Vegans! Look Away Now! Cheese!

Cheese. Glorious cheese. I'm a fan of both the dairy product and the Tim Minchin song. When I used to work as a silver service waitress I used to scoff whole wedges of brie that had been left on cheese plates, in the kitchen after service. It was glorious. As a vegetarian it took me a long time not to rely on it as a protein source. It is, of course, a fantastic source of protein and with so many delicious varieties out there these days it's a miracle I don't eat more of it really.

Lunch at La Fromagerie in London

As I do like to indulge occasionally it's handy to know what the better options are so here's a handy table. Stilton, cheddar and parmesan are the most calorie and fat heavy where as ricotta and cottage cheese are the lowest in terms of calories and fat. I'm glad to see that halloumi isn't too calorific… I do adore halloumi. The saturated fats are important. Government guidelines suggest that we get 30-35% of our calories from fat with 11% being saturates. On a 2,000 kcal diet this amounts to 74g of fat of which 24.4g are saturated. It soon mounts up.

per 25g	Cals	Carbs	Protein	Fat	Saturates
Blue Stilton	103	0	6	9	6
Brie	86	0	5	7	5
Camembert	73	0	5	6	4
Cheddar	104	0	6	9	5
Reduced Fat Cheddar	69	0	8	4	3
Cottage Cheese	51	2	6	2	1
Cream Cheese	62	1	1	6	4
Feta	63	0	4	5	3
Goat's Cheese	80	0	5	7	5
Halloumi	80	1	5	6	4
Mozzarella	64	0	5	5	4
Parmesan	104	0	9	7	5
Ricotta	36	1	2	3	2
Wensleydale with Cranberries	94	3	5	7	5

Of course this is just a small sample of cheeses and certain cheeses are necessary in some situations, however it's useful to know that mozzarella on a pizza is better than cheddar, for example. All figures have been taken from Carbs & Cals which is a handy book if you're doing a lot of nutritional analysis as it features pictures of portion sizes.