Mac ‘n’ Cheese — How Many Wheys?

A recent blog criticized Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese dinner, a family and kids favorite for decades, for selling a quick meal product made with “cheese products,” not real cheese.

On my next shopping trip, I bought a box to investigate what was in that powdery but tasty cheese sauce.  A blue and gold ribbon printed on the box already told me I was going to get The Cheesiest and the “original flavor.”  The ingredients include CHEESE SAUCE (WHEY, MILKFAT, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SALT, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE . . . MILK, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE). The dinner also contains wheat, milk.

• » See also: Gluten-free Squash Pancakes
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What Is All That Stuff?

Somehow there’s a cheese substitute in all those ingredients.  Whey is a cheese byproduct that’s also fed to baby calves in milk replacers so farmers can use fluid milk to make real cheese and butter for humans.  Cheese cultures are common ingredients in homemade cheese, buttermilk, and cheese products and recipes. (See www.thefarm.org).  Milkfat is also used to make cheese.

Is the Oldie a Goodie?

You say, what happened to the good old non-processed cheese days? Well, Kraft started as a real cheese company, founded by cheese wholesaler James L. Kraft whose aim was to provide customers with nutritious, low-cost cheese products.  A big change came in 1916 when an employee discovered a way to make what is now American Cheese from milk solids, a byproduct.  Kraft began selling its macaroni and cheese with packets taped to boxes of macaroni after marketing “cheese dust” for soups and baking failed. (See Pop-Cult.com).

Own Your Recipe

At our house, we eat varieties of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, including white cheddar and Three Cheese.  The bulk of our dairy food comes from the half-stick (4 tablespoons) of Land O’ Lakes Butter used in cooking. If cheese cultures don’t cut it, keep Land O’ Lakes or your local creamery in business — and maybe use two cups of thick Vitamin D milk from the farm, too.

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