![]() ![]() The bacteria is typically called a “culture,” and different types of bacteria produce different types of cheese. ![]() To make cheddar cheese you need to do more than that simple farmer’s cheese: you need to inoculate the milk with bacteria, and then typically you’ll use a stronger chemical to separate the cheese from the whey (technically the cheese at this stage is “curds,” not cheese, but whatever) than lemon juice or vinegar. The cheddar cheese is, again, damnably vague, though everything listed is fairly standard. But it’s strange for a cheese product to have as its first ingredient an item that is sort of the opposite of cheese. Whey has some uses it’s a very good meat tenderizer, for one thing. Eventually you’ll strain and drain those solids, which are your cheese, and you’re left with a sour, weird liquid: whey. The souring agent reacts with the fats in the milk, and solids begin to form, separating from the liquid. Let’s do a really simple cheese, a fresh farmer’s cheese (aka paneer, queso blanco, ricotta): you take milk, heat it up, and add a souring agent like lemon juice or vinegar. Whey is not cheese it’s the garbage you get while making cheese. Flickr/Mike MozartĪh ha, the cheese powder. That further indicates that, well, folic acid might be bullshit. But recent research indicates that humans are not very good at using folic acid to create folates, that it’s an inefficient and slow process. But folic acid is not folate folic acid is a synthetic, lab-made replacement that supposedly converts other stuff to folates. But this is an interesting one: folates are a loose group of vitamins, without which humans will end up with diarrhea and possibly nerve damage. It’s estimated that the processing eliminates about 60% of naturally occurring riboflavin, so it’s added back in along with the other nutrients.Īnd finally we come to the last re-added vitamin B-type nutrient: folic acid, otherwise known as vitamin B9. Though it’s common in cereals (and yeast is extremely high in it), processed flours like the cornmeal in Cheetos is like the Sahara for riboflavin. Riboflavin is necessary for a lot of synthesis of various chemicals into other more useful chemicals throughout the body. In fact, if you take riboflavin as a vitamin, it’ll turn your urine neon yellow. Riboflavin is also known as vitamin B2, and is a yellow color the precise shade of urine. Sigh, another member of the vitamin B group. It’s used instead of natural thiamin because it’s cheap and very stable and easy to use it’s the thiamin replacement of choice for packaged goods. Thiamin deficiencies tend to affect the nervous and cardiovascular system.Īnyway, producers like Frito-Lay use thiamine mononitrate, a synthetic powder version of vitamin B1, to replace the regular vitamin B1 that grains like corn naturally contain before they’re bled out. Thiamin is another nutrient kind of like niacin it’s not that taking more of it makes you healthier, it’s that without it, you develop serious health problems. Thiamine mononitrate is also an additive it’s a version of thiamin, otherwise known as vitamin B1, though not a naturally occurring one. Niacin is also known as vitamin B3, and without it, you’ll quickly develop weird weaknesses: anemia, headaches, dizziness, nausea, that kind of thing. Niacin, same deal: an essential nutrient that has to be added back into the mix. But thanks to the wonderful laws laid out by the Food and Drug Administration, we can see what’s actually in them, and a little extra research can tell us whether all those chemicals are actually things we want to be eating.Ĭheetos are made by creating an “enriched cornmeal” - basically cornmeal with a bunch of other stuff in it, and feeding it through an extruder that heats the liquid inside to, basically, pop like popcorn, creating the uneven texture that Wired describes as “craggy.” It’s then deep-fried quickly, rather like floating donut dough in oil, and sprayed with powdered cheese product, which is not too different from the cheese powder in a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. The industrial processes involved make it basically impossible to replicate the Cheeto at home not many people have massive cornmeal extruders sitting next to the KitchenAid stand mixer. Cheetos are one of America’s best and most mysterious snacks, boasting both a flavor and a texture not seen anywhere in nature.
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