Is there really wood pulp and sawdust in your Parmesan cheese?

Рет қаралды 10,002

Күн бұрын

A handful of cheese companies have found themselves the subject of some pretty salacious headlines like "The Parmesan Cheese You Sprinkle on Your Penne Could Be Wood" and the "FDA Finds Wood Pulp in Major Parmesan Cheese Brands."
As a food scientist, this type of flashy news always catches my eye. I’ve seen so many exaggerations, misunderstandings, and deceptive tactics that I always feel inclined to investigate.
And I found it hard to believe that chunks of wood were being tossed into cheese all willy nilly. There’s too many laws and regulations for that to fly.
So, let's get to it... is there wood pulp in my cheese?
The short answer is - no. This is one of those exaggerations.
But, there is a reason for the lawsuits. The fight is over a food-safe additive called cellulose, which is in all plants.
Link to Code of Federal Regulations for grated cheese:www.accessdata.fda.gov/script...
Link to FDA's site on dietary fiber: www.fda.gov/food/food-labelin...
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Check out my blog: abbeythefoodscientist.com
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Contact me: abbeythefoodscientist@gmail.com
Twitter: @abbey_thiel

Пікірлер: 59

@TheMatzker 7 ай бұрын

I'm here because I used "100% Parmesan Cheese" that has a picture of the cheese wheel slices. I was out of the real cheese that I had grated myself, so I had this as back-up. It says "grated" underneath on it's own. I added it to a meal, and it ruined it. It tasted like powder, didn't taste good. I read the ingredients and saw the Cellulose as an additive. Its totally at odds with the claim being made on the front

@AbbeytheFoodScientist 7 ай бұрын

Yes, it's a real trick of the words on these grated containers!

@MichysBraids 6 ай бұрын

I'm still a little confused. Can you explain, Natural cellulose found in apples, etc.., verses processed cellulose made with bleach and other additives?

@garyjackson3838 6 ай бұрын

Now I know the real reason poop sometimes floats .😊

@HerMajesty1 2 жыл бұрын

I just looked at my big bottle of parmesan and it has cellulose powder. Sawdust.

@surfacenavy6412 Жыл бұрын

You took the words out of my mind, I saw that on the Kraft grated Parmesan cheese label. It turns to poop because this cannot be processed and digested in the body but still it’s very misleading and how the majority of these major food companies get away with this.

@alianna8806 Жыл бұрын

Rabbit food 😂

@suedesignable 4 ай бұрын

Cellulose is NOT WOOD. IT is PLANT BASED!!!

@suedesignable 4 ай бұрын

My goodness. Did you not listen????? 😂😂😂

@Voudoo1 7 ай бұрын

Very interesting! (until you mention the FDA, which I don't trust anymore)

@fiethsing9988 Жыл бұрын

Good, now we can all stop buying processed garbage.

@victoriazhu2185 Жыл бұрын

i should go outside and eat some grass off my lawn

@ADrunkBassist Жыл бұрын

Everything you say sounds like a question?

@wordscapes5690 9 ай бұрын

That powdered, shredded, or grated Parmesan is not Parmesan. It might as well be sawdust. Sawdust tastes better.

@sarahlewis8818 2 ай бұрын

I literally just found wood in my shredded cheese

@rixcogamingandmusic Жыл бұрын

Clear presentation thank you

@benignorivera2067 3 ай бұрын

Why not take Grated Swiss cheese and combine them both.😊

@badandyg Жыл бұрын

The way Abby talks as if every sentence is a question.

@alianna8806 Жыл бұрын

Upspeak and vocal fry are an unfortunate plague of our generation

@badandyg Жыл бұрын

@@alianna8806 not mine 😜

@alianna8806 Жыл бұрын

@@badandyg Lucky but I hear it in quite a few generations myself with varying intensity, along with the "like" phenomenon. Fortunately I am not so afflicted, whatever generation I belong to.

@lisathiel6843 3 жыл бұрын

Great subject and very good presentation.

@menooNFT 2 жыл бұрын

as a swiss and italian. Seeing theese cheeses hurts me

@ytj22 Жыл бұрын

Seeing the price of the good cheeses hurts me

@bobstevemd3265 3 жыл бұрын

what's happening to the cheese at 1:05 lol

@billbryan8943 2 жыл бұрын

Great and thorough presentation, Abbey!

@AbbeytheFoodScientist 2 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it!

@NeverLoseHope31 10 ай бұрын

Now I too can tell everyone what the Cellulose really is! Plant Fiber and not to worry about eating it.

@QueensMom1 9 ай бұрын

They're telling us it's 100% grated and 100% shredded 🤦🏽‍♀️😂

@jasper5016 2 жыл бұрын

Finally someone knows what is she talking. Thanks a lot for this video.

@ankurupadhyay280 3 жыл бұрын

Really well structured content....cleared up any doubt that I had while watching in the very next sentence. Great work 👏

@wing48 Жыл бұрын

So does it mean that wood pulp and saw dust are not used to produce cellulose? Or that it is used but its ok to eat it?

@AbbeytheFoodScientist Жыл бұрын

Good question! Yes, wood can be processed to make edible cellulose that's used in food.

@QueensMom1 9 ай бұрын

Cellulose is "refined wood pulp" so yeah, sawdust

@benignorivera2067 3 ай бұрын

Parmesan cheese really smells like swiss cheese😊

@bigshaggy4454 2 жыл бұрын

FDA wouldn't allow that.

@user-tu2xf4uf3n 10 ай бұрын

Always buy full bean coffee. There is no coffee in ground coffee at all = its all 90 percent fillers?

@Muuip Жыл бұрын

Great useful informations! Much appreciated!👍

@galaxies2187 Жыл бұрын

In short: no there isn’t saw dust in your cheese

@double_uoglobe 2 жыл бұрын

You suggest that the inclusion of cellulose is conflated with sawdust... but cotton and wood byproducts are used to make cellulose. It's like saying chicken nuggets aren't make of chicken carcasses, they're made out of mechanically separated chicken. While true, it's ignoring the fact that one product is derived from another. That being said, I totally agree that people need to chill out about such claims... if we've found a use for wood and cotton byproducts for stabilizing processed foods, that's a feat of modern science. Those who are afraid of such products should probably go just hang out with the amish or rural Afghanistan and see how much they like living without industrially processed food products, lol

@sontoniocollins5398 Жыл бұрын

I'm with you it seems like people used to live forever, everybody got health conscious and now we get a new disease every year.

@alianna8806 Жыл бұрын

If they did that they would find that people eat a lot of cellulose 😆

@travisorth9933 2 жыл бұрын

Your thinking to hard on this! It’s cheese nothing is pure anymore

@busker153 11 ай бұрын

OK, I understand frustration, and I understand "legal lying." But seriously, folks. If you do not check the ingredients list, you are too lazy. And, if you do check the ingredients, and do not see the contradiction with 100% cheese, you are stupid.

@simplesimon7856 3 жыл бұрын

Well said 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

@peterpiper487 7 ай бұрын

Good grief! If you grate a 100% cheese, it will clump together and you will not be able to "sprinkle" it at all. Do this yourself and you'll see that after some time, your grated 100% cheese clumps together. Wood pulp is used to prevent the cheese from clumping together. And I'm okay with eating wood pulp. It's NOT bad for you. The thing you need to know, however, is WHAT ELSE is in the grated parmesan topping? I will eat wood pulp all day, but I may be concerned about other ingredients that are added to my parmesan topping.