The Chemistry of American Cheese

What exactly is “American Cheese”? According to the video below, American Cheese differs from what we traditionally consider “cheese” because although it starts as a mixture of cheeses like Cheddar and Colby, the addition of melting salts (primarily Sodium Citrate), means that in many parts of the world it cannot be called “cheese”. In the US, it has to be labeled “pasteurized process cheese food” or similar. But the replacement of calcium, which glues the molecules together in a typical cheese, with less efficient sodium makes things more flexible and provides a vastly superior melting experience. This is why, for maximum gooiness, American Cheese is the essential grilled-cheese cheese. Better living through chemistry indeed.

David Crotty

@davidacrotty

David Crotty is a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. Previously, David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.

Discussion

2 Thoughts on "The Chemistry of American Cheese"

after an utterly horrific week, it is good to come to The Scholarly Kitchen blog on Fridays for some totally useless trivia. Thank you. This made the end of my week survivable.

I always appreciate your efforts in finding a fun end of week topic and I appreciate you didn’t produce the video, but “American cheese” is such a terrible choice for grilled cheese or any dish.

Yes, it’s cheap but it has no flavor, no texture, and many other cheeses melt just as well unless you just want a puddle of slime on your plate. Try any decent cheddar for one. Delicious! Or Swiss. Or if you really don’t like texture, try Provolone. Next you’ll promote Kraft Dinner with its packet of orange powder… euch!

Do we really need more over produced plastic wrapped pseudo food in our diets..? We can do so much better, and support real food from real farms in the process. Just saying…