"Sugar, Salt, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us" Part 2

CHEESE

"Sugar, Salt, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us"  by Michael Moss Part 2

FAT

This past week I got to the second section of Michael Moss's book which focused on FAT.  Most people agree that fat is bad for you and that it can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.  A lot of this section focused on cheese and how Americans on average, eat 33 pounds of cheese per year!  The amount that we eat has more than tripled since the 1970s when cheese was becoming a bigger part of our diet.  

About 40-50 years ago, the dairy industry was producing too much milk.  There was more milk than Americans would drink.  They didn't want to reduce their production, otherwise it would not be profitable.  The government stepped in to subsidize milk and they purchased all of the milk that the dairy farms were unable to sell.  As a result, the government had this huge amount of milk that they needed to store.

Back in the 1970s, people were starting to pay attention to fat levels in milk.  They had 4 choices - whole, 2%, 1%, and skim.  More people were switching to the lower fat milks and as a result, the dairy industry also had a lot of milk fat accumulating that they did not need.  (In reality, whole milk is just 3% fat so if you switch from whole to 2% you are not making much of a change).  They started to store their excess milk and milk fat in these underground storage areas in Kansas.  When the Reagan administration started, the government was spending 1 million dollars per day for storage!  Reagan wanted to balance the budget so he put a stop to the government subsidization of milk.

Now what were they going to do with all of that excess milk and milk fat?  Make a lot of cheese!  Up until this point, cheese was a food that was enjoyed once in awhile, and it was usually eaten on its own before or after a meal, not added to other foods.  Large amounts of cheese started to be produced and most people did not know that cheeses are high in fat - 1 oz. of cheddar cheese contains 6g of saturated fat which is 30% of your daily recommended amount!  And that is in just 1 oz.  I don't know about you, but when I do consume cheese, it's a lot more than that!  Cheddar cheese is 75% fat and more and more convenience products were being invented that contained cheese.  The government also invested in programs to convince Americans that we needed more milk and cheese!  I'm sure most of us can remember the "Got Milk?" campaign that started in 1993 and other campaigns that we were exposed to in elementary school.

A  lot of people eat cheese several times per day, and most of it is not part-skim mozzarella.  High levels of saturated fat in our diets directly leads to high cholesterol.  Want an easy way to lower cholesterol quickly?  Give up animal foods (meat, dairy) and your cholesterol will drop drastically because animal foods are the only dietary source of cholesterol.  Your body makes what it needs and we don't need to take in more cholesterol through our diet.  Plant foods contain 0g of cholesterol.  The last time I had my cholesterol checked it was 111.  

Here are some easy ways to reduce your cheese consumption:

-  Substitute guacamole or salsa for cheese in Mexican dishes.  Avocados are high in fat - but in polyunsaturated fats which are good for you.

-  Make your own pizza and put lots of veggies on top and either skip the cheese or only use a little

-  Try soy or rice cheeses.  The kinds sold by Kroger here are not good, but I have heard that Whole Foods and Trader Joes sell better kinds.

-  If you do eat cheese, choose part-skim mozzarella or Neufchatel cheese (reduced fat cream cheese)

- Substitute avocado slices, onions, peppers, and/or tomatoes on your sandwiches instead of cheese.  My favorite sandwich right now is avocado, tomato, and mustard.  And they will make it for you at Panera if you ask!

- Pay attention to how much cheese is in convenience foods.  Look at the fat content.  If the amount of fat calories is more than 50% of the total calories, skip it.  To find fat calories look at the top of the food label, or multiply the grams of fat by 9.