I dedicate this post to Susan Dopart and Jeffrey Batchelor. Susan is a contributor to this blog…her post about the power of fish oil and flaxseed oil combination has been pretty widely read around the Internet.
Susan and Jeffrey e-mailed me from a recent trip to Switzerland where they were going ga-ga over the wonderful food. I mentioned that Emmenthaler Swiss cheese has been found to have a higher content of omega-3's than the average cheese, and Susan recently mentioned that she's found a store at home in Santa Monica, where she can special order the stuff she loved so much in Switzerland.
So today I walked over to the grocery store to get my lunch and it turned out it was cheese sampling day. Kara, the local Cheese Goddess, happened to be there and since she is so knowledgeable about cheese I call her the Human Cheese Rolodex, I pulled her aside and picked her brain about what might be some fun options for healthy cheese.
Her recommendations were based on the following criteria I gave her:
--grass fed (corn fed cows turn out like corn fed people, too much inflammatory
fat in their tissue)
--organic (hormones are very chemically similar to estrogen and can disrupt
hormone balance
She gave me a list of some options. She told me that artisan cheeses, made by smaller dairies, tend to grass feed over grain feeding, but that is not always so. You need to ask.
Point Reyes Bleu Cheese
Cypress Grove
Winchester Dairy
Sierra Nevada Organic Dairy
Rouge et Noir
Bravo Farms
Fiscalini Cheese
Rumiano
Gioia
Bellwether Farms
Maytag Dairy
Carr Valley
Black Goat Dairy
Beecher's Cheese
Most of these come from California, hence the Happy California Cow picture.
The most interesting cheese Kara told me about was Beemster cheese from Holland. These cows graze on pesticide-free grass in pastures that lie below sea level. These pastures are located on top of a former sea lagoon, and their soil is made of a blue sea clay, and the combination of how this clay nourishes the grass these cows eat, produces cheese with 20% less sodium than the average cheese. I am curious whether this pasture history means somehow there are some omega-3's getting into this cheese…but I couldn't find anything online to answer that question.
If you are a true cheese aficionado and must have Beemster cheese…there is a little bad news…only 2000 wheels are made each year, in the springtime. The good news is, that could be an extremely fun pilgrimage.
http://www.beemster.us/the-cheeses/the-taste/
Now some science to round out Kara's trivia.
Cheese has its good qualities, when eaten in moderation.
--It's high in protein and calcium
--It contains CLA, an omega-3 intermediate which may help with weight control
--It's convenient
--If it's the right kind, it contains omega-3's
--If you are like me, whose first language was German, there is no life without cheese.
Moderation is the key, for several reasons
--Cheese is a good source of saturated fat
--Cheese is one of the few nonprocessed foods that contains trans fats
--Cheese has calories
Susan and Jeffrey and I will be at the first Fertile Intentions Couples Infertility Day Spa on October 25, 2008. Along with our co-hosts, we will be discussing cheese as well as many other great things about food, health, stress management, and environmental awareness as they pertain to balancing hormones and fertility.
Please join us if you can!