Calories in Cheese (Pasteurized Process Cheese Food Or Product American Singles)

What makes cheese so powerful?

Cheese is fundamentally a controlled spoilage process driven by microbes and enzymes. When rennet—traditionally extracted from the stomach lining of calves—is added to milk, its active enzyme, chymosin, targets a specific casein protein called kappa-casein. This protein normally keeps milk fat and proteins suspended in liquid. By cleaving kappa-casein, chymosin removes its stabilizing charge, causing the calcium-casein complexes to clump together into solid curds while the watery whey drains away. The curds are then pressed and left to age, entering a phase of complex biochemistry. During aging, residual enzymes and introduced microbes break down remaining proteins into free amino acids through proteolysis, and fats into fatty acids through lipolysis. These breakdown products are responsible for the vast array of flavors in aged cheeses, from nutty and savory to sharp and pungent. Because most of the lactose is drained off with the whey and the remaining sugars are fermented into lactic acid, aged cheeses naturally become very low in carbohydrates, making them a dense source of fat and protein that can remain stable for months or even years without refrigeration.