Cheese

Food · Dairy · Food, Typed Supps

Every cheese in this list is the same milk with a different amount of water left in it.

Stage by stage

Intake (Mouth): Chewing warms the fat and fractures the casein matrix that holds the curd together.
Protein breakdown (Stomach): Pepsin hydrolyses casein, continuing the breakdown that ripening already started.
Absorption (Small intestine): Bile emulsifies the fat; calcium is released from casein micelles and absorbed.
Deposition (Bone): Absorbed calcium supports bone mineralisation and maintains blood calcium levels.

Time to effect

Weeks–months: Changes in blood lipids from a sustained shift in cheese intake emerge over roughly 4 to 12 weeks.

Allergens

Contains: Milk. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Keto, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

87 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — low. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

23.9 kg CO2e and 5605 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Cheese" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Mid — roughly £8 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Calcium
Complete protein
Saturated fat
Sodium

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 363
Protein: 18.6g
Carbohydrate: 0g
of which sugars: 0g
Fat: 31.8g
of which saturated: 20.6g
Fibre: 0g
Sodium: 580mg

Food vs. supplement

Cheese delivers calcium alongside protein, phosphorus, B12 and iodine, and the calcium in dairy is absorbed at roughly 30 to 35% — comparable to a carbonate supplement taken with food. The distinction is the sodium and saturated fat that arrive with it, which is why cheese is a reasonable calcium source for someone who eats it anyway and a poor strategy for someone trying to hit a calcium target from scratch.

Kitchen tip

Grating rather than slicing a hard cheese spreads a much smaller weight over the same surface, which is why 10g of parmesan can season a dish that would need 40g of a mild block cheese. Haloumi and paneer hold their shape in a dry pan because their curd was set with heat rather than rennet alone.

Common myth

“Soft cheese is the lighter option and hard cheese is the indulgent one.” In reality: It is the other way round per gram of nutrition. Soft ripened cheeses like brie retain water and are barely pressed, landing around a third fat; hard aged cheeses are more concentrated in everything, but are eaten in far smaller amounts and carry considerably more calcium and protein per kilojoule.