PRACTICAL PAPERS—CHEESE AS FOOD. 
211 
CHEESE AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD. 
From a Prize Essay read at the meeting of the American Dairymens’ Association, in 
January, 1870. 
BY L. B. ARNOLD, OF ITHECA, N. Y. 
An objection sometimes made to the use of cheese, is, that 
it does not fairly represent the good qualities of the milk out 
of which it was made; that it leaves out a part of the elements 
of milk, and those that it takes in are so altered in the process 
of manufacturing and curing, that they make the cheese a very 
different thing from the original milk. 
That cheese does not take in all the elements of milk is true. 
It leaves out nothing, however, that is worthy of notice but 
the milk sugar, and this is so easily and abundantly supplied 
by the saccharine matter and starch in the food with which 
cheese is eaten, that its loss can hardly be held to have any 
weight in disturbing the just proportions of its aliment. 
In respect to the idea that cheese, on account of changes 
made in manufacturing and curing does not represent the milk 
it was made from, let us look at the facts. They do not look 
alike to be sure, but appearances are sometimes deceitful and 
cannot always be relied on to determine important points. 
That milk must undergo many changes in appearance before 
it can be assimilated, is evident. Milk in the cow’s udder, 
and milk two hours in the stomach of a calf, differ as much in 
appearance as milk in a dairyman’s pail and milk in the form 
of a cheese; and yet, that the curd in the former case is unin¬ 
jured and identical with the milk it was made from, will not be 
questioned. Nor will it be questioned that the solid condition 
of the curd in the calf’s stomach is necessary to prepare it for 
assimilation, for it is one of the steps in nature’s own method 
of converting it into blood. I hold that the conversion of milk 
into cheese involves the same changes that occur in the stom¬ 
ach of the calf, and that is is only carrying out a part of the 
process of digestion. Let us compare what happens to the milk 
