Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Cheese Calories

Let me guess, you are standing in front of a slice of pizza thinking: how many cheese calories am I going to eat??? Well, if are going to eat a pizza, you'll get plenty of cheese calories. But you should know that the variety of cheeses allows you to choose healthier cheeses with less cheese calories.


Cheese is basically concentrated milk, so its nutrition value is similar. This means high in protein and calcium but also high in fat, cholesterol and cheese calories. There is no doubt that in "regular" yellow cheeses the majority of cheese calories come from fat.For example in a slice (1 oz) of American Cheddar which has 50 calories, around 54% of these cheese calories come from fat. In a slice (1 oz) of real Cheddar which has 113 calories, around 74% of these cheese calories come from fat.


Can you believe these numbers???



And don't forget that a lot of us tend to add some grated cheese to potatoes, or sour cream, and even take a perfectly good salad and drown in blue cheese dressing, or should I say drown it in cheese calories?


Generally speaking you should stick to the low fat cheeses, the white soft cheeses like cottage or even yogurt cheese (a.k.a. Labaneh). These have less cheese calories and better nutrition values.


The following calories are for 3.5 oz of cheese:



  • American Chedder = 239 cheese calories

  • Blue Cheese = 334 cheese calories

  • Brie Cheese = 334 cheese calories

  • Cheddar Cheese = 403 cheese calories

  • Colby Cheese = 394 cheese calories

  • Cottage, creamed = 103 cheese calories

  • Cottage, 1% milk fat = 72 cheese calories

  • Feta Cheese = 264 cheese calories

  • Mozzarella, whole milk = 300 cheese calories

  • Mozzarella, non fat = 149 cheese calories

  • Swiss Cheese = 380 cheese calories

  • Swiss Cheese, Low fat = 179 cheese calories

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