New fake cheese to satisfy cheese haters?

COMMENT: Just when it seems that 'food scientists' couldn't make things worse by mucking about with our traditional foods, along comes a new abomination.

New research from Turkey suggests that replacing rennet casein with waxy maize starch and carrageenan could produce low-protein imitation cheeses. If they then add amylase, an enzyme our bodies use to break down starches, they might be able to balance the physical properties of the ‘cheese’.

“Results obtained from a trial cheese produced according to the determined formula confirmed that the values of physical properties estimated by the optimization can be achieved,” wrote the researchers in the journal Food Hydrocolloids.

The idea behind producing such imitation cheeses, say the researchers, is for increasing functionality “such as reduction of fat content, enhancement of nutritive value by addition of vitamins and minerals and reduction of production cost by using plant-based ingredients." They go on: “Furthermore, they can be produced with a modified composition for special consumer groups with dietary limitations. This kind of products can be produced for patients with phenylketonuria if the protein or phenylalanine content is reduced,” they said.

“Cheese cannot be consumed by these patients due to its high protein content. Food choices of these patients would be diversified by low protein containing imitation cheese.”

Fake cheese formula

The Turkish researchers formulated imitation cheese by replacing 80 per cent rennet casein, the preferred protein source for such products because of an improved flavour, with partially hydrolyzed waxy maize starch (Cerestar, Cargill) and kappa-carrageenan (Type HGE, MSC). The formula was further optimised using alpha-amylase (Fungamyl, Novozymes).

The amylase and carrageenan were found to have opposite effects on the physical properties of the cheese, particularly for meltability, hardness and cohesiveness. So a balance between the two ingredients had to be established to obtain highest possible values of all the response variables,” wrote the researchers.

Alternative cheeses

Low-fat cheese is growing strongly in popularity as consumers increasingly focus on so-called 'healthy' diets. More than twice as many new low-fat cheeses were introduced in 2007 compared to 2005, according to data supplied by market research firm Mintel. In the last quarter of 2007, nearly 90 new low-fat cheese products were introduced globally.

And, as has become quite obvious over the past couple of decades since we were conned into thinking that 'low-fat' meant 'healthy', the health of those who adopted 'healthy' guidelines, has worsened dramatically.

This always seems to happen when we think we know better than Nature.