Researchers develop tastier low-fat cheddar: new formulation mimics buttery flavor of higher-fat cheese

Health-conscious cheese fanciers may soon find it difficult to resist low-fat cheddars. A new formulation offers comparable flavor to varieties higher in fat, according to a study in the current issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The monthly peer-reviewed journal is published by the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Developed by scientists at the University of Minnesota, the low-fat cheddar is derived from a blend of three bacterial starter cultures. The combination delivers several taste-enhancing compounds that mimic the clean, buttery, "young cheese" flavors that consumers tend to prefer.

"Most of the existing low-fat cheeses tend to be bitter, without many buttery notes," says Howard Morris, Ph.D., professor emeritus of food science and nutrition at the university and one of the lead researchers for the study. "From our experience we picked the three cultures that we believed would synergistically work together, and whose metabolic functions would generate the desired flavors in a reduced-fat cheese."

The researchers' goal: Find out how to mask bitterness without using fat to add taste. Scientists believe that, in regular cheeses, fat absorbs and then masks compounds responsible for "off-flavor" taste. In low-fat cheeses, fewer fat globules are available to interact with or mask such compounds. While their prevalence is roughly the same as in higher-fat varieties, the tongue perceives off-flavors more readily because the masking effect is reduced.

That problem has been solved in this latest study. Morris credits a complex interplay of microbial biochemistry within the starter cultures with providing the flavor improvements to his group's low-fat cheddar. The metabolic byproducts of the bacterial micro-organisms, and the way they interact during cooking, release ce
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Contact: Beverly Hassell
b_hassell@acs.org
202-872-4065
American Chemical Society
14-Jun-2000