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Cheese makes you chubby! scream all the headlines and popular talk shows in the past week. This newest scare does not come from any detailed study by respectable nutritionists, or even from a government agency. It all started with a number of billboards placed in the Albany, New York area by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Dr. Neal Barnard, President of PCRM, says "typical cheeses are 70 percent fat," and that Americans eat about 33 pounds of cheese per year.
To set the record straight, let's take a slice of American cheese, the most popular kind. One slice (1 oz.) contains 5 grams of fat (18% of the total weight) which represents 8% of one's Recommended Daily Allowance of fat. The slice of cheese has 70 calories, which is 3.5% of a 2000 calorie per day diet. The amount of calories in the slice from the fat content is 64.3% of the total, the rest of the calories coming from carbohydrates in the cheese.
The 33 pounds of cheese the average American eats in a year boils down to about 101 calories per day (out of a 2000 calorie per day diet), so it is a minimal addition to one's caloric intake; hardly the amount that would make the average person become overweight, or lose a substantial amount if he/she were to stop eating cheese.
The FDA recommends in their Food Pyramid that one eats 2-3 servings of dairy per day. That translates to 1 ½ to 2 ounces of cheese, and 8 ounces of yogurt or milk. This recommended daily intake of dairy provides 254 calories, or 12.7% of the daily diet. Again, hardly the stuff that makes one obese.
So why the push by the PCRM to eliminate cheese from the American diet with a scare tactic? Well, the PCRM's founder, Dr. Barnard (a psychiatrist, not a nutritionist), is a vegan (someone who does not eat meat or animal products whatsoever), has served on the board of PETA, and according to the organization's 501(c)3 IRS return, the primary mission of the PCRM is to promote a vegan diet through public advertising and lobbying on Capitol Hill (they spent $649,903 on lobbying in 2009). It is no surprise then that the PCRM is conducting a campaign to dissuade people from eating dairy products; their central theme is that no one should eat animal products of any kind.
We leave it then to the intelligent, informed consumer to make dietary choices based on the facts, not extremist views that have no place in the marketplace of ideas.
