Cottage cheese

Cottage cheese is a high protein low-fat cheese prepared form curdles milk (curds).  It is usually thought of as a ‘diet’ food, cottage cheese is a healthful food choice when it is made from skim or low-fat milk.

Cottage cheese only retains 25 to 50 percent of the calcium from the milk it is made from, due to the processing. The curdling process leaches calcium from the curds into the liquid called whey, which is removed. The higher the water content of cheeses, such as cottage cheese, the sooner they will go bad.

The total solid (TS) content of the skim milk is often increased to 10-13% by the fortification with non-fat dry milk powder or by the addition of UF retentate.

Cottage cheese is prepared with varying amounts of fat. It is highest in creamed small curd cheese (4.2 percent fat), while low-fat cottage cheese contains 1 percent or 2 percent fat, and dry curd cottage cheese has 0.5 percent fat.
Cottage cheese