(classical string music)
- Let's say you want to make nacho dip.
Everyone wants to make nacho dip.
But when you heat regular cheese,
the fats can melt away from
the rest of the cheese solids,
leaving you with a pool of
oil and a lumpy, stringy mess.
Enter processed cheese, of which,
American cheese is a particular type.
This stuff is consistent by
design, has a longer shelf life,
is usually cheaper than natural cheese,
and melts like a dream, but how?
What arcane science imbued natural cheese
with such unnatural properties?
Here in the United States,
the FDA has crafted
an exhaustively specific legal definition
of processed cheese.
The short version is
that it's a type of food
made by pulverizing, heating,
and mixing actual cheese
of one or more types with an emulsifier
into a homogeneous plastic mass.
Now, that's plastic as in
the physical definition,
i.e. a substance easily shaped or molded.
Processed cheese isn't
made of actual plastic.
But it can contain water,
salt, artificial color,
flavorings, and this stuff.
The key to processed cheese's smoothness
is the emulsifying agents.
An emulsion is a mixture of two liquids
that don't usually mix,
like oil and water.
No matter how hard you stir
or shake them together,
they'll separate back out.
But emulsifiers make the two
play nice, chemically speaking.
That's because they
interact with both liquids,
grabbing globules of
one and suspending them
evenly throughout the other.
Cheese and milk, for that matter,
is made up of fats and
fat soluble substances
plus a solution of water
soluble proteins and minerals.
The added emulsifiers keep
them blended together,
even when they're heated.
The other optional ingredients
are texture and flavor
enhancers, preservatives,
and cheese making
shortcuts designed to speed
the manufacturing process along.
But as long as the finished
cheese has moisture,
fat, and pH levels that
closely resemble those
of its actual cheese ingredients,
the stuff can legally be called
pasteurized process cheese.
And if it's made from
cheddar, washed curd,
colby, or granular cheese, it
can be called American cheese.
But you may have noticed some extra words
creeping in on labels, dubbing the stuff
pasteurized process cheese food,
or spread, or product.
Those designations indicate
that other ingredients
have been put in that reduce
the amount of actual cheese
in the finished food.
All of these creations
are required to consist
of at least 51% cheese.
Is processed cheese delicious
science or Frankendairy?
You be the judge and give us
your verdict in the comments.
While you're at it, give us a
like if you enjoyed this video
and subscribe so you
won't miss the next one.
And of course, you can always learn more
about everything from cheeses to cheaters
at HowStuffWorks.com.
