Techniques for Making Cheese with Low Salt and Fat Content

Abstract

When the term "reduced fat" or "lower fat content" is used on the label of cheese products, it means that the product must contain 25% less fat than the reference amount in traditional standardized cheeses. In recent years, owing to the risks associated with excessive dietary intake of fat and sodium, there is an increased consumer demand for food products, including cheese, with reduced fat and salt content. The dairy industry in developed countries is focused on the production of various types of cheeses with low fat and salt content. As a result, much research has been conducted to study the characteristics of different types of low-fat and low-salt cheeses and to improve their characteristics compared to full-fat cheeses. Despite the mitigating effects of calcium reduction, the reduced-fat, reduced-salt, lower-calcium cheese was, nevertheless, firmer, harder, more cohesive, and chewier and flowed less than the full-fat, full-salt cheese. In this paper, special emphasis is placed on technologies for eliminating the disadvantages of cheeses with reduced fat and salt content, for their nutritional, flavor and organoleptic properties to be closer to other types of cheese and at the same time to meet the needs of consumers. Keywords: cheese, salt, fat, additional crops, technology