VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 33 



Good Cheese and How to Make It. 



By John W. Decker, Professor of Dairying, Ohio State University. 



CHEESE AS A FOOD. 



Cheese is a concentrated, highly nitrogenous food. The average 

 composition is as follows: 



TABLE I. 



Water 36 per cent. 



Fat 36 per cent. 



Protein 24 per cent. 



Ash, Sugar, &c 4 per cent. 



Total 100 per cent. 



Meat has the following composition: 



TABLE IT. 



Water 50 to 75 per cent. 



Protein 15 to 20 per cent. 



Fat 15 to 20 per cent. 



Ash 1 to 3 per cent. 



Comparing the cheese with meat it will be seen that it has a food 

 value two or three times that of meat, and it can be bought on the 

 market at the same cost per pound. 



Cheese being a concentrated, highly nitrogenous food, to get 

 economic results, it should be eaten in the right proportion with 

 other foods. When thus done it is easily assimilated. 



Professor Snyder of the Minnesota Experiment Station, carried on 

 digestion experiments which showed that when cheese is thus eaten, 

 93% of the protein and 95% of the fat was digested. Artificial diges- 

 tion experiment show that the pancreas ferment has much more effect 

 than the peptic ferment, indicating that it is digested mostly in the 



intestines. 



MILK FOR CHEESE. 



Milk is made up of milk serum, which is water, casein, albumen, 

 sugar, and ash; and the fat in the form of very small globules. Rennet, 

 a ferment found in the stomach of a calf, has the property of coagulat- 

 ing the sasein. The fat globules are inclosed in the coagulum. The 

 coagulum contracts, expelling the whey, which is made up of water 

 and the souble albumen, milk, sugar, and ash. When the coagulum, 

 or curd, as it is called, is cut into small pieces in the manufacture 

 of cheese, the fat globules inclosed along the lines of cleavage, are 

 knocked off into the whey, about 9% of the total fat in the milk being 

 lost from the cheese. 



The casein is about one-third of the solids not fat. By knowing the 

 Quevenne lactometer reading and the fat test, the amount of solids 



