Cottage Cheese Natural or Not?

Diet and Nutrition
1

I am a big fan of cottage cheese, especially as my second post workout meal with an apple mixed in either a 1/2 cup or a cup of 1% sometimes 2% cottage cheese.

Someone remarqued that cottage cheese is not a milk product at all and is full of sodium…so I checked the ingrients of all major brands of cottage cheese and there is no milk but derived products from milk and sodium for 1/2 cup is close to 600mg.

So what’s the deal, is cottage cheese a good product or not. I follow Berardi’s principles so keep that in mind.

Thanks

2

Hi

If you get foodtv.com you should check out the “Good Eats” show. They made cottage cheese on the show and it looked great. He boiled skim milk and then added vinegar and that was it.

I am sure that doesn’t answer your question except to say it can be made from milk!

3

Ummm, cottage cheese is a dairy product. It is sort of difficult to get curds and whey without having dairy. I just looked at the stuff I have in the fridge and the first ingredient is skim milk. I’m not sure what kind of off brand you’re buying if dairy is not the first ingredient.

But, if you’re concerned, it is easy enough to make at home, so here you go:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_36973,00.html

You can make a batch in under an hour with pretty minimal effort and just 4 ingredients.

4

[quote]barbiegirl wrote:
Someone remarqued that cottage cheese is not a milk product at all and is full of sodium…so I checked the ingrients of all major brands of cottage cheese and there is no milk but derived products from milk and sodium for 1/2 cup is close to 600mg.
[/quote]

That doesn’t make sense. Cottage cheese by definition is just curdled milk that’s been drained. Im sure the food companies add salt and other things to it for flavor, but that doesn’t mean its not derived from milk.

5

[quote]barbiegirl wrote:
I am a big fan of cottage cheese, especially as my second post workout meal with an apple mixed in either a 1/2 cup or a cup of 1% sometimes 2% cottage cheese.

Someone remarqued that cottage cheese is not a milk product at all and is full of sodium…so I checked the ingrients of all major brands of cottage cheese and there is no milk but derived products from milk and sodium for 1/2 cup is close to 600mg.

So what’s the deal, is cottage cheese a good product or not. I follow Berardi’s principles so keep that in mind.

Thanks

[/quote]

i think this was meant, note the comma:

there is no milk, but derived products from milk and sodium for 1/2 cup is close to 600mg.

it is basically the casein part of milk after it has been curdled. there are different types of cottage cheese out there. i recommend you try to find a pressed cottage cheese without salt if you want to keep sodium lower. they are available in ontario, and i am sure they exist in quebec too. it is an excellent protein source which digests slowly.

if your sodium intake is relatively low, 600mg is not that much, especially in the after workout peroid. there are also cottage cheeses out there that will have less sodium than that, so check labels. the persom who told you there is no milk products in it was wrong, as for full of sodium, only if you purchase that particular cottage cheese.

now, i think that it is a good protein source, however, you may want to consider tweaking it with some health fats to help recovery and round out your meal according to Berardi principles.

6

[quote]ubl0 wrote:

now, i think that it is a good protein source, however, you may want to consider tweaking it with some health fats to help recovery and round out your meal according to Berardi principles.[/quote]

Just an idea like that, why not buy 4% cottage cheese? The taste is so much more awesome, in fact it is the only type of cottage cheese I can eat indefinitely.

I know it is high in sat. fats… but the fat content is relatively low, even if you compare 4% with no fat (which tastes like sweaty buttcrack IMO)

7

i usually mix my cottage cheese with plain full fat yogurt and a scoop of Grow!, so that takes care of the taste. i throw in a banana and milled flax seeds have some nuts and fish oil to round out the fat and a greens drink (i can drink the plain one no problem - mmm cardboard). i think that qualifies as a complete balanced meal.

8

[quote]ubl0 wrote:
barbiegirl wrote:
I am a big fan of cottage cheese, especially as my second post workout meal with an apple mixed in either a 1/2 cup or a cup of 1% sometimes 2% cottage cheese.

Someone remarqued that cottage cheese is not a milk product at all and is full of sodium…so I checked the ingrients of all major brands of cottage cheese and there is no milk but derived products from milk and sodium for 1/2 cup is close to 600mg.

So what’s the deal, is cottage cheese a good product or not. I follow Berardi’s principles so keep that in mind.

Thanks

i think this was meant, note the comma:

there is no milk, but derived products from milk and sodium for 1/2 cup is close to 600mg.

it is basically the casein part of milk after it has been curdled. there are different types of cottage cheese out there. i recommend you try to find a pressed cottage cheese without salt if you want to keep sodium lower. they are available in ontario, and i am sure they exist in quebec too. it is an excellent protein source which digests slowly.

if your sodium intake is relatively low, 600mg is not that much, especially in the after workout peroid. there are also cottage cheeses out there that will have less sodium than that, so check labels. the persom who told you there is no milk products in it was wrong, as for full of sodium, only if you purchase that particular cottage cheese.

now, i think that it is a good protein source, however, you may want to consider tweaking it with some health fats to help recovery and round out your meal according to Berardi principles.[/quote]

I’m confused with the las paragraph, why would I add healthy fats in my cottage cheese meal as it is post workout so P+C, I must be missing something??

9

you only listed the apple as the carb source. not exactly a lot of carbs. but if your goal is to go P+C, then by all means ignore that statement. some of us use a isocaloric meal for the second postworkout meal as we don’t handle carbs well. or even a P+F meal if maximum fat loss is goal.

it will also be in your interest to find low fat cottage cheese if P+C is main meal parameter.

10

[quote]gogotheviking wrote:
I know it is high in sat. fats… but the fat content is relatively low, even if you compare 4% with no fat[/quote]

When will the fat-fobia die!?!?

Saturated fats are not the Devil, folks.

11

[quote]Miserere wrote:
gogotheviking wrote:
I know it is high in sat. fats… but the fat content is relatively low, even if you compare 4% with no fat

When will the fat-fobia die!?!?

Saturated fats are not the Devil, folks.[/quote]

I think the same. I was anticipating some people to tell me that ‘‘OMG you will have teh heart attack with so much sat. fats!!!11’’

I really think that the fat content is not a bad thing, on the contrary. Taken as pre-bed meal, it slows absorption even more, which is a good thing in my book.

12

THERE IS NO FAT PHOBIA GOING ON HERE.

if someone wants to follow Berardi’s P+C and P+F meals, then we need to gear our responses to that. to someone else who doesn’t care as much, this may seem like fat phobia, until you see the other half of their meals which have way more fat than you may be eating at once.

the issue was never removal of saturated fat at all cost, it was the removal of fat so that the meal does not have the extra boost in insulin spike due to sat fat and carbs being combined (even though in this case there were not enough carbs listed in the P+C meal to illicit this effect).

13

[quote]ubl0 wrote:
the issue was never removal of saturated fat at all cost, it was the removal of fat so that the meal does not have the extra boost in insulin spike due to sat fat and carbs being combined[/quote]

OK, that makes sense. Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. :slight_smile:

14

i think we are on the same page here. just sometimes people are following different parts of the recommendations more closely or utilizing different approaches from the same author (JB) and things can get crossed up.

i maintain i am not yelling, that is simply the title of my post!

15

Cottage cheese is great. Also, unless you don’t drink enough or have an issue that your doctor is concerned with, getting a bit of salt seems like a non-issue to me.

Personally, I won’t buy less than 2% cottage cheese as it starts to taste extremely disgusting.

I like to throw in some chocolate Metabolic Drive and maybe some peanuts as well. For a more carb centric meal I’ll replace the peanuts with oatmeal.

While there are studies that talk about dairy, calcium and fat loss, there are also studies detailing that consuming glutamine may raise fat utilization for some period of time… and if I recall correctly, someone pointed out you’d also get lots of that in cottage cheese.

All in all, it’s a great food choice.