Interesting Facts

According to a survey conducted by sweetener manufacturer Splenda, chocolate, cheese and crisps are the treats that are most likely to tempt people away from a diet. (Half the respondents said chocolate was their downfall, for a third it was crisps, and a quarter said cheese was their biggest temptation. Other foods mentioned were bread, cakes, biscuits, sweets and Chinese meals. The fourth biggest craving mentioned was a glass of chilled white wine on a night out. What! No beer?)

18th September Today is National Cheeseburger Day in the US. I wonder when it's "National don't eat junk food day".

According to the 2012 league table of food and drink costs, Britain pays more for food and alcohol than most of Europe. ( The staples, milk, cheese and eggs are 7% more expensive and across all food and non-alcoholic drinks, the UK pays 4% above the EU27. In the same study, Norway came out as the most expensive for food and drink and Macedonia the cheapest. All this came as no surprise to me; doing a food shop in the UK is always more expensive than Germany, but the biggest surprise is alcohol in the UK is around 43% above the European Union average, in France alcohol costs are 12% below the average and Germany 18%  lower. However, this is not why I moved to Germany.)

Some cheeses are saltier than a bag of crisps (According to a report by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), Alarming levels of salt in cheese are contributing to an epidemic of high blood pressure responsible for strokes, heart attacks and thousands of early deaths a year. Death by cheese? I can think of worse ways to go.)

According to the U.K.'s  Center for Retail Research , ch eese is the most stolen food in the world. ( The Center surveyed 1,187 retailers representing more than 250,000 retail outlets across 43 countries, but w e all know who's responsible, don't we?

Long Clawson Dairy in Leicestershire is going to make a limited edition run of Stilton this Christmas, which will  cost about £60 for a cracker sized slice. (It will work out at  At £60.87 per 100g slice, or £608 a kilo.   Why is it so expensive?  Well it's made with real gold.   Will anyone be dumb enough to buy it?  Of course they will.  The dairy  has already been contacted by a variety of interested parties including an oil sheikh and a famous pop star.  Suffice to say, hubby will have to content himself with the usual mouldy variety. )

Denmark has introduced what is believed to be the world's first fat tax: (Now this isn't a tax on fat people, it's a surcharge placed on foods that are high in saturated fat. Foods that contain saturated fat include, butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed foods, which are all subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat. So, not so much a stealth tax, as a health tax.)

According to research from Brown University, Rhode Island, eating dairy food, like cheese and butter doesn't increase your risk of a heart attack. (Contrary to earlier beliefs that saturated fat might lead to a heart attack, researchers found that nutrients in dairy products actually counteract the harmful effects. I knew it! Now where's my Lurpack and block of cheddar?) Source

In 1170 Henry II, the then King of England, bought 10,240lbs (4.6 tons) of Cheddar Cheese for a farthing a pound. (Nowadays it would cost him £4.55 a pound, a total of £46,592.00. I wonder what he did with it all.)

According to the British Cheese Board, Cheddar is the most widely consumed cheese in the world. (It originated in Somerset around the late 12th century, from the Gorge or caves in the town of Cheddar. The caves there were used to store the cheese and gave it it's unique flavour. The problem is that nowadays it can be made anywhere. In 2008 Britain imported 136,938 tonnes of cheddar from abroad, 86,000kg from Latvia of all places. Around 258,000 tons were produced in the UK in 2008. The good news is that you can still buy the original cheese, albeit at a premium, from the Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company - the only cheddar made in Cheddar: http://www.cheddargorgecheeseco.co.uk/index.html)

Casu marzu (also called casu modde, casu cundhídu in Sardinian dialects, or in Italian formaggio marcio) is a traditional Sardinian sheep's milk cheese. But, I hear you asking, what makes it interesting? Well it's notable for being riddled with maggots. (It's name literally means "rotten cheese" in Sardinian, and the cheese is known colloquially as maggot cheese. Derived from Pecorino, Casu marzu goes beyond typical fermentation to a stage most would consider rotten. This decomposition is brought about by the digestive action of the larvae of the cheese fly Piophila casei. The larvae are deliberately introduced to the cheese, promoting an advanced level of fermentation and breaking down of the cheese's fats. The texture of the cheese becomes very soft - well it would, wouldn't it - with some liquid (called lagrima, from the Sardinian for "tears") seeping out. The larvae themselves appear as translucent white worms, about 8 millimetres (0.3...

In central Italy, a deposit of a Parmesan cheese is enough to secure a loan. (In cases of default, the banks recuperate their losses by selling the cheese, that's when they phone the debtor and say "Hard cheese".)

powered by ODEO There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world. (He or she must be very busy keeping up with demand. Actually, Cheddar is too widely produced to have a 'protected designated origin' (that didn't stop Parma ham of course, but that's the EU for you) and according to Wiki, the Slow Food Movement, has recently created a 'cheddar presidia'. This states that only three cheeses can truly be called Cheddar. They require that Cheddar be made in Somerset, and with traditional methods, such as using raw milk, traditional animal rennet, and a cloth wrapping. It all sounds very cheesy to me.)

Researchers studying shoppers' baskets found people who bought wine also tended to buy poultry, cooking oil and low-fat cheese. Beer buyers, on the other hand, tended to buy chips, pork, butter, margarine, and sausages. (What about people like me, I buy both wine and beer! But not sausages and certainly not low-fat cheese - what's the point?)

Britain produces 700 regional cheeses, more even than France. (But none are quite as smelly as Vieux Boulogne. The French can keep that record.)

There are more than 700 different cheeses being made in Britain today. (I am slowly working my way through them all. Here's a guide to some of the best known British cheeses .)

You can make edible cheese from the milk of 24 different mammals. (Well I know of 3; cows, goats and sheep. But I really don't want to think about the others. Eeeew!)

France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese. (The second largest consumers of cheese in the world are the Italians.)