I should have just eaten the 18 pounds of Red Leicester.

September 24, 2016 6:58 AM

Deccan Chronicle: "In a study that has been widely welcomed, researchers from the University of Copenhagen found that eating cheese is good for our hearts." More from [askmen] [delish] [allure] [Telegraph - mentions other studies]. The actual research article conclusion: "A high daily intake of regular-fat cheese for 12 weeks did not alter LDL cholesterol or MetS risk factors differently than an equal intake of reduced-fat cheese or an isocaloric amount of carbohydrate-rich foods."
posted by Wordshore (39 comments total)

...The more you eat, the more you fart?
posted by indubitable at 7:13 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

We need to gather this data caerphilly in order to get gouda results from the studies.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:16 AM on September 24, 2016 [21 favorites]

Researchers credited their findings to an anonymous cheese donor, who left 18 pounds of cheese on their lab's doorstep under cover of night. Wow!
posted by duffell at 7:22 AM on September 24, 2016 [22 favorites]

We need to gather this data caerphilly in order to get gouda results from the studies.

Beaufort we Edam all -- no, not only your first Chaource, Emmentaler the cheeses -- Derby a Gloucester two of Port wine for us Tilsit and drink.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:38 AM on September 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

*rushes out, buys a bunch of cheese, and starts eating it*

Okay, so what's this post about again?

Oh, cool.
posted by SansPoint at 7:39 AM on September 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

LDL cholesterol or MetS risk factors appear to be poor surrogates for actual risk.

also

this study was 50% financed by the Danish Dairy Research Foundation, Danish Agriculture and Food Council (Denmark), and 50% by the National Dairy Council (United States), the Dairy Farmers of Canada (Canada), Centre National Interprofessionel de l’Economie Laitière (France), Dairy Australia (Australia), and Nederlandse Zuivel Organisatie (Netherlands).

plz
posted by lalochezia at 7:40 AM on September 24, 2016 [20 favorites]

Can't be critical of potentially biased research. Eating.
posted by SansPoint at 7:45 AM on September 24, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'm currently reading The Diet Myth, and as a result I'm eating stinky French cheeses and drinking red wine with them.
Now, I've just gotten to the dark chocolate part and I'm regretting there isn't any chocolate for sweets.
posted by mumimor at 7:47 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

This post's headline is the best ever.
posted by _Mona_ at 7:49 AM on September 24, 2016 [11 favorites]

I've seen cheese-funded studies saying cheese is healthy.
I've seen meat-funded studies saying meat is healthy.
I've seen vegetable-funded studies saying vegetables are healthy.
I've seen gun-funded studies saying guns are healthy.

I’m loving this cheese.
posted by pompomtom at 7:50 AM on September 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Researchers credited their findings to an anonymous cheese donor, who left 18 pounds of cheese on their lab's doorstep under cover of night.

The world needs more nocturnal cheese donation vigliantes.
posted by mhoye at 7:51 AM on September 24, 2016 [15 favorites]

Mark Greif has a long-form essay in the Guardian about this sort of reporting, which I read the first half of this morning. Seems relevant:

You can tell people not to eat eggs, but a decade later you’ll be telling people to eat eggs. It seems trivial, but it always costs something – in worry and stupefaction, and in hours of our lives.

He goes on to draw some conclusions about the urge to moralise about food/exercise, and what that says about us. He doesn't say what he did with that extra block of cheese he ordered
posted by The River Ivel at 7:55 AM on September 24, 2016 [12 favorites]

(Also, really: "reduced-fat cheese"? Same crap as "skim milk". Drink some water at some point, and eat actual food...)
posted by pompomtom at 7:56 AM on September 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

I've seen cheese-funded studies saying cheese is healthy.

This is clearly propaganda from Big Cheese
posted by otherchaz at 8:11 AM on September 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have a 3.1 pound semicircle of roquefort I'm working through. The people at the store looked at me funny when I bought it, but cheese doesn't spoil!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:12 AM on September 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

That Greif article puts into words a lot of my frustration with our preoccupation with the "health" of various foods. I like this line:

We preserve the living corpse in an optimal state, not so we may do something with it, but for the feeling of optimisation.

When I get back to the US, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of some cheese, without sparing a single thought about whether it's healthier than an isocaloric amount of a carbohydrate-rich food.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:14 AM on September 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

The people at the store looked at me funny when I bought it, but cheese doesn't spoil!

Literally the point of cheese!
posted by tobascodagama at 8:36 AM on September 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

Yessssssssssss!
posted by wenestvedt at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

(previously from Wordshore)
posted by mwhybark at 8:56 AM on September 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was just watching this this morning...
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:32 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here is a life pro-tip from your dear ol' pal, the uncomplicated soups of my childhood:

Just eat the damn cheese. You're gonna be dead a long time.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 9:40 AM on September 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Good cheese, red wine and a bit of dark chocolate, what else do you need?
posted by sammyo at 9:44 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

As someone who knows almost nothing about biology and less about humans, I'm curious if 12 weeks is actually a reasonable amount of time to see changes in LDL based on diet.

Am I wrong to make the knee-jerk assumption that a 12 week dietary study that finds no change in quantities that I've been told since childhood depend on life-long habits is unsurprising? The paper doesn't seem to mention the timescales of comparable studies at all. (Perhaps it's common knowledge among people who read such things regularly?)
posted by eotvos at 9:46 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

(and by 'good' I mean the $5/lb house brand domestic feta at Market Basket that's just tasty, and there's a fantastic sharp cheddar that has a coupon sometime that averages down to $2/lb!) as well as some of the redic pricey stuff.
posted by sammyo at 9:48 AM on September 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

From the research: Insulin, glucose, and triacylglycerol concentrations as well as blood pressure and waist circumference did not differ significantly between the 3 diets.
I assume that this means that low-carb enthusiasts will now conclude that carbs aren't bad after all. Apparently bread and jam are just as healthy as cheese.
posted by blub at 9:53 AM on September 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am pro cheese. I would vote for you.
posted by Michele in California at 9:57 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't really care if cheese is good for me. I only care that it is good.

Fuck you FDA for blocking the best stinky unpasteurized french cheese.
posted by srboisvert at 10:06 AM on September 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

The people at the store looked at me funny when I bought it, but cheese doesn't spoil!

Literally the point of cheese!

"Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality" - every famous dead person quoted on chalkboards as seen on Pinterest.
posted by srboisvert at 10:08 AM on September 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Seriously, everyone should read The Diet Myth, or maybe not since the basic concept is already out there: eat food, drink wine, don't overdo it. However, I really enjoy all the science in there.

Also, I didn't read the cheese ask originally, because I had no good answers, but wow. Best thread ever in the universe. Good lesson to look at all asks.
posted by mumimor at 10:14 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fuck you FDA for blocking the best stinky unpasteurized french cheese.

Egads no kidding.

Unapologetically eating every French cheese I can get my hands on for twenty years now.
If cheese-curious feel free to check my Instagram, although it is interspersed with unpasteurized French furballs.
posted by fraula at 10:50 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

When Wordshore runs for Mayor McCheese, he has my vote!
posted by MsMolly at 11:48 AM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nocturnal Cheese Donation Vigilante username is available. A hero MeFi can believe in!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:01 PM on September 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

All these cheese puns and nobody says these scientists have created a Muenster?
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:42 PM on September 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

It's funny to joke about cheese, but junk science like this - and the reportage on it - is eating away (ha) at real public health guidelines and research, and the researchers should be ashamed of themselves.

Firstly this study - like all nutritional studies funded by product manufacturers - begs the question by:
1) Positing the unhealthy food as part of a "healthy" diet, and often regular exercise.
2) Including serving sizes that are almost comically small compared to what people actually eat.

The problems with this approach is that a) small amounts of unhealthy food in a broadly healthy diet do not have a major impact on overall health (quelle surprise), and b) A BROADLY HEALTHY DIET DOES NOT MATCH WHAT MOST PEOPLE EAT, AND IN FACT PEOPLE WITH THE UNHEALTHIEST DIETS ACTUALLY TEND TO BUY AND EAT THE LARGEST QUANTITIES OF UNHEALTHY FOOD. ffs.

80 grams of cheese is not the most ludicrously small serving I've seen, but what do they compare it with? An apple, perhaps? Some tuna? Why no! A slice of white bread and jam. I don't know about you, but I've never seen someone - when confronted with the cheese platter - say "Oh not for me, thanks. I'm trying to be healthy. I'll take a fucking slice of white bread and jam, please."

Cheese has no fibre, is high in saturated fat, and most cheeses are very high in salt. Compared to high fibre, low salt, low fat food it is indeed unhealthy. And that's okay! I eat cheese with great regularity myself.

But dietary choices occur in an ecosystem, where we try to make mostly healthy choices and a few less healthy choices, so we have an enjoyable diet that won't give us diabetes, bowel cancer, strokes etc. What we choose for less healthy doesn't matter so much as the quantity we consume.

The problem with research like this and its reflexive, moronic promotion by the media, is that it's trying to shift the overton window on cheese, so instead of being a less healthy choice, it becomes a healthy choice, leading people to both eat more of it, and also buy other less healthy things.

I love cheese. As part of a healthy diet supplemented with regular exercise it is indeed fine and dandy. However, no-fibre, high salt, high saturated fat foods are not healthy when consumed in excess. This is not news, and you won't see health departments paying for research demonstrating it. You see the same thing with research from soft drink manufacturers, they always compare it with goddamned fruit juice and then put up tiny serving sizes pretending that big gulps don't exist. It gives me the shits.
posted by smoke at 4:36 PM on September 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

Well the research reveals that if your LDL was bad before you cut the cheese, it will be the same after.
posted by Oyéah at 6:35 PM on September 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

I eat cheese with great regularity myself.

Balancing with the fruit helps with that, yes.
posted by one weird trick at 4:09 AM on September 25, 2016

There is a cuisine I usually call bro cuisine, where the concept is that if something is good, you need the most of it. Within this paradigm, the best food is either pizza or pasta with tomato sauce, double cream, cheese, onion, garlic, pork and salt. There should be the most of everything. You can add spices if you want, but it's beside the point. And you might need a cheeseburger or a supersized hotdog on the side.
To me, this tastes of vomit, but you know, each to his own.

I like some hard cheese on rye for my breakfast and some soft stinky cheese after dinner. 80-100 grams is probably quite accurate in terms of volume. If I have lasagna for dinner, I may eat fruit for dessert.

All of that said, I can recognize at least one of the authors of that paper, and he is known for serving industries. He's never been caught faking anything, but he is good at designing research so it leads to research industry likes.
posted by mumimor at 9:26 AM on September 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

It gives me the shits.

And yet they still pretend that artificial sweeteners are the solution.
posted by howfar at 3:04 PM on September 25, 2016

Like anyone needs an excuse to debauch themselves on rotten milk. Egad.
My father lived to 83, consuming a variety of cheeses every day. Granted, he and I share a metabolism like a flea's, but never a drop of red wine to mitigate, either (although I'm the more rabid fan).
Show me to the Gorgonzola. I'll die a happy man.
posted by girdyerloins at 6:57 PM on September 26, 2016