- How much fat and cholesterol do i get from the cheese?
• Answer: Fat content of cheese ranges from 12 percent in fresh cheese to 30 percent in ripened cheeses.
- For most cheeses 70 to 75 percent of the calories comes from fat. In part-skim cheese about 50 to 55 percent of the calories derives from fat.
• About 2/3 of the fat in cheese is saturated fat.
• One ounce of cheese contains about 20-30 mg. cholesterol.
• Cholesterol is easily oxidized and in even small amounts are able to kill the smooth muscle cells of the artery walls.
- (Oxidized cholesterol is also found in powdered whole milk, possibly in powdered non-fat milk, powdered eggs, and dried whey; other potential sources are smoked fish, smoked meat, and smoked sausage).
• Some cheeses also contain other toxic cholesterol derivatives.
• All dairy products have become more suspect recently, from the association of the saturated fat of milk with the elevation of the blood cholesterol, to the transmission of many animal diseases to man through dairy products.
• Of course, cheese also presents the usual drawbacks of milk such as allergies, lactose intolerance, food sensitivities, and high calorie content.
• Cheese contains a goodly quantity of the amino acid tryptophane, which causes after-meal drowsiness and inability to concentrate.
• Certain imported cheeses have been discovered as culprits in outbreaks of food-borne gastroenteritis in the United States.
• As many as 120 disease -producing germs have been isolated per gram of cheese; that would be 600 germs in a teaspoon of cheese!
• We can say from the foregoing, that some foods generally thought to be wholesome are actually injurious to the health.
• The fat in cheese is hydrolyzed to irritating fatty acids, butyric, caproic, caprylic, and longer carbon-chain fatty acids.
• The protein is fermented to peptides, amines, indoles, skatole, and ammonia, several of these being implicated in the production of cancer.
• The possibility of production of nitrosamine, one of the most powerful cancer producing agents known, is particularly disturbing.
• Both the nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract are irritated by certain of these substances, causing the individual to be irritable and cranky.
Source: Series of articles on cheese in the Journal of Health and Healing; Agatha Thrash M.D.