Cheese fans have long felt that enjoying some protein-packed, fatty cheese is the ticket to a better life. Now science is starting to back them up. Cheese is high in saturated fat, which is often considered dangerous for your heart. Most nutritionists say we should only nibble limited doses of the heart-clogging fat.

But nutrition experts around the world are discovering in study after study that dairy may not be as bad for your heart as once thought. Certain kinds of fatty dairy, including cheese, could even help lower cholesterol, though more robust studies of larger groups of cheese-eaters are needed to know for sure, as previously noted. Here Ocean Robbins, FoodRevolution.org, reflects on the wonderful world of nut cheese:

“There are many reasons that cheese is so tough to say goodbye to. There’s the taste, of course. The mouthfeel. The dopamine-firing saturated fat, and the sky-high sodium levels. And the way so many Western cultures’ iconic meals feature cheese as a main, no indispensable ingredient: lasagna, blintzes, enchiladas, cheeseburgers, and, in the top slot in the US, pizza.

Of course, as addictions go, you might argue, cheese isn’t that bad. It’s delicious, it contains calcium and vitamin A, and it’s got a bunch of protein. What’s the problem?

The Problems With Cheese

Cheese is one of the leading sources of saturated fat and sodium in the standard Western diet. In case anyone missed the memo, saturated fat and sodium are not generally considered health foods, particularly in excess. And excess is what cheese is all about. According to the National Cancer Institute, regular cheese and pizza are the top two contributors of saturated fat, accounting for almost 15% of the total saturated fat intake in the American diet. That’s as much as all chicken, sausage, franks, bacon, ribs, and burgers combined! Cheese is also responsible for roughly one tenth of the sodium consumed by Americans each year.

Unfortunately, almost all cheese eaten in the industrialized world is produced in ways that degrade the environment. Regions with lots of dairy farms suffer from severe air pollution, with particulate matter coming from dust and manure, compounded by high concentrations of methane. And the effects of dairy farming aren’t simply local – the cattle industry is one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions via, to put it delicately, cow “eructations”.

The runoff from dairy farms degrades our water supply. Wisconsin, long known as the cheese capital of America, is systematically poisoning groundwater aquifers through high concentrations of nitrogen from dairy operations. Dairy farms in California, the other primary producer of cheese in the US, are likewise responsible for egregious levels of air and water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.”

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Read More … Article Source: https://foodrevolution.org/blog/nut-cheese/