What’s lurking in your cheese drawer might surprise you. Those colorful packages promising convenience and flavor often hide a laundry list of chemicals, preservatives, and mystery ingredients.
While real cheese can be part of a healthy diet, these processed imposters might be doing more harm than good to your body.
1. Kraft Singles American Cheese Slices
These notorious slices contain less than 51% actual cheese – the rest? A chemistry experiment of emulsifiers, preservatives, and artificial colors. The FDA won’t even let them call it “cheese” – it’s legally a “pasteurized prepared cheese product.”
Your sandwich deserves better than these melty imposters. Each slice packs sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, and milk protein concentrate – ingredients you’d never find in authentic cheese. Plus, they’re loaded with sodium (nearly 15% of your daily limit in one slice).
2. Velveeta Original Cheese
Remember that famous commercial where Velveeta melts so smoothly? There’s a reason natural cheese doesn’t behave that way! This neon-orange brick contains a whopping 32 ingredients – most real cheeses have about 4-5 ingredients total.
Sodium citrate, apocarotenal (a synthetic food coloring), and various milk protein concentrates create that unnaturally perfect melt. One serving delivers an alarming 410mg of sodium – that’s like eating 16 saltine crackers!
3. Easy Cheese (Spray Cheese)
Squirting “cheese” from an aerosol can should be your first red flag! This pressurized party trick contains whey protein concentrate, canola oil, and sodium phosphate – but surprisingly little actual cheese. The propellant alone (nitrogen) should make you question your life choices.
A single serving packs more sodium than a small bag of potato chips. The texture? Impossibly smooth thanks to sodium alginate – the same thickener used in textile printing and paper production. Yum?
4. Kraft Grated Parmesan (Shelf-Stable Version)
Shocked that your “parmesan” sits unrefrigerated for months? That’s because it contains cellulose (yes, wood pulp) as an anti-caking agent! A 2016 Bloomberg investigation found some brands contained up to 8% cellulose – that’s a lot of tree in your cheese.
Real Parmigiano-Reggiano ages 12-36 months and contains just milk, salt, and rennet. This impostor adds potassium sorbate and cheese cultures that would make an Italian cheese maker weep. The powder-like texture comes from being pre-dried and processed into submission.
5. Great Value Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Product
The name alone requires a lawyer to decipher! This Walmart bargain brand doesn’t even pretend to be real cheese – the word “imitation” is right there on the label. What are you actually eating? Mostly water, oil, and modified food starch with some milk protein thrown in.
The slices contain artificial flavors attempting to mimic what cheese actually tastes like. It’s like wearing a cheese costume to a dairy convention! Each slice provides virtually no nutritional benefits while delivering artificial colors like Yellow 5 and Yellow 6.
6. Borden Singles
Hiding behind nostalgic packaging lies another cheese impersonator! Borden Singles contain more water than cheese, plus a laboratory’s worth of stabilizers and preservatives. The slices are designed to melt uniformly – something no natural food actually does.
Each slice contains sodium citrate, calcium phosphate, and artificial colors that give it that uncanny yellow hue. The texture feels slick on your tongue because of added oils and gums that real cheese would never need. Meanwhile, you’re missing out on the beneficial cultures found in authentic cheese.
7. Land O’Lakes Deli American Cheese
Glossy and uniform, this deli counter staple has more in common with plastic than dairy! While slightly better than individually wrapped singles, it still contains sodium citrate, sodium phosphate, and artificial colors to achieve that impossibly consistent yellow hue and texture.
A single 1-ounce slice packs a whopping 350mg of sodium – that’s 15% of your daily recommended intake in one thin piece of sandwich topping! The high moisture content comes from added water, while various gums create that signature melt that real cheese can’t achieve.
8. Parmalat Shelf-Stable Mozzarella
Fresh mozzarella lasts about a week in your fridge. This version sits on store shelves for months! The secret? Ultra-high temperature processing that essentially kills everything good about cheese, plus preservatives like potassium sorbate and calcium chloride.
Real mozzarella has a delicate milky flavor and tender texture. This shelf-stable zombie version tastes like slightly sour plastic with a rubbery bounce that would make a tennis ball jealous. It shreds into perfect strands because it’s engineered to, not because it’s cheese behaving naturally.