Cheese: goat, sheep & yak

[Guest guest]

With all the talk about cheese, I saw this & thought it was interesting.

I do not know how yak cheese compares molecularly with goat/sheep.

Still, was something new & interesting.

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FOND of cheese but depressed about its high levels of saturated fats?

Now there's a healthier alternative: yak cheese.

Mamun Or-Rashid at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and

colleagues compared the fatty-acid content of cheese made from a

Nepalese yak's milk and a standard Canadian cheddar.

They found the yak cheese had a lower overall fat content and,

compared with cow's milk cheese, contained much higher levels of

heart-healthy " good fats " such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and

omega-3 fatty acids (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, DOI:

10.1021/jf0725225).

Some of the difference is due to the yak's diet of pasture grasses and

shrubs, which gives their milk a better fatty-acid profile than that

from animals raised on industrial grain-based feed. However, the yak

cheese had even higher levels of these beneficial fats than

pasture-fed cattle, says Or-Rashid. And, he adds, it tastes good, with

a delicate flavour.

Though yaks are not common dairy animals outside the Himalayan

highlands, Or-Rashid suggests cold-climate farmers elsewhere might

like to try them.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726484.800-yak-cheese-is-the-healthy-opt\

ion.html