· By Jason Katz
Whether it is on burgers, pasta, or popcorn, cheese is a delicious addition to many dishes and snacks! Cheese comes in many colors, shapes, sizes and smells, but what else is there to know about this interesting food? Below are __ fun facts about cheese!
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Cheese- Cheese is a dairy! It is the resulting product of curdling milk. In cheese factories, bacteria is added to milk to convert the lactose into lactic acid, and then an enzyme is added, which curdles the milk. This enzyme is called rennet, which used to be taken from the stomachs of young cows but is now found from genetically engineered bacteria and yeast.
- It takes about 10 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese, though this ratio changes depending on the type of milk.
- Cheddar cheese is not naturally yellow. The bright orange cheddar cheese we all know and love is not a natural result of its curdled milk components. All cheese is naturally white, off-white, or golden yellow (dependent on the milk). To get the orange color of cheddar cheese, like the irresistible cheese in our Chicago Baked Cheddar popcorn, flavorless Annatto seed is added.
- Gouda cheese accounts for 50-60% of the world’s consumption of cheese.
- The state which produces the most amount of cheese is Wisconsin. More than two and a half billion pounds of cheese are produced in Wisconsin every year. The next top producer is California.
- Cheese was discovered by accident! Ancient people more than 7000 years ago discovered cheese by carrying milk in the stomach linings of animals, which carried the bacteria rennet that curdles milk.
- The most popular cheese recipe in America is Mac and Cheese.
- There are about 2,000 varieties of cheese.
- The biggest and heaviest cheese ever created was 32 feet long and weighed 57,518 pounds! A Canadian cheese maker used 540,000 pounds of milk to make this record-breaking cheddar cheese.
- National Dairy month is in June.
- Cheese is one of the most popular flavors of popcorn nationwide.
