There are many kinds of cheese on the market. There is also a special kind of children's cheese. Many parents think that it is more suitable for children to eat than ordinary cheese. Is that true? How to distinguish natural cheese from processed cheese? Here is a brief introduction.
Is children's cheese more suitable for children than ordinary cheese Many parents believe that "children's cheese is a special food for children, certainly better than ordinary cheese", but is it really true?
Cheese is divided into natural cheese and processed cheese. Natural cheese is made from raw milk (milk, goat's milk, etc.) through concentration and fermentation. It is stipulated in the National Food Safety Standard Cheese (GB 5420-2021) that the addition of food raw materials other than raw milk during cheese processing should not exceed 8%.
How to distinguish natural cheese from processed cheese? Reprocessed cheese is made from natural cheese or casein through reprocessing. In the National Food Safety Standard for Processed Cheese (GB 25192-2010), the requirement for processed cheese is "the proportion of cheese is more than 15%". So in the processed cheese you buy, the real cheese ingredients may just exceed 15%, and the remaining 80% may be water, gelatin, carrageenan, emulsified salt, sugar and various additives.
It is understood that more than 90% of the cheese products on the market under the banner of "children" are "processed cheese".
In addition, a careful look at the nutritional composition table of these "children's cheese" products will show that in addition to the high calcium content, the salt and sugar content is generally high.
For example, a popular children's cheese has a sodium content of 374mg/100g and a carbohydrate content of 18.6g/100g. The World Health Organization recommends that children aged 1-3 should not consume more than 650mg of sodium per day, and older children should not consume more than 900mg. If children eat 100g of this kind of children's cheese per day, their sodium intake will almost reach half of the recommended daily intake, while consuming too much sugar, It will lead to obesity, dental caries and other health problems.
Sophora bean gum, carrageenan, potassium sorbate, sodium citrate and other additives in the ingredient list have no nutrition and may affect children's taste. Long term consumption may also cause children to be picky eaters, or even cause malnutrition in serious cases.
Therefore, if parents want to supplement their children with calcium by eating children's cheese, it may not be worth the loss!
The simplest way is to directly look at the "product type" on the package. Some will directly indicate on the package whether it is "processed cheese" or "natural cheese/original cheese". If some product packages are not clearly marked, they can be identified by looking at the ingredient list, especially the first ingredient in the ingredient list. If cow's milk, goat's milk and pasteurized milk are written in the first place, and the ingredients list is relatively short, most of them are natural cheese; If cheese/cheese and water are written in the first place, and the ingredient list is complex, it is generally processed cheese. It can be seen that many children's growing up cheese, whey cheese and cheese added with vitamins and other trace elements on the market are mostly reprocessed cheese with more additives, so parents must carefully look at the ingredients list when shopping, and not be misled by colorful cartoon packaging.