Posted on 05/04/2011 12:39:49 PM PDT by Palter
What is often in shredded cheese besides cheese?
Powdered cellulose: minuscule pieces of wood pulp or other plant fibers that coat the cheese and keep it from clumping by blocking out moisture.
One of an array of factory-made additives, cellulose is increasingly used by the processed-food industry, producers say. Food-product makers use it to thicken or stabilize foods, replace fat and boost fiber content, and cut the need for ingredients like oil or flour, which are getting more expensive.
Cellulose products, gums and fibers allow food manufactures to offer white bread with high dietary fiber content, lowfat ice cream that still feels creamy on the tongue,and allow cooks to sprinkle cheese over their dinner without taking time to shred.
Cellulose additives belong to a family of substances known as hydrocolloids that act in various ways with water, such as creating gels.
The rising cost of raw materials like flour, sugar and oil is helping boost the popularity of these additives, producers of the ingredients say.
Demand for cellulose is also rising because of the growing popularity of processed food products in China, India and other countries, and because consumers are demanding low-fat or nonfat foods that still have a creamy texture.
While some food manufactures say they aren't increasing the percentage of cellulose in their products, others are boosting the amount of fiber in their foods with cellulose and other ingredients. Companies can save money by using it, even though it costs more by weight than conventional ingredients. Cellulose gives food "more water, more air, a creamy feeling in [the] mouth with less of other ingredients,"and only a very small amount is needed, says Niels Thestrup, vice president of the hydrocolloids department for Danisco AS. The Copenhagen-based company makes ingredients and enzymes for food, cleaning supplies and other products.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Hmmm... wood chips and splinters in your intestine? Although, when a kid, I always thought that the piles of saw dust looked good to eat, something about the texture...
IIRC, `famine’ in Russian is `golod’. Bread made from sawdust was called `golodny khleb’ meaning `famine bread’.Mmmmm. Sawdust bread. Can I get some spiced up with melamine?In Ukrainian that `g’ converts to a guttural to give `holod’. The transliterated word `holodomor’ is entirely consistent to describe the horror of the NKVD-induced famine in Ukraine in the drive toward forced collectivization in the 1930’s.
Wondered why I was having trouble with emerald ash borers
I don't think you can call the "cheese" part of shredded cheese cheese. I don't know what it is, but it sure isn't sure isn't cheese, and the fact that it contains "wood fiber" really doesn't come as much of a surprise to me.
Say what you want about Europe, but they do have better food than we do and at least some of it has to do with their restrictive food labeling laws. The next time you're in a better grocery store, pick yourself up a small wedge of real imported Parmigiano-Reggiano and compare it to the Kraft Parmesan you probably have in your refrigerator. You'll be amazed.
Some ice cream makers also use cotton mote.
Exactly. We can expect to find more and more versions of (siege of) “Leningrad Bread” on our grocery shelves as inflation rises and the economy worsens.
The author of the piece twists herself into verbal knots dancing around the issue but it’s basically all about cellulose being cheaper and easier to handle than the good stuff. I read about cellulose being sold as dietary fiber almost thirty years ago in the health food mags. I’m sure they had their own prejudices but the gist of it was that humans cannot process sawdust unlike the fiber of fruits and veggies. As for the other uses, it’s stated baldly that sawdust is cheaper than the good stuff.
Just you wait. As things worsen, expect the great, benevolent Obama to start issuing soylent rations.
Google "Avicel" and "Methocel."
They taste OK if you put some ketchup on them.
Domino's is now FAXING pizza to homeowners.
Oddly, it tastes the same as the 'delivery' pizza.
LOL
Ever notice that the current 'ice cream' typically bought in stores, never melts?
Cellulose is what the cell walls of plants are made of. It is found naturally in all vegetable foods: tomatoes, oatmeal, cabbage, strawberries, peaches, etc.
I thought that they tasted like chocolate flavored wood chips. Now I know why.
Provides the desired result, though. :-)
I stopped eating fsst food *milkshakes* decades ago, because they felt wrong in my mouth. Almost warm, not ice cold like real milkshakes. It is like those powdered mixes you blend with ice cubes to produce a low calorie *shake*. Those contain “xanthan gum”. I also stopped buying the cheaper, store brand *shredded cheese* after noticing that it didn’t melt.
We buy smaller packages of real ice cream and real cheese, make our own shakes, shred our own cheese. Can’t say it costs all that much more and it is more satisfying. I figure we save in the long term because we buy almost no other processed food, either.
Most manufacturers (and all that shredded blue cheese ~ sometimes called 'crumbled" blue cheese is "manufactured") prefer to use the word cellulose rather than specify that wheat is an additive.
That means anyone with a wheat intolerance problem cannot trust shredded blue cheese in packages. That's about 26 million folks and growing ~ seems all that extra protein grown into modern wheat strains has brought tens of millions more people within the reach of the "wheat tolerance" limits.
This was the very “extermination by hunger” that the leftist media at the time saw and denied (lie about) to the American people,
because the commies were/are their buddies.
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