Olga Dekker

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5 rules of proper nutrition from Olga Dekker

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Today I will tell you a few more tips: how to choose a good and really natural cottage cheese for your family. Let's see how you can determine the true quality of a dairy product.

Did you buy cottage cheese in a store or in the market? Doubt its quality and naturalness?

You can easily and quickly find out at home if your favorite product contains harmful additives. Here is an example of a simple way: how to check the quality of cottage cheese.

Watch the 3 minute video: Curd test. How to distinguish a fake?

What are “curd mass”, “glazed curd cheese” and “curd cheese”?

“Although we live in the countryside, and we always have the opportunity to buy homemade cottage cheese, I notice that in stores many people buy various curd masses and cheeses with additives for themselves and, worst of all, for their little children - they seem sweet and tasty ... "

Tatyana D.

Once I was talking to a specialist who works at one of the dairies.

He said that quite often cottage cheese, the expiration date of which is already coming to an end, is “flavored” with starch, water, “fruit” fillers, vegetable fats ... And they are sent again to stores and markets for sale: (

It is already very difficult to determine such “poor-quality” products by smell and taste. Moreover, the production date is set to a new one when this batch is made, and not when the cottage cheese was made!

My advice to you: it is better to buy natural cottage cheese, fresh seasonal fruits or dried fruits. Make yourself a tasty and healthy curd mass for your child :)

Pay attention to the price. Inexpensive cottage cheese, without indicating the composition, it is better not to take it. If there are other components besides milk and sourdough, it is already difficult to call cottage cheese natural.

No time or desire to make cottage cheese mass at home?

Then be sure to watch a short story on how to choose the right curd mass.

• Packaging must be sealed
• Moisture, water droplets should not appear on the inside of the package.
• The shelf life of this treat is no more than 72 hours
• The composition should contain only cottage cheese, butter and sugar. This is the basic recipe according to GOST.
• The product must not run. The mass should keep its shape and be of a natural color.
• Smell. Is there a sour smell of fermentation? It's better not to eat it!

What other problems do you face when buying cottage cheese?

“It is not always possible to get product information. I often buy cottage cheese by weight, and even the seller cannot tell me what the shelf life of this product is and, even more so, the composition ... They only answer: “Today they brought it” or “Yesterday” ... "

Julia S.

Good cottage cheese should be of a homogeneous structure without large lumps and smell - a slight sourness.

Before buying, ask the seller for a document confirming the quality of the product. The date of manufacture will be indicated there. Or there should be a marking on the wholesale container, you can ask to read it.

At the very least, you will see the reaction of the seller, and you will be able to decide whether to buy or not.

If documents are not shown to you for various reasons, then it is better to buy cottage cheese from another seller or packaged.

Does it make sense to overpay for packaging? What to pay attention to first of all?

Hear the opinion of a dairy quality specialist in this video.

How to check "homemade" cottage cheese for quality?

“I buy cottage cheese at the grandmothers’ market or at the Sunday fair from the farms. How can I determine the quality of cottage cheese?

Alexey I.

• In such cases, pay attention to the seller himself, look at the cleanliness of the counter. Is the seller in clean or dirty overalls? Where is cottage cheese stored?

• If you are buying for the first time, you can ask people from the queue: “Did they take cottage cheese here before or not?” Look calmly, is there a queue for this seller?

Sometimes it happens that there are three sellers on the market, and only one in line.

• Next, try some cottage cheese. If you are satisfied with the taste, then ask to impose from the same container from which you tried.

Speaking of containers...

Once, I saw the vendors arrive at the market before the dairy farm salesman arrived. They just left two tall white square cans of cottage cheese with a label from some dairy plant.

The girl came a little later, put the cottage cheese on the counter and began to sell it as her own, natural ... :(

• When you are standing in line, look where the seller puts the curd from. I noticed that farmers who keep cows themselves usually have different containers: either a can, or a basin, or a saucepan :)

• You can also ask the seller very simple questions about cows:

And where do they graze? In what area? And how many do you have? What's the name? What do you feed them? How far do you get to the market? How many hours are you driving?

From his answers, you can easily determine whether they tell you the truth when they call cottage cheese their homemade. Usually the farmer answers questions easily and quickly without delay.

And the seller who bought from the dairy finds it difficult to tell right away, answers in general terms, look somewhere at the floor, etc. You will immediately feel it!

You know, I think that a lot depends on us!

Let's stop buying impudent fakes and harmful chemicals!.. After all, in our native country everything is natural: milk, butter, and cottage cheese...

Cottage cheese is an important product in the diet, we eat it ourselves and give it to our growing children, but is it really so good for our health? It is not uncommon for sellers to deceive us by selling a poor quality product; in order not to be deceived - remember a couple of tips on how to check the quality of cottage cheese at home. It is not difficult to determine the naturalness of the purchased product yourself, but by learning this skill, you can always protect your family.

If you can’t decide in any way: which cottage cheese is better - homemade or store-bought, then here’s some advice for you - feel free to give preference to the first one.

A homemade product is always more natural, fatty, the likelihood of finding chemical additives in its composition, harmful vegetable fats (like coconut or palm oil) is much lower.

Unlike homemade, store-bought cottage cheese has a more “chemical” composition. With the help of harmful additives, unscrupulous manufacturers try to increase weight in an unnatural way (for example, they add starch), as well as extend the shelf life of a short-lived product.

How long can cottage cheese be stored

• In the refrigerator, fresh cottage cheese should be stored no longer than 2 days.
• In a powerful refrigerator (where the temperature does not exceed + 8 ° C) - 4 days.
• In the freezer, cottage cheese retains its beneficial nutritional properties for the longest time. If the freezing temperature reaches -35 ° C in the freezer, then the fermented milk product can be stored for about 1-2 months.
• If the temperature of the freezer does not fall below -18 ° C, then the shelf life is 2 weeks.

It is best to store sour milk by wrapping it in foil or parchment beforehand.

Another difference between home-made cottage cheese and store-bought cottage cheese is its fat content. This indicator depends on the technology of preparation of the product and the raw materials from which it is made.

Based on this, homemade cottage cheese can be 3 types of fat content:

• fatty- made from selected whole milk, the percentage of fat content of which is at least 18%;
• bold(fat content - 9%) - produced on the basis of whole and skimmed milk at the same time;
• skimmed- is made exclusively from skimmed milk - milk from which cream is skimmed. Such a fermented milk product has the smallest fat reserve - only 0.5%. Fat-free cottage cheese is best suited for diets, moreover, it is easier for the body to digest than other types.

The percentage of fat content of a fermented milk product directly affects its calorie content. If you don’t know how to count calories in cottage cheese and how to determine how many proteins, fats, carbohydrates are in it, then a simple but detailed calorie table is offered to your attention.

Calorie content and nutritional value of cottage cheese

To determine how many grams of protein, fat and carbohydrates are in homemade cottage cheese, it is not necessary to make complex calculations yourself. Take advantage of already prepared data.

The calorie table contains not only kilocalories per 100 g of the product, but also the nutritional value of each of the 3 types of fat content of the fermented milk product.

Using a simple table, you will always know how many carbohydrates, protein and fats are contained in home-made cottage cheese you bought or cooked.

This knowledge will be useful to you, especially if you calculate your daily kilocalories and make a detailed diet menu for every day.

All of us, one way or another, are faced with the deception of a commodity producer, and this deception may consist in adding starch to the composition of the product (in order to increase the weight of the curd mass) and vegetable fats, due to which the production of goods for the manufacturer becomes less financially costly.

Both of these can be extremely detrimental to our health. To minimize risks and not waste money, we offer you some simple ways to check the quality of cottage cheese at home.

Method number 1: check the cottage cheese for the presence of starch in it

It will not be difficult to identify starch in homemade cottage cheese. All it takes to expose a base product is a couple of drops of regular iodine.

You need to drop iodine on a piece of curd mass, and then look at the result: if iodine turns blue on the curd, then starch is present in the product, if iodine remains in its usual light yellow color, then starch is not contained in the product.

Method number 2: determine whether there are vegetable fats in the cottage cheese

Organoleptic method

The first thing to do is to try cottage cheese. If it contains vegetable fats that are undesirable for us, then an oily aftertaste and a feeling of the presence of a “fat film” will remain on the tongue.

The presence of vegetable fats

You can also check the product for the presence of vegetable fats with warm water. To do this, you need to add 1 tsp to a glass of warm water. fresh cottage cheese, gently stir it and leave for a couple of minutes.

If during this time a yellowish film appears on the surface of the water, and the cottage cheese settles to the bottom - do not hesitate, it contains fats.

Fat content of cottage cheese

You can determine the fat content of cottage cheese at home by a simple way of waiting. You just need to take 1-2 tsp. purchased cottage cheese and leave it at room temperature for 8-10 hours (or just overnight).

• If the cottage cheese turns out to be natural, then after a long period of inactivity it will slightly turn sour, but its color will not change.
• If there are fats in the cottage cheese, then on the contrary, it will change color (it will become yellowish and a small crust will form on the surface), but it will not change in taste.

Having checked the quality of the purchased product at home, in the future you will already know for sure which producer can be trusted and which cannot. Also, when buying cottage cheese, if it is sold in a package, do not forget to carefully study its composition, check whether it contains harmful vegetable fats, and always pay special attention to the expiration date of the product.

When and why cottage cheese is dangerous

Everyone knows about the value of homemade cottage cheese. It is rich in all kinds of micro and macro elements, it contains many vitamins, minerals and other important nutritional elements. However, in addition to the benefits, the product can also cause harm.

What is the danger of the purchased product, and how to avoid sour milk poisoning - a series of questions most asked by hostesses will help to find out.

Why homemade cottage cheese turned pink

An infrequent, but quite existing phenomenon, is the pinking of the curd mass. Pink streaks and spots appear when pathogenic microorganisms begin to multiply in it.

This is not only harmful, it is dangerous to health, so this product should never be consumed. Even heat treatment will not help to kill bacteria. Some microorganisms are very resistant to high temperatures.

Another unpleasant phenomenon that housewives often encounter is cottage cheese bitterness. It can appear for various reasons, the most common are:

1. bitterness in the milk from which cottage cheese is made. If this is the reason, then the product cannot be considered damaged. Perhaps, before milking, the cow ate bitter grass in the pasture, or milk was taken at a time when the cow was supposed to calve.
2. the storage conditions of the curd mass are violated;
3. cottage cheese is cooked incorrectly;
4. storage period has expired.

Most often, the cause of bitterness in cottage cheese is the depravity of the product and the wrong cooking technology. In this case, other negative phenomena may also appear: home-made cottage cheese will begin to smell unpleasant, become sour, and its color will lose its usual whiteness.

If you notice at least one of the above signs in your product, you can put a taboo on using it in its raw form.

If you do not dare to throw away the spoiled one, then be sure to heat it before use: prepare a casserole, buns with cottage cheese filling, cheesecakes, dumplings, etc.

To somehow reduce the resulting bitterness, before using cottage cheese for baking, carry out a few simple culinary procedures.

1. Hold the product for 30 minutes in milk, then strain it.
2. You can do it a little differently: wrap the mass in several layers of gauze and rinse it thoroughly 2-3 times in cool boiled water. After each washing, squeeze the gauze with cottage cheese thoroughly.

Knowing why home-made cottage cheese is bitter, why it turns out sour and smells unpleasant, you can always distinguish a fresh product from a spoiled one. And knowing how to check the quality of cottage cheese at home, you practically nullify the opportunity to purchase an unnatural fermented milk product. Do not deny yourself the pleasure of enjoying your favorite curd mass, just do not let anyone deceive you.

Bon appetit!

How to check the quality of cottage cheese? This question is quite relevant in our age of high technology. After all, what manufacturers do not add to a fermented milk product in order to reduce its cost or increase the mass as a whole. Let's sort it out in order.

In the shop

Price. Any sane person understands that high-quality cottage cheese cannot be cheap. Therefore, first of all, focus on the cost of the product. Here it becomes clear that cottage cheese with a price per kilogram, like for a loaf of bread, should arouse certain suspicions.

Shelf life. Proper curd does not have great vitality. After 72 hours, it begins to gradually turn sour. And at room temperature even earlier - after 8 hours. Therefore, always carefully read the information on the package! If the expiration date is more than 3 days, then refuse to purchase such a product.

Package. A priori, it should be airtight if you are going to buy cottage cheese from the manufacturer. Examine her carefully. You should be alert if:

• The integrity of the package is broken.
• Liquid drips or cloudy drops are visible inside.
• The mass inside does not hold its shape, it spreads.

All these signs are 100% guaranteed that the manufacturer is cheating with the product.

Composition. Once again about the information on the package. The composition of high-quality cottage cheese can only include:

• natural milk
• butter
• cream
• leaven

Everything else is from the evil one. Read and read again! Especially what is written in very small letters or deliberately soldered into the side seam.

On the market

Here you have more chances to choose high-quality cottage cheese. After all, many sellers allow the goods to smell and even try. But there are a few more tricks by which you can determine the quality of the product without even touching it.

Container. Don't rush to the counter. Watch from the side, from which containers the seller imposes cottage cheese. Usually, the owners bring a natural home product in basins, cans, jars, saucepans. But on the counter there may be an aluminum bowl, but under the counter there is a branded box from an unknown manufacturer. If you like the product, then carefully see that the seller weighs it for you from the same container from where you tried it.

Buyers. Pay attention to the queue, if there is one. Usually, folk rumor runs fast, and everyone in the district knows about high-quality cottage cheese. Therefore, the queue appears, sometimes even ahead of time, before the arrival of the seller. But if a rotten product is sold, then people are in no hurry to buy. For the sake of interest, stand in line, chat with buyers. Ask if they took cottage cheese here before, what does it taste like, what do they think? Usually people are very willing to share their experiences.

Where are the firewood from? Feel free to question the seller. People who honestly sell high-quality cottage cheese answer immediately, without hesitation and looking straight into the eyes. But the counterfeit product dealers crumple, avert their eyes, give slurred answers. Here is a list of tricky questions:

• Do you have many cows?
• Where do you graze so many of them?
• And what, from one cow there is so much milk that remains for cottage cheese?
• What are the names of your cows?
• And how far do you live?
• How do you get there?
• And why don’t the locals buy up your cottage cheese, if it is so beautiful?
• Why do you only sell cottage cheese? Where is the milk or butter?

Well, and the like. Usually 5 questions are enough to bring the seller to clean water.

Taste and smell. In the store, you will not have the opportunity to open the packaging to evaluate the quality of the product according to your feelings. But in the market, most sellers do not refuse tasting. So don't be afraid to ask. Smell first. High-quality cottage cheese should smell pleasantly characteristic, slightly sour. There should not be any other impurities of aromas.

Evaluate visually the consistency of the product. Good homemade cottage cheese should be crumbly, slightly yellowish. Pure white color indicates industrial production. Dense large lumps should also arouse suspicion.

The cottage cheese must taste like cottage cheese! There should be no greasy film or chemical smell in the mouth. Listen to yourself and you'll understand what I'm talking about. By the way, a product containing vegetable fats leaves a sugary-sweet tint in the mouth, without any sour taste.

Price. Natural homemade cottage cheese is expensive. By some standards, even very expensive. A cheap product is probably mixed with incomprehensible rubbish or made in violation of technology and sanitary standards.

At home

So, you still made your choice and bought a certain amount of cottage cheese. How to check its quality at home without harm to health? There are several ways.

Iodine. The most common additive in cottage cheese from manufacturers is starch. It is inexpensive, but significantly increases the total mass of the product. But it is very difficult to determine the taste like this on the go. Therefore, folk wisdom came up with a cheap, but very effective way. You will need only the most ordinary pharmacy iodine.

You need to take a piece of cottage cheese and drop a solution on it. The blue color that appears clearly indicates the presence of starch. If the cottage cheese is stained with iodine in a characteristic brown hue, then you can be calm, you bought a quality product.

Air. Another simple method that gives a fairly reliable result. You just need to leave a small amount of the product in the open air at room temperature. Depending on the result, you can already judge the quality:

1. Cottage cheese noticeably changed color to yellow, covered with a dense crust. But at the same time, the taste and smell did not change. Forced to upset you. You bought a curd product with unknown additives.
2. Cottage cheese practically did not change color, did not weather. There was a strong smell of souring or even fermentation. Strongly sour notes became noticeable in the taste. Congratulations! You have a natural quality product on your table.

Heat treatment. But our people are not content with iodine testing alone. People have long been aware that manufacturers add various oils (palm or coconut) to cottage cheese. It is impossible to determine their presence by taste, color and smell. Therefore, another test was invented, which is very easy to do at home.

You only need a bowl, boiling water and a piece of mass. Cottage cheese is placed in a container, poured with boiling water and gently stirred. A quality product under the influence of temperature should curl into a tight tight lump. Bad cottage cheese containing vegetable oils should practically dissolve, leaving only small soft clots.

Another verification method can be called similar. Cottage cheese is simply heated in a dry, clean frying pan. The mass with vegetable fats will melt, and a good product will curl up, releasing a little whey.

Some sources claim that curd spoiling too quickly is a sign of unsanitary conditions in its production. This is especially true for the home product. They say that the milkmaid did not wash her hands, and the cow's udder is dirty, and the dishes smoked over the years. We dare to object that this is not the case at all. The fact is that the villagers are more than anyone concerned about the quality of their products. Otherwise, who will buy milk from them and others like them?

Now more. Recently I met a sign on the market: “Unique pink cottage cheese! From super duper cows” and something else. And there was even a small queue. The price by the way is not much different from the usual product. And after all, no one was embarrassed by the sour amber from the counter a mile away. Never think of buying pink cottage cheese, unless it is a dye in the curd mass. A natural homemade product turns pink only in one case: it has long since rested in eternal sleep. Having tasted such a delicacy, you can very quickly go after him to another world. Pink color is an indicator of the extreme degree of spoilage of cottage cheese!

About bitterness. Some cunning traders in the market justify the bitterness in cottage cheese with phrases about wormwood in the pasture, and some other fairy tales. Don't believe. Cows don't eat wormwood. From the word at all. Therefore, if you were offered to taste the product, and you felt bitterness, then do not buy. This is the first sign of old cottage cheese, which has already begun to deteriorate.

Now you know how to check the quality of cottage cheese. And it will be difficult for you to be misled by any cunning seller or manufacturer of low-quality goods.

Video: how to buy real cottage cheese, not a fake

How to check the quality of cottage cheese? We don't eat certain foods very often. But this is by no means because they are tasteless or very expensive. We just prefer a piece of meat or a nutritious salad.

And many important and very useful products are relegated to the background. Agree, not everyone likes dairy products. Is that some of the products and then, as an additional ingredient to any dish.

After all, what is borscht without sour cream, syrniki without cheese or pancakes without butter? But in vain, because all of these listed products individually are very edible and, importantly, very useful.

Cottage cheese is a fermented milk product of natural origin. It is made by natural settling of sour milk. This is if cottage cheese is obtained in the most ordinary village way. Since the plants do all this much faster and using other technologies.

But agree that it is natural cottage cheese that is the most useful, but in the factory you can sketch anything.

It’s good if a grandmother in the village periodically supplies you with this delicious product. It is also not bad when you buy natural cottage cheese from a proven aunt for years. But the purchase of cottage cheese must be taken with all seriousness. After all, if cottage cheese is really natural, it is rich in many useful qualities.

First of all, it is proteins. All organs of the human body need them. If you decide to comply, then the cottage cheese will be just right. It will replace you with meat and fish, which previously saturate the body with proteins and other necessary substances.

Also in cottage cheese there are vitamins, amino acids. Thanks to these components, the human body has no problems with the circulatory system, the liver function normalizes and the nervous system returns to normal.

But the most important components of cottage cheese are phosphorus and calcium. They have a beneficial effect on the young body, accompany the growth of the skeletal system, teeth, hair, nails, and also strengthen them at an older age.

Therefore, cottage cheese is strongly recommended to be eaten by children and the elderly in order to forget about problems with bones. Cottage cheese serves as a "lifesaver" not only for diets, but in the postoperative period. And in general, doctors recommend using it at least three times a week.

Knowing how much useful cottage cheese gives to our body and health, you have to know how to choose the right one. Indeed, in the modern world, everyone can deceive each other without additional thought.

Many manufacturers write on the labels that this is cottage cheese, when, with a real look at things, it is clear that this is just a curd mass. And the difference, believe me, is very significant and, first of all, it lies in the composition of these products.

So, let's try to figure out how to check the quality of cottage cheese. A great option when you buy cottage cheese from the market. True, again, there is a list of both pluses and minuses. The good thing is that on the market there is a high probability of buying real natural cottage cheese.

But market sanitary conditions are by no means encouraging. Here you have the open air, the personal hygiene of the seller, the cleanliness of the counter, and the quality of the container in which the products are stored - all these factors directly affect your future purchase.

What matters to us is quality. Buying cottage cheese in the market, you always have the opportunity to try it. And this is very good. After all, then you can feel and check a lot. First of all, inspect the visual characteristics. Curd should be soft.

Curd color

A large amount of liquid indicates poor quality do not buy such a product. Another visual characteristic is color. Natural white cottage cheese may have a slightly creamy tint..

If yellow spots are present, you can be sure that the product is not fresh. If there are dryish yellow accumulations along the edges, then the reason for their presence is the same.

Cottage cheese with a pinkish tint is already a breeding ground for harmful bacteria.

Smell

The next component is smell. He should be slightly sour, because it is a product of fermented milk origin.

If extraneous odors are felt, then you should not buy this cottage cheese.

Taste

Taste qualities will help to best determine the freshness and naturalness of the product. Bitter taste should alert first of all. This means that such cottage cheese succumbed to improper processing.

Too sour taste also indicates a violation of the cooking process. These procedures can be done with cottage cheese if you buy it on the market. But what about the store. Here you can’t dig into the product itself.

When buying cottage cheese in a store, you can’t feel it, smell it or examine it properly. You have to trust the manufacturer. But he does not always make a quality product. Adds palm or coconut oil, as well as other non-natural components to the composition.

• First - shelf life. For real cottage cheese, it should not exceed seven days. If it is several weeks, then this is definitely not cottage cheese, but cheese paste or a mass made from artificial fillers.
• It is also possible through packaging consider consistency. It should be smooth, without excessive unnatural pieces.
• Excess liquid is also a bad characteristic.

If the cottage cheese passed the test in all these parameters and you purchased it, then you can already subject it at home to several procedures that will accurately help determine the naturalness of the product.

And if in the store the cottage cheese passed all the tests with a bang, then home checks can drastically change this result. Then next time you will definitely buy a product from another manufacturer.

Checking cottage cheese for starch and vegetable fats

1. Many manufacturers add starch to cottage cheese.. This helps to significantly increase the mass. It is easy to check if it exists. Take a handful of cottage cheese and drip on it a couple of drops of iodine.

After a few minutes, look at the result. If the curd turns a bluish or purple hue, then starch is definitely present in the composition.

2. Another way to check for vegetable fats. You need to taste the product. If the tongue feels like it has been pulled off or covered with a film, then this is a bad sign. You can check the presence of these same fats without stuffing yourself with a dubious product.

To do this, leave the cottage cheese in an open container for several hours at room temperature. Under such conditions, unnatural cottage cheese will change color and acquire a dubious crust. But the smell and taste will remain the same.

Then, as natural cottage cheese in color and consistency will be the same as originally, but the smell and taste will be sour. Real cottage cheese will spoil very quickly outside.

You need to eat cottage cheese, because it is very useful and necessary for human health. But it is worth remembering that store it for a long time in the refrigerator too it is forbidden. It is better to eat the purchase within three days.

If it so happened that the cottage cheese stood a little longer, but it is still usable, then it is better to cook any confectionery product from it, bake cheesecakes, make a tasty and healthy cocktail.

Cottage cheese is one of the staples on the table in every home, especially athletes. A healthy protein food that is well digested and has a high rate of protein absorption.

Curd protein is casein, it is a “complete protein”, i.e. contains all essential amino acids. The degree of digestibility of casein by the human body is about 80%. But this process is lengthy - digestion takes 5-6 hours, so cottage cheese and dishes from it (cheesecakes, casseroles) in bodybuilding and fitness are recommended to be eaten before bedtime and before training, if there is such a choice.

How much cottage cheese can you eat per day? I met information in a sports encyclopedia that up to 500 g per day, but from the point of view of medicine there are no such norms - you can eat cottage cheese as much as you want, just not to get out of the accepted norm of BJU, and if only your gastrointestinal tract is good for lactic acid products.

I must say that the price of cottage cheese protein (in terms of the amount of protein per 100 g of product) is on average the same as that of chicken fillet, or inexpensive fish (hake, cod), but slightly lower than that of eggs. Therefore, many bodybuilders eat more than one pack of cottage cheese a day. The only thing they pay attention to is the amount of fat in the product and the freshness of the cottage cheese.

This standard applies to cottage cheese packaged in consumer containers made from cow's milk and / or dairy products, and does not apply to a product enriched with vitamins, micro- and macroelements, probiotic cultures and prebiotic substances (curd product).

As you understand, any goods that comply with GOST comply with the recipe and production technology much more strictly than goods manufactured according to TU.

In addition to this GOST for ordinary cottage cheese, there is GOST R 53504-2009, which applies to grained cottage cheese packed in consumer containers, made from curd grain with the addition of cream and table salt and intended for direct consumption. Heat treatment and the addition of consistency stabilizers are not allowed!

But, unfortunately, in order to choose the right cottage cheese, you must be able to read what is written on the package and draw conclusions.

Here, for example, two types of grained cottage cheese, well-known manufacturers: Grained cottage cheese "House in the Village" and grained cottage cheese "Savushkin Product".

According to GOST R 53504-2009, grained cottage cheese is made exclusively from the following products:

• cow's milk is not lower than the second grade according to GOST R 52054;
• skimmed milk - raw materials with an acidity of not more than 20 °T according to GOST R 53503;
• concentrated milk - raw materials according to regulatory or technical documentation approved in the prescribed manner;
• raw cream not lower than the first grade according to GOST R 53435;
• powdered milk according to GOST R 52791;
• edible salt according to GOST R 51574;
• starter cultures and bacterial concentrates for cottage cheese, consisting of lactococci or lactococci and thermophilic lactic streptococci;
• rennet enzyme;
• food beef pepsin;
• pepsin food pork;
• enzyme preparations according to GOST R 52688;
• calcium chloride crystalline pharmacopoeial;
• calcium chloride dihydrate;
• drinking water.

We have various additives in both of the above products. Although both packages indicate that they are made not according to GOST, but according to TU, I believe that manufacturers are misleading by displaying the name "Grained Cottage Cheese" in cadaveric letters. Although in fact they sell a curd product a la grained cottage cheese.

And if “House in the Village” has a composition on the packaging that is easy to read and the letters are not microscopic, then for “Savushkin Produkt” you need to try to find where and what they wrote about the composition (in small letters in a circle on the lid), you can’t make out without glasses .

The same applies to ordinary cottage cheese, not grained. "Merry Milkman" writes the word "Cottage Cheese" in large letters on the package with his products, but disguised the description of the composition under plastic packaging. It seems that you can see a little, but to read it completely, you need to remove the film. And the film is packaging, who will allow you to remove the packaging without buying the goods?

Pay attention: as part of a preservative! By the way, the transparent film packaging of the Cheerful Milkman cottage cheese is not sealed, it is poorly sealed, it flows from each pack.

The question is, why this film? Choose the answer yourself: either so that you cannot smell it and read all the information on the package; or to protect your products from mechanical damage and contamination (you never know which seller will have it on the counter).

Fortunately, I came across two local manufacturers (Nizhny Novgorod region), which indicated everything clearly, readably and the composition complies with GOST, it does not flow from one pack:

Unfortunately, this CJSC "Moloko" in Gorodets produces only 12% fat cottage cheese, rarely 9% of this you can't eat much without going over with fats (animals!). But the reader would like to say that it is worth taking a closer look at the assortment of cottage cheese on the shelves of your stores, perhaps local dairies offer a decent assortment, but you did not pay attention to it.

Shelf life of cottage cheese and its quality

Surely you have met, and repeatedly, information about the shelf life of cottage cheese. Here is an example quote:

In fact, this refers to the Sanitary and epidemiological rules and regulations SanPiN 2.3.2.1324-03 "Hygienic requirements for the expiration date and storage conditions of food products", developed in accordance with the Federal Laws "On the sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population" dated March 30. 1999 No. 52-FZt and “On the Quality and Safety of Food Products” dated 01/02/2000. According to these standards, cottage cheese should be stored for no more than 12 hours in a store (on the market) in the absence of cold and no more than 36 hours at a temperature not higher than 8°C.

But many consumers confuse the concepts of product shelf life in the store and the expiration date of the product recommended by the manufacturer. According to GOST R 52096-2003 Clause 8.2 "The storage conditions and shelf life of the product are established by the manufacturer." Most manufacturers have an expiration date of 5 days. By the way, for a conscientious seller, the expiration date and date of manufacture are clearly and clearly marked:

I went through a mountain of cottage cheese on the shelves of supermarkets and did not find any with a shelf life of 72 hours. And this is not a violation, so the manufacturer evaluated his product, implying that the sellers, i.e. stores and individual entrepreneurs will turn out to be decent people, and will comply with SanPiN standards, which for thermally processed cottage cheese are a maximum of 5 days! Less is possible, more is not! If the expiration date on cottage cheese is more than 5 days, then it contains preservatives.

By the way, many stores, not only small shtetl, but also large hypermarkets, lay out cottage cheese on refrigerated racks (open shelves), where the temperature is not at all + 8 ° C, but much higher. Firstly, it depends on the model of the rack, and secondly, on the temperature in the supermarket hall (the operating temperatures of the equipment are calculated taking into account the ambient temperature, usually not higher than 25 degrees and air humidity about 60%).

I did not manage to photograph the thermometer in my hypermarket, but it was not 8°C, but 14°C. And the cottage cheese, which was not sold out in one day, lay lonely the next day (I marked the pack with lipstick).

Conclusion, the quality of cottage cheese depends not only on the manufacturer, but also on the integrity of the seller. Therefore, when buying cottage cheese, rely on your own feelings, on the organoleptic indicators of cottage cheese as it is stored.

For this, we buy a pack of cottage cheese, fresh, today released from production. We bring it home, open it, try it. Cottage cheese should not be too acidic, but as can be seen from GOST (see photo above), low-fat cottage cheese may have a higher acidity than fatty. Uniform consistency, uniform color, without foreign odors - it should smell like fresh cottage cheese, no sour aroma.

We tried it, we liked it. I put the curd in the fridge. The next day, we look, try, evaluate, leave to lie still for a day. We open and evaluate on the third day, as well as the fourth and fifth (as stated on the package). From good cottage cheese, we notice how it deteriorates: the smell and taste become sourer, at first a little bit, then stronger. On high-quality cottage cheese, if you look very closely, after 5 days, mold fungi may appear, even when stored in a refrigerator at + 8 ° C. It is difficult to see them - the mycelium of the fungus is white, forms even circles, they are hardly noticeable on the curd when there are few of them. But if you store cottage cheese at a temperature of about + 2 ° C, the cottage cheese does not deteriorate much longer.

If the cottage cheese lay in the refrigerator, and for 5 days it remained completely unchanged in appearance, like fresh, did not taste sour, it means that the composition contains a preservative that is not indicated by the manufacturer, or vegetable oil is added, which also extends the shelf life cottage cheese.

Curd and palm oil

Is there a palm tree in cottage cheese and why is it there? Of course, there are worthy representatives of real cottage cheese without additives on store shelves.

But there are also those that are not rightfully called cottage cheese, as they contain palm oil and / or starch. These components are added to improve the taste (palm oil) and increase the volume of production (starch). Due to the fact that both palm oil and starch are cheap, adding them to cottage cheese allows you to reduce the cost. You can’t distinguish such cottage cheese by appearance, it has a normal color and smell.

Here, for example, is a very common fat-free cottage cheese "Tasty Day". Immediately, what catches the eye, we look at the photo - the expiration date is 10 days - for a perishable product this is a violation of SanPiN, although it is permissible according to GOST. It's worth thinking about!

Many people like the taste of this cottage cheese. Repeatedly on women's forums, I have come across conflicting reviews, some praise its delicate texture, others scold it for a huge amount of fat, clearly exceeding what is stated on the package.

It is very difficult to believe that there is no vegetable oil in this cottage cheese, after it lips, a spoon, a plate - everything is as if smeared with petroleum jelly, sticky! In addition, in the taste of this particular cottage cheese, there is clearly a taste that is not characteristic of cottage cheese.

Check at home if vegetable oil is not possible in cottage cheese. There are no such tests and indicators; falsification can only be confirmed by laboratory tests. Therefore, do not rush to buy a dozen packs of cottage cheese at once, just because it is inexpensive, it has the word GOST on it and vegetable fat is not indicated in the composition.

Firstly, the price does not say anything at all. “Tasty Day”, by the way, is a very cheap cottage cheese, its cost is almost two times lower than that of competitors. It never stays in stores (according to Magnit, a merchandiser). But the lower price of cottage cheese can be due not only to additives, but, for example, to the use of powdered milk instead of raw.

Cottage cheese examination table from the site http://www.kachestvo.ru/

Secondly, fakes with the GOST marking were detected repeatedly, and such cases were covered in popular programs, for example, "Test Purchase", among them at one time even the Dmitrovsky dairy plant, famous throughout the country, with its low-fat cottage cheese, I must say, was not at all cheap.

There is such advice on the Internet: you need to leave the cottage cheese to lie down at room temperature. If it winds up, covered with a yellow crust, but does not change the taste and smell, most likely, it could not have done without palm oil. And if it retained its color, but began to turn sour, then this is a natural product. So, this is not a reliable test, because. cottage cheese may contain vegetable fat and preservatives, and therefore does not spoil for a long time.

Starch in cottage cheese

Checking cottage cheese for starch is quite simple. It is enough to drop a drop of iodine on the curd. As we know from the 10th grade chemistry course, iodine turns starch blue.

For example, I take two packs of cottage cheese. The first one is "Harmony with nature" manufacturer LLC "Moloko" Nizhny Novgorod region, r.p. Buturlino. The second one is the "Merry Milkman" JSC "Wimm-Bill-Dann", Moscow. The price of both is the same, approximately 42 rubles per pack, weighing 180 g.

We drop a drop of iodine on the cottage cheese. On the cottage cheese "Harmony with Nature" a dark purple spot instantly blurs. There is no change on the Merry Milkman, just a reddish-brown blot. Bravo "Jolly Milkman"! But in every barrel of honey, there is a share of tar. Fat-free cottage cheese "Merry Milkman" contains only 14 g of protein. And according to GOST, it should be at least 18 (see photo above). Carbohydrates in it as much as 4.5 g. If you are on a low-carbohydrate or carbohydrate-free diet, such cottage cheese is not suitable for you.

True, fat-free cottage cheese "Merry Milkman" has a note on the packaging that the product was made not according to GOST, but according to TU. Honestly, it indicates a preservative in the composition, and it is not made from whole or normalized milk, but from powdered milk, skimmed milk, butter in different proportions. But it feels very oily on the lips and on the tongue!

Of course, I will never buy Harmony with Nature cottage cheese again. How long have I not bought Dmitrovsky cottage cheese, because “Once you lied, who will believe you?”

The quality of cottage cheese on the market

For some reason, some naive people believe that cottage cheese on the market is real, the best, without fakes. Especially if not from the seller of milk, but from the granny's hands. This is the deepest delusion, which, perhaps, is useless to debunk, because people who are confident in the market cottage cheese are usually stubborn as ... in general, they firmly believe, and to convince the fans is the most thankless task.

To clear our conscience, let's pay attention to this point.

All sellers of dairy products on the market are divided into private traders (grandmothers and grandfathers) and individual entrepreneurs. Let's start with the second - these are those who trade under a license, but save on renting retail space in stores. They usually also have documents, she herself asked more than once. But what is bad for such sellers is equipment that has usually been in use for many years. Refrigerated racks or refrigerated counters live from one inspection (if any) to the next. Complete unsanitary conditions. Cockroaches running around the counters are the least evil. More - the dirty hands of the saleswoman, who several times a day will run her unwashed hand into a bag of cottage cheese by weight - give it to the next person who wants to try. Therefore, their cottage cheese sours, and spoils after a few hours.

And as for modest grannies, an interesting thing turns out - most of them sell cottage cheese not from their own cow, but all the same by weight, from some JSC "Moloko" in the village of Enskoy. Only these grannies have no desire to issue an IP and pay taxes. It’s easier for her to buy cottage cheese by weight, you can even add some starch, and push this cottage cheese on the market by inflating the price for “home-made cows”.

Those. there are no guarantees that you will buy high-quality cottage cheese on the market - no. Another thing is if you get a familiar grandmother with her cow in the nearest village and agree on the purchase of cottage cheese. But it is unlikely that the granny will tell you exactly the fat content of her curd, calorie content, and BJU with an accuracy of 1%. The fat content of village cottage cheese can be either 10% or 18-20%. And certainly there is no fat-free village cottage cheese, because my grandmother does not have the technical capabilities to produce it.

Conclusions, how to choose cottage cheese

So, to summarize, what to look for when buying cottage cheese.

Examination of cottage cheese

Not only me, but also many housewives, probably already have an opinion about some products and specific brands. I try to be objective, but sometimes you don't know what to trust - your own taste, public opinion or various expertise.

For example, there are very good options for cottage cheese at "House in the Village" and at "Vkusnoteevo". Cottage cheese "Prostokvashino" at first glance is also good, any fat content, from almost zero to the traditional 9%. But only fresh. An inspection by Roskontrol revealed an excess of yeast in the examination of Prostokvashino cottage cheese.

By the way, 9% of President cottage cheese, 9% of Chistaya Liniya cottage cheese, 9% of Vkusnoteevo cottage cheese, 0.2% of Domik v Derevnya cottage cheese, and 0.1% of Ostankinskoye cottage cheese passed the Roskontrol check with a positive assessment. Cottage cheese "Savushkin Khutorok" 1% is good for everyone and would have passed the examination with a bang, but its fat content is less than declared - only 0.4% (what nonsense, it’s even easier for us!).

On the other hand, a sample of cottage cheese "Domik v derevny" 9% did not pass the examination - the yeast content was exceeded by 2.5 times. The question arises - as with the same manufacturer, some samples of cottage cheese are excellent, others are in violation of hygiene standards?

A lack of lactic acid bacteria or an excess of yeast can occur both through the fault of the manufacturer and the fault of the store - storage conditions in stores can be simply disgusting. For example, I witnessed how a cart with dairy products (cottage cheese, sour cream and milk) stood in the Magnit store in the middle of the hall for several hours. The temperature in the room is 21 degrees. What freshness are we talking about!

Therefore, I would like to wish everyone: buy only fresh cottage cheese, which was stored in the store for no more than a day, and choose the lesser of all evils - i.e. choose the product of the manufacturer that was least noticed in violations and inconsistencies.

Added later (05/13/2015): checking the cottage cheese from Auchan "Every Day" and "Din Bidon" showed the presence of starch in them. The consistency of both types of cottage cheese is low-fat, not oily. Starch grains are visible to the naked eye in the cottage cheese “Every Day”, cheese cakes were made from it without eggs and flour, with the addition of bran (25 g per pack), cheese cakes did not fall apart? but swollen like pancakes!

Cottage cheese "Don Bidon" has less starch, but there is still a reaction with iodine. And a lot of liquid - 30 g of water leaked out of a 180 g pack and only 150 g of cottage cheese remained. The last time when buying fresh cottage cheese "Don Bidon" in Auchan, an oily structure was discovered, you run your fingers, they stick together like plasticine.

The article was amended on 10/30/2015 due to the emergence of new facts and opinions. Thanks everyone for the feedback and comments!

Curd every day

September 2016, I decided to add to the article information on the cottage cheese "Every Day", which is sold in Auchan (this is their own brand). Cottage cheese is inexpensive compared to any other, so it is popular. But does the quality match?

The packaging says that the net weight is 200 g, but in reality it turned out to be only 177 g - they didn’t report a lot, it was noticeable even by eye! But the cottage cheese turned out to be completely non-oily, there was not even a suspicion that there might be a palm tree in it. However, the consistency is somewhat watery. The iodine test was negative, there is no starch in it. To taste, the cottage cheese turned out to be completely non-sour, quite pleasant.

By the way, many manufacturers do not report cottage cheese, the same "Northern Valley" or cottage cheese "Red Price", which, by the way, in addition to weighing (instead of 180 g - 170 g), contains starch every other time, so be careful.