Greetings.
Eric Bakker, naturopath, New Zealand.
Thank you for coming back.
We're going to talk a bit about cheese and the digestive system.
What cheese is good for the gut?
Is cheese good at all?
Is cheese crap?
You know?
Well, there are different types of cheese out there.
I couldn't believe it when I was in LA, Los Angeles, last time.
Checked out the supermarket to see how much fake cheese there was.
It was just row after row of just this plastic cheese.
The stuff that they squeeze out from a machine and put layers of plastic on it.
I mean how can people eat that kind of stuff?
That's not cheese.
Okay?
We're talking like real cheese made by proper cheese makers.
Growing up in Holland myself, my Dutch heritage, my family, we consume huge amounts of change.
If you look at countries like France or Holland, they easily consumed 20 or even 30 kilograms,
40 to 50 pounds of cheese per person per year easily.
So in countries like France for example, in particular have got, or always traditionally
had lower expectancy of expecting people to get heart disease.
People didn't get heart disease as much as other countries did.
Like for example, the British, eating a lot more of their fry ups and a lot of the deep
fried fatty foods.
The French did too, but they traditionally had the better cheeses and the better wine
and good quality vegetables more so than the Brits did.
So this could be one reason why the life expectancy was definitely better in France at the time.
The question is what cheese is good for the digestive system?
Well, some cheeses are better than others.
Feta cheese tends to be quite good, especially when you've got goats Feta.
These are a lower processed.
So the higher the processing of the cheese, the more refined it is, the less chance you're
going to get lactic acid in there.
Lactic acid bacteria in there, particularly you won't get lactic acid bacteria in there,
in those plastic cheeses.
I won't mention the name of the manufacturer, but you probably know the one I mean with
the plastic wrap around it.
So don't buy that kind of stuff, all right?
You've got all these weird colors in there and chemicals in there and plasticizers in
there.
I wouldn't touch it.
So, feta, I think, is one of my favorite cheeses because it's been shown to contain lactobacillus
plantarum, for example.
There are different lactobacillus strains that are found in various feta cheeses.
So sheep's cheese is excellent.
Goat's cheese is very good, but cows feta is also good if you can get a good organic
cow feta.
It's a beautiful cheese to have in a salad.
To crumble it up alongside tomatoes and lettuce and olives and things like that too.
Very nice Greek salad you can make up with it.
But feta has many different things you can do with it.
You can make desserts out of it, you can put it in smoothies and all kinds of things.
Gouda, or Gouda, I think you call it.
Let me write that down for you, is also a good cheese.
Especially if it's minimally processed, so you can actually go to a good cheese manufacturer.
Gouda, in Dutch we call it Gouda, Gouda.
They often come in a red wax coating.
So we used to pay, when I was a kid, like 10 [inaudible] for cheese, which is like four
bucks or something for a whole cheese.
I don't know what it costs now, but it wouldn't take long for a small round cheese to be consumed
by five boys in the family.
So yeah, cheese is good for the gut.
If you find a high quality cheese, a good brand, a traditionally made cheese in the
old fashioned way.
It's going to be good.
I've got no doubt about it.
But remember, don't eat too much cheese and eat it in conjunction with a healthy diet.
If you're getting an organic cheese, a good quality one made with full cream milk, you've
got a wonderful product there.
High in calcium and lots of potassium and phosphorous in there.
Many different minerals in that product.
And as I said, it will also contain, if it's a good cheese, some bacteria in there, and
it will allow you to seed that gut.
And if not, it will provide lactic acid, which will help to build a very healthy microbiome.
If you look at a good cheese like that, to me it's a lot like a cow.
Along that same line.
It's going to be beneficial for you.
It's going to have beneficial properties, it's going to have ingredients that build
your gut health.
It can definitely form a part of your diet.
If you're sensitive to cow proteins, just have sheep or goats cheese and you should
be good to go.
Thanks for tuning in.