digest it. It’s commonly referred to as “dietary fiber”, which is why they can use it as an anti clumping agent in shredded cheese. You’re already eating it and it’s entirely inert.
Antibiotics are also a bit overblown in the US. When it comes to what arrives to the consumer, the US and the EU have compatible regulations. The biggest difference is actually cow breed, which impacts milk composition.
They’re compatible largely because of trade pressures applied. And pre-shredded cheese wreaks havoc on my stomach. I’ve had stomach issues for most of my life so imo a happy gut is a happy me.
Your post made me curious, so I did a quick search. Apparently, to qualify as cheese, American cheeses only need to be 51% cheese. Not that this is probably the best source: mashed article
So that article is indeed a little “shock bait”-y. I skimmed the FDA regulations to the best of my ability.
There’s actually three four types: Processed cheese, processed cheese food, processed cheese product, and prepared cheese product.
Processed cheese is around 90% cheese. It’s what you get if you melt cheese and add anything to it to keep it from splitting, as long as it’s not much at all, and the additive is something like “cream”, an acidic salt or something like that.
Processed cheese food is the same, but you can use more other ingredients, and a wider variety, like dehydrated milk, and it has to be at least 51% cheese.
Processed cheese product is the same as processed cheese food, but can be less than 51% cheese.
Prepared cheese product has no FDA standard of identity and can contain anything FDA approved for consumption in any proportion, as long as there’s something in the ingredients that’s cheese.
The best part is that you can find all of these right next to each other at the store, and they’ll all look and be casually called “American cheese”.
Kraft singles are the latter, because they got in trouble for using an additive that the FDA doesn’t consider a dairy food (milk protein concentrate).
Most other “singles” are food or product.
The non individually wrapped slices or bricks are most likely to be just “processed cheese”. They might also be called “deli style” so they can charge a little more.
Thank you! I was wiped out after driving a disabled neighbor around all day yesterday so I didn’t put much effort in my search. Like beer, I call it “cheese” with caution. I don’t know that any American-produced cheese actually uses rennet rather than whatever chemical imitation. I am well aware there is a huge difference in taste, having had the opportunity to have had imported cheese a time or two. But I obviously don’t buy it, with budgetary and other constraints. I’ve recently started buying American produced cheese either sliced, or block to shred myself. It’s just better without cellulose and rx antifungal.
Oh, there’s plenty of American cheeses that are basically the same as any other European cheese, but we have the difference that we either need to use pasteurized milk, or age the cheese at least 60 days.
We had a much worse time with listeria outbreaks around the time that food safety regulations were being put together, so our rules are a lot more strict for dairy products.
This can impact the flavor, but honestly the reason imported cheese tends to be better is because you don’t import cheap cheese, you import nice cheese.
Cellulose is only in shredded cheese, and it’s benign. It’s naturally occuring in every plant, and humans can’t digest it. It’s commonly referred to as “dietary fiber”, which is why they can use it as an anti clumping agent in shredded cheese. You’re already eating it and it’s entirely inert.
Antibiotics are also a bit overblown in the US. When it comes to what arrives to the consumer, the US and the EU have compatible regulations. The biggest difference is actually cow breed, which impacts milk composition.
They’re compatible largely because of trade pressures applied. And pre-shredded cheese wreaks havoc on my stomach. I’ve had stomach issues for most of my life so imo a happy gut is a happy me.
Oh, yeah. Don’t eat food that makes your gut sad!