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It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

thephcheese.com

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Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#151

Post by askvictor »

josephg wrote: post #142
m463 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anything shelf-stable, hydrogenated peanut butter, highly processed milk, etc I'm starting to wonder if convenience = 1/healthy hopefully not bananas though.

My partner read a book on food recently. They made an obvious point I’d never thought of before: Food is eaten in our stomachs by bacteria. If the bacteria in our stomachs can’t (or won’t) eat something, that means it’s not digestible. That means it’s not food. If something is shelf stable, that’s because the bacteria can’t or won’t eat it. If bacteria doesn’t want to eat something, it’s not food. And you probably do…

Generally you're either killing _all_ of the bacteria the sealing the product to prevent new ones entering, or creating an environment that's too hostile for them to live (environments high in salt, sugar, acid, or fat, or low in moisture, all make achieve this)

Also, our stomach is full of acid, the purpose of which is to kill bacteria. Later on, in the intestine, you have a colony of microbes.

Pickled or fermented food is very healthy, and shelf stable. We've been doing that for millenia to preserve food.

It's not as simple as you suggest.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#152

Post by dwighttk »

josephg wrote: post #142
m463 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anything shelf-stable, hydrogenated peanut butter, highly processed milk, etc I'm starting to wonder if convenience = 1/healthy hopefully not bananas though.

My partner read a book on food recently. They made an obvious point I’d never thought of before: Food is eaten in our stomachs by bacteria. If the bacteria in our stomachs can’t (or won’t) eat something, that means it’s not digestible. That means it’s not food. If something is shelf stable, that’s because the bacteria can’t or won’t eat it. If bacteria doesn’t want to eat something, it’s not food. And you probably do…

>But how do they make shelf stable cheesy / creamy products?

pasteurization and keeping further bacteria out is one way to do it

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#153

Post by hollerith »

josephg wrote: post #142
m463 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anything shelf-stable, hydrogenated peanut butter, highly processed milk, etc I'm starting to wonder if convenience = 1/healthy hopefully not bananas though.

My partner read a book on food recently. They made an obvious point I’d never thought of before: Food is eaten in our stomachs by bacteria. If the bacteria in our stomachs can’t (or won’t) eat something, that means it’s not digestible. That means it’s not food. If something is shelf stable, that’s because the bacteria can’t or won’t eat it. If bacteria doesn’t want to eat something, it’s not food. And you probably do…

>Food is eaten in our stomachs by bacteria. If the bacteria in our stomachs can’t (or won’t) eat something, that means it’s not digestible.

Both of these are false. Bacteria are not needed for the proper function of the human stomach (or the small intestine). The human body produces digestive enzymes, HCl and bile (and maybe bicarbonate) which combined will digest most foods without any help from bacteria.

Bacteria are needed in the large intestine to convert fiber into short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), but a person can live for many years without any of these SCFAs' being produced in the large intestine, although the person probably would be less healthy.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#154

Post by GuB-42 »

ahartmetz wrote: post #47
stevenwoo wrote: post #12

I'm now kind of upset at myself that I have thrown out perfectly good Cheddar in the past due to white spots.

Also, if you get bright white(!) spots on cheese like Brie (which is made with white fungus), it's usually just the cheese "reactivating". You - theoretically - don't even need to cut off anything.

I remember having a brie-like cheese cut in half and left forgotten in the fridge for more than a month. The mold had reformed completely, as if it they were made like this in the first place.

It tasted fine, no one got sick. Kind of underwhelming to be honest, but it wasn't particularly tasty to begin with: industrial cheese, pasteurized milk. It fact, that it still had some life in it surprised me.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#155

Post by dwighttk »

wholinator2 wrote: post #66
astura wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are super religious about this but I've never been able to tell pre-shredded cheese from cheese I've shredded myself and I don't think anyone else can tell the difference in a blind taste test.

That's actually crazy to me. Like, a sealed, generic brand bag from the cold section of a chain grocery store vs a block purchased from the deli and shredded by hand? The difference is massive! Taste will vary between the two anyways but the texture difference is categorical. The pre shredded has grainy flour like stuff all over it, the manually shredded is completely smooth with no graininess at all. I can 1000% tel…

most of my pre-shreded cheese has no such grainy flour like stuff all over it... Harris Teeter, but Kroger before that... I think I can remember once getting a bag with some noticeable anti-caking agent... in my life.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#156

Post by kadoban »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #90
goosejuice wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't do this in a restaurant but a quick cheese sauce for something like nachos. Just pop some shredded cheese in the microwave with some heavy cream or half and half. Adjust to taste / texture. Stir well. Mornay, citrate, and evaporated milk approaches work but I'm lazy so I just do the cream approach for "queso".

Honestly for a quick cheese sauce for nachos I don't think you can beat Velveeta. It doesn't get easier, and I prefer the flavor of American cheese for things like that.

Velveta on its own is pretty rough (imo), but if you start adding anything to it, it helps a lot. Like salsa is the easy one.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#157

Post by djtango »

twojacobtwo wrote: post #146
tshaddox wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the convenient version of something always worse in every way aside from convenience than the less convenient version of the same thing?

Definitely not "always" and "in every way". Random example. I buy a meal made by a professional chef and have it delivered. It's more convenient and it's a much better meal than I could make. It's more expensive, sure, but that's not 'in every way'

But within the same example its not as good as if you ate the exact same meal freshly served - things won't be as hot and certain textures will be lost in delivery (eg crispy things going soggy)

You mentioned a chef which is less specific but I generally consider restaurant food less healthy than what I'd cook for myself due to differing incentives which is another dimension for convenience

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#158

Post by GuB-42 »

tacitusarc wrote: post #24
stevenwoo wrote: post #12

I'm now kind of upset at myself that I have thrown out perfectly good Cheddar in the past due to white spots.

No, that is most likely mold. Not all white spots are positive, especially if they are on old cheese in the fridge (as per the article).

Even if it is mold, just remove it off the surface. It doesn't penetrate far on hard cheeses like Gouda.

Also the reason why I don't buy pre-grated cheese, it doesn't age well. It also tends to be lower quality to begin with.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#159

Post by xp84 »

Animats wrote: post #144
foxyv wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped buying pre-shredded cheese a decade ago. Block cheese is cheaper, lasts longer, and cooks better. Pre-shredded is just worse in every way aside from convenience. Using a cheap rotary grater like they have in restaurants makes this almost a non-issue.

> Block cheese is cheaper, lasts longer, and cooks better. Is this a promotion for the National Cheese Stockpile?[1] The US has about 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in storage in a cave in Missouri. Really. There's a USDA welfare program for dairy farmers, and they have to put the excess milk somewhere. So it's made into cheese and stored. [1] https://modernfarmer.com/2022/05/cheese-caves-missouri/

Funny, the same US that is in a stupid trade war where dairy is one of the disputed areas, is doing absurd subsidies of dairy. What an incongruous set of policies.

Re: It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

#160

Post by facile3232 »

_qg83 wrote: post #21
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens already, at least it does in the UK. Most cheaper brands of “extra mature” supermarket cheddar have added crystals. I don’t actually mind that much - I do think it is a genuinely slightly more enjoyable product with the crystals.

There are also fake ways of accelerating aging to create this effect, like the Old Amsterdam cheeses you’ll find in the Netherlands. That particular brand has a lot of fake qualities to it that creates these effects.

Is "fake" really the right word here if people get the flavor, nutrition, and texture they want? I don't really give a damn if they figured out a way to bypass aging to achieve this.
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