You can distinguish real cottage cheese from a fake without laboratory equipment. There are ways that reveal the deception of unscrupulous manufacturers. By knowing these methods, you can avoid buying a fake product that will not be healthy.
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Composition of natural curd
Cottage cheese is a very useful product, even the lazy one knows about it. It helps a lot with the observance of therapeutic and unloading diets. It nourishes the body with proteins and essential trace elements. It helps to cleanse the liver of toxins, and also has a beneficial effect on the female body - the hair, nails and skin of lovers of this lactic acid product look noticeably more attractive.
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However, unfortunately, this product has also become the object of fraud by unscrupulous manufacturers.
In the hope of a big profit, sometimes they bring something unknown to the shelves of shops and markets, but obviously not cottage cheese. In order to restore order in this segment of products, the government has introduced a classification of milk products since 2014. Milk with additives becomes a dairy product, and cottage cheese with impurities becomes a curd product. For each type of product, its own GOST has been developed.
What is real cottage cheese? This is a product made up of several ingredients listed:
- natural milk;
- butter;
- leaven;
- cream.
According to the standard, it is also allowed to use powdered milk, water, pepsin, and rennet in the manufacture of cottage cheese. But it is better, of course, when the product is made from the components listed above.
The legislation obliges manufacturers to indicate truthful information about the product and its composition on the packaging.
If the manufacturing technology differs from the traditional recipe, and the product does not meet current standards or contains any impurities, this is already an imitation of cottage cheese, and not a real product.
Depending on the raw materials used, fat, non-fat, bold cottage cheese is produced:
Type of cottage cheese | Fat content, % | Moisture content, % |
fatty | at least 18 | no more than 65 |
not greasy | no more than 0.5 | no more than 73 |
bold | at least 9 | no more than 80 |
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The curd product has a richer composition. Everyone has already heard that such food may contain starch and vegetable fats. This is our all unloved palm oil, as well as coconut oil. Due to them, the fat content of the product increases one and a half times compared to natural cottage cheese, and the amount of carbohydrates - 6 times. But proteins, on the contrary, are halved.
The benefits are less, and the harm is more than enough. This has not yet been mentioned about various dyes and sweeteners and other additives that you are allergic to.
But not all manufacturers of fermented milk products are honest with consumers. In principle, responsible manufacturers always write on the packaging of their product the characteristics and composition of the product, noting that it is only a curd product, and not the curd itself. But…
Sometimes this information is written in very small print, and even at the junction of the packaging parts, where the edges are sealed. It is not always possible for an adult to see the inscription. This is how customer fraud happens.
In the market, cottage cheese is sold from large basins and bowls on which nothing is written. If you do not know trusted sellers, you can easily buy a pig in a poke.
How to recognize a fake cottage cheese
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What to do to protect yourself and your loved ones from eating low-quality cottage cheese? Let's remember the main recommendations:
In the shop: We carefully study the information on the package. If it is readable only with a magnifying glass, it is better to pay attention to another manufacturer.
Look at the product through the packaging: it should not be damaged, there should not be cloudy drops or liquid drips inside it, and the curd itself keeps its shape without spreading over the package.
On the market: its advantage is that the purchased product can be tasted, held in hands, smelled.
You need to be able to recognize a fake. It is not difficult to do this, you can distinguish a fake by the following signs:
- real cottage cheese has a loose texture, breaks up into large flakes;
- the fake does not have a beige or cream shade, the mass is snow-white;
- if you taste it, the natural product will have sour notes;
- if it is a product in a package, additional ingredients will be indicated in the composition;
- the consistency of the mass is homogeneous, liquidish, natural - granular;
- packaged products cannot have a too long shelf life, if this is not the case, then this is a fake with a large amount of preservatives and chemicals;
- the smell is sour, milky, in the curd mass it is slightly creamy and without sourness;
- be sure to try the cottage cheese. Gives sourness - excellent, so natural. If a sweet taste remains in the mouth with some admixture of synthetics, then this is a curd product with additives.
It is very important to pay attention to the composition. For natural products and a chemical mixture, it can be very different. The difference in the compositions can be seen in the table. The first column lists the ingredients that can be found in natural products, and the second column lists the ingredients that are used by manufacturers of chemical mixtures.
Read also: how to identify natural butter
Cottage cheese | Fake |
Whole milk | Powdered milk |
Cream | Whey Protein Isolate |
Skimmed milk | Milk substitutes of plant origin |
Butter | Vegetable fats |
lactic acid bacteria | preservatives |
It is easier to choose a product on the market, where you can smell and evaluate its appearance. But the problem is that in this case the risk of falling for a fake is greater. People who produce dairy products in small quantities for sale often resort to various manipulations to increase their profits. But knowing this, you can easily distinguish fraud.
Easy Ways to Test Curd in 1 Minute
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Beautiful-looking cottage cheese may not be cottage cheese at all, but a fake containing starch, vegetable fats and palm oil.
How to distinguish a fake without having laboratory instruments and equipment at hand?
The easiest and most proven way is to feed your pet.
Animals will not eat unnatural cottage cheese made from vegetable fat and palm oil. They will simply ignore the fake.
It is also easy to check cottage cheese for the content of vegetable fats and palm oil in it. To do this, we need boiling water or a microwave. The essence of the experience is that real cottage cheese, containing natural protein, will stretch in the hands after heating.
If the cottage cheese sticks to your hands, and in hot water it will disintegrate when stirred, then such a product is unnatural with the addition of vegetable fat and palm oil.
How to test cottage cheese at home
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There are methods from folk experience that make it easy to calculate a fake without laboratory research. No special equipment or sophisticated technology is needed, below are methods that can be easily implemented at home. So, below are instructions on how to check cottage cheese for naturalness at home.
Read also: how to check red caviar for naturalness?
Experience with iodine
In this way, you can check the cottage cheese only for the content of starch in it, which a dishonest manufacturer adds in order to increase the mass of the product, thereby reducing its cost and its costs.
The principle of this method is based on the fact that iodine reacts with starch and changes its color. This test can be carried out at home, even without any additional equipment. If the cottage cheese manufacturer violated the technology and added starch for a larger volume, then iodine will reveal this.
An affordable and reliable way to check cottage cheese for starch is to drop a drop of iodine.
After some time, the cottage cheese containing starch will darken and by the reaction it will become clear whether it is a fake or not.
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For comparison, you can take a piece of raw potatoes, adding a little iodine to it. There is a lot of starch in potatoes, which is released and turns blue when interacting with iodine.
Step-by-step instruction:
- take a teaspoon of cottage cheese;
- add a couple of drops of an alcohol solution of iodine there;
- wait a couple of minutes.
It is easy to distinguish cottage cheese from a curd product. Natural does not react with iodine. In the simulation, the iodine will turn blue, indicating that it has reacted with the starch. Milkmen often add it to homemade cottage cheese to increase weight and earn more. Therefore, it is better to buy any food from trusted sellers, or in retail chains where thorough quality control is carried out. For example, in large supermarkets, only goods that have passed examinations and received safety certificates get on the shelves.
Read also: how to know real honey or not
Experience with water
You can take warm water and check the cottage cheese - this is a sure way to identify vegetable fats in the product, which are added in large quantities by unscrupulous manufacturers. It can be palm oil, and other types of fats that are not very healthy.
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The check does not require any additional tools or tools, all that is needed is some warm water, a glass or other transparent dishes, cottage cheese and a spoon. Here's what you can do:
- take a piece of cottage cheese;
- lower into the container;
- pour warm water;
- stir with a spoon.
If, after cooling, a fatty film appears on the surface of the water, this means that the product contains vegetable oil, which should not be in it.
There are many ways to fake. In industrial conditions, for example, refractory fats are added that are harmful to the cardiovascular system; at home, starch or even chalk can be added.
Read also: how to distinguish lavazza coffee from forgery
Experience with warmth
There is another method to determine the quality of cottage cheese at home - this is heating. Using heat, you can check the naturalness of products. There are several ways to understand how to determine naturalness.
Just leave a small amount of mass in a plate in a warm room. For 5-6 hours minimum. If it is a natural product without additives, it will not change color. The synthetic mass will not be white, the surface will be covered with a yellowish-beige. This is due to the fact that the composition includes oils of vegetable origin, which are oxidized.
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But this method does not always work, you can pay attention to the taste of cottage cheese. Today, technology is reaching a new level, counterfeit manufacturers can make their products almost identical. There is one more piece of advice that will help you find out if you really bought a quality product. If natural fermented milk products are kept warm for some time, their taste will become more sour. This is a consequence of the active reproduction of lactic acid bacteria.
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Also, to find out that the purchased mass is not natural, an experiment with a frying pan will help. If you try to melt the curd imitation, it will melt, and the natural product will curdle, giving out a small amount of liquid - whey.
conclusions
Knowing how to check the quality of cottage cheese, you can learn how to choose a truly natural and healthy fermented milk product. The simple methods described above, such as experimenting with iodine, warm water and heating the product, will help to identify falsification at home.
Since it is almost impossible to distinguish natural cottage cheese without such checks, it is better to adopt the considered methods and use them when buying a product. If the quality of food is a priority, then the diet will be not only tasty, but also healthy.
Read also: how to distinguish real turmeric from a fake
And here you can watch the video: Checking the quality of cottage cheese at home
What to do if you sold a fake?
Where to go if you sold a fake?
Discover!
I didn’t know that there are so many ways to check cottage cheese for naturalness. I do not buy cottage cheese often, but in the future I will know what I need to pay attention to when buying!
Now a very urgent problem is fake cottage cheese. It sometimes even tastes like putty. With the recommendations from the article, it is easier to cope with the choice of natural cottage cheese.
All products are fake! Shops can be safely closed as anti-people organizations! And the owners of retail chains selling cheese from palm oil, sausage from chemistry make everyone eat it themselves.
well written about cottage cheese, I ran into a bad product several times
Smart ways. Now, without preparation, it is difficult to check the cottage cheese, they have learned how to fake it. Special thanks for the video.
It seems to me now you can’t buy real and tasty cottage cheese, even grandmothers are cunning.
They buy in the store and sell at an inflated price like homemade.
Some scammers are left to make the cottage cheese themselves, and even then they are not sure that the milk is real.
A very relevant topic. Right now I am on the PP, and cottage cheese is the basis of the basics. Smart ways. Now, without preparation, it is difficult to check the cottage cheese, they have learned how to fake it. Special thanks for the video.