Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
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oldman
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Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:15 pm
Location: London

Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by oldman »

Arzosah wrote:goat and sheep feta cheese is much cheaper than the same in milk.
Quite true, so you have to ask yourself ... If the milk costs more than the resulting cheese and there is the overheads of production on top of that how do the factories make it so cheep? The answer, as with most mass produced food, is additives. The chemicals they add to milk are already in the milk they just "balance" them to get a consistent flavour of cheese. It's a fair point for the factory to need to "balance" the milk as there is always a variation between batches depending on what the cows have been eating (pasture in the summer or dry feed in the winter) and they need their brand of cheese to always stay the same unlike mine that always tastes different. The question then is ... How much is real milk and how much is "balance"? The answer is only around 50% milk and can be a lot less in some cheep cheddar cheese, this is why it will split when you cook with it as the fat now floating on top of the food was not part of the milk to start with.

Now I'm not saying don't eat it, as a mass produced food it's not bad. Price per pound it's a good deal and there will be some cheep cheddar in my fridge but when you find that the "mozzarella" on your pizza is made from milk powder, lard and hot water whisked together and chilled in the fridge you begin the reconsider what you think of as "Cheese".

As a side note: The by-product of the cheese making process is the whey, a factory can not just dump this down the drain as the sewage treatment plant can not cope with it so it has to be disposed of. Rather than shipping it out in 45 gallon drums it is freeze dried, the water can then be dumped down the drain and the resulting powder is sold to body builders for £30 a kilo. It's a strange world that uses health freaks to dispose of your bio-hazardous by-product. :lol:

Next week I'll be giving a talk on rice. :)

Oldman
"Just when one least expects it, the unexpected always happens" - Dr. Rance