Know your cheeses

Are Reduced-fat, Light/ Lite cheeses low in fat? NO They contain 25-30% less fat than the full-fat cheese but they still contain as much as 25% fat, especially saturated fat - don't be tempted to eat more because they are reduced fat! Are low fat yellow cheeses high in calcium? YES e.g. Devondale 7, Shape cheese. They contain less than 10% fat and 9 mg calcium/gram. Full-fat cheese has 30% fat and 7-8mg calcium/gram. Are low fat soft white cheeses high in calcium? NO e.g ricotta and cottage cheese have less than 10% fat but have more than 50% less calcium than Devondale 7. 200 mg calcium found in: 200g tub of cottage cheese (1mg calcium/gram) 70g of ricotta cheese (3.5mg calcium/gram) 20g of Devondale 7 or Shape cheese (9mg calcium/gram) Are 'imitation' low cholesterol cheeses low in fat? NO e.g. Lo-Chol, Mini-Chol are lower in saturated fat because the animal fat has been replaced with vegetable oils BUT they are still high in fat due to the oil content Are all cheeses high in salt? NO Cottage, mozzarella, ricotta, swiss are naturally lower in salt and have around same level as 'reduced-salt' tasty cheeses. Read Rosemary Stanton's on-line brochure on cheese

 

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