Many parents may ask, is this kind of children's cheese stick good? Can it supplement calcium? Can it be eaten every day?
Cheese sticks are not necessarily really great.
There are many kinds of cheese, but the whole can be divided into two categories: natural cheese and processed cheese. Natural cheese is made from raw milk after coagulation and proper whey removal. According to the different manufacturing processes, it can be divided into three categories:
Fresh cheese: semi-solid cheese with a texture similar to yogurt, which has not been matured;
Soft cheese: it has not been pressed after curd, and its texture is soft and its maturity is short;
Hard cheese: made by pressing after curdling, with hard texture and long ripening time.
Processed cheese is made from the above cheese with other ingredients.
In a sense, the difference between processed cheese and cheese products is somewhat similar to the difference between denatured milk (milk content is not less than 80%, such as various "breakfast milk") and milk-containing drinks (low milk content, such as nutritional X-rays).
At present, the vast majority of children's cheese sticks in the domestic market belong to processed cheese. Why is this? I think there are two main reasons: one is the taste and the other is the cost.
Processed cheese is more delicious.
For most people in China, cheese is still a new thing, and many people find it hard to accept the slightly bitter taste and taste of natural cheese. Therefore, even if some parents buy imported hard cheese for their children, they may not want to eat it after tasting it.
Processed cheese is different. In order to improve the taste, many manufacturers will add ingredients such as sugar and cream to make the cheese sweet and delicious. The top ingredients of many children's cheese sticks are usually (in a slightly different order) cream, cheese, sugar, water, milk powder and so on.
The cost of processing cheese is lower.
According to the current national standard for processed cheese (GB25 192-20 10), the cheese content should be 15%. Because the price of cheese is much more expensive than other ingredients, most manufacturers will not increase the cheese content in children's cheese strips from the perspective of cost control, generally only a little more than 15%. More than 80% of the remaining ingredients are the above-mentioned ingredients, which can improve the taste and reduce the cost.
Perhaps in order to avoid the consequences of bad money driving out good money, and to encourage manufacturers to develop processed cheese products with better quality, the recently released draft of the new national standard distinguishes processed cheese from cheese products: the cheese content in processed cheese needs to be above 50%, while the cheese products only need to contain no less than 15% cheese. After the implementation of the new national standard, I hope everyone can buy better quality children's cheese sticks.
Cheese, like milk yogurt, is rich in calcium, followed by high-quality protein in dairy products.
A good choice for calcium supplementation
Compared with milk with more than 80% moisture, the biggest advantage of cheese is that it is more nutritious and can get a lot of calcium without consuming too much moisture.
For infants and young children, physical development needs more calcium. 1 ~ 3-year-old children need to consume 700 mg of calcium every day, 4-8-year-old children need to consume 1000 mg of calcium every day, and 9-13-year-old teenagers need to consume 1300 mg of calcium every day.
So we give our baby cheese to supplement calcium. Cheese is really rich in calcium.
Pay attention to the sodium content
Whether natural cheese or processed cheese, salt (sodium chloride) is inevitably used in the production process, so there may be more sodium in cheese.
The World Health Organization recommends that the daily sodium intake of adults should be less than 2 grams, and for children, it should be reduced according to the maximum intake limit of adults. The Nutrition Society of China suggested that the daily intake of sodium should not exceed 650 mg for children aged 65,438+0 to 3, and 900 mg for older children. For young children, we should pay attention to avoid taking too much salt while supplementing calcium.
Therefore, the sodium content of cheese is also an important reference index to evaluate its nutritional value.
In order to reflect the calcium and sodium content of a cheese more intuitively and make it easier for everyone to choose healthier children's cheese products, I once initiated the concept of "calcium and sodium ratio" seven years ago: divide the calcium content in the nutritional composition table of the product by the sodium content. The larger this coefficient is, the more calcium we consume while taking the same amount of sodium.
The calcium-sodium ratio of milk is about 2.5. In other words, for every 100 mg of calcium we drink milk, we only consume 40 mg of sodium.
The calcium-sodium ratio of macroporous cheese in natural cheese can usually reach above 3, while the calcium-sodium ratio of other natural cheeses is generally around 1. Generally speaking, as long as the natural cheese has the same name, the nutritional components will not differ much.
Processed cheese is different. There are all kinds of names, and the composition may be very different.
Therefore, for processed cheese, we might as well take most natural cheeses as a benchmark and choose products with a calcium-sodium ratio greater than 1, which can not only supplement calcium, but also avoid excessive sodium intake.
In addition, we also need to pay attention to the carbohydrate content in the nutritional composition table of products, and try to choose products with low carbohydrate content, because in products such as children's cheese sticks, too high carbohydrate content often means adding too much sugar.
The concept of "eating every day" often appears in children's cheese bar advertisements. So is the children's cheese stick a kind of food suitable for children to eat every day?
Providing children with a healthy and balanced diet is a long-term concern, and there is no need to care too much about a single food. If you choose the right children's cheese stick products according to the previous writing, you can eat them every day. For children who like dairy products, children's cheese sticks can be used as another dairy product choice besides milk and yogurt; Children's cheese sticks can also be used as a substitute for dairy products for children who don't like ordinary milk.
There is no need to kill some other children's cheese stick products with poor nutrition. After all, a happy childhood still needs candy and other snacks. Although these children's cheese sticks are not so healthy compared with other dairy products, they are better than simple candy. If children like to eat, as long as the amount is controlled, it is a good choice as a substitute for candy.
Author: One screw is missing
An Ai: Processed cheese tastes better than simple candy, just as milk tea tastes better than simple sugar water. Cheers!
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