Fresh Farmers Cheese: A Cultured Alternative to Cream Cheese | Remember Heat & Probiotics Don’t Mix

 

Fresh Farmers Cheese – Easier to Digest, A Source of Probiotics

I include fresh farmers cheese in each of our e-recipe books, and it continually draws a lot of questions.  Farmers cheese is a ‘fresh’ cheese and can be found near the cottage cheese or cream cheeses.  There are hard varieties now available (looks very similar to white cheddar cheese), but I recommend the fresh, soft varieties.  Fresh varieties can be easier to digest and contain probiotics (the good bacteria in our intestines that help strengthen our digestion and increase our immunity).

 

If You Can’t Find It

Ask Your Store to Carry It

Ask your local grocery store to order fresh farmers cheese for you- ask them to carry “Lifeway Farmer Cheese”.  Lifeway also makes a kefir that many stores carry now – so it might be a brand they already carry.

Make Your Own Fresh Farmers Cheese

Farmers cheese actually starts out as cottage cheese which is pressed in cheese cloth to remove the excess whey making it firmer and more spreadable – it’s fun and easy to make your own.  Just press cottage cheese in cheese cloth for at least 24 hours.

Be sure to keep the fresh liquid whey that is removed. Add a tablespoon to black bean or corn relish, use as the liquid in home-made hummus, or add to smoothies.  Fresh whey is also a natural source of probiotics.

 

Substitutions

 

If your store still doesn’t carry fresh farmers cheese, you could substitute one of these in the recipes:

• Fomage Blanc
• Neufchatel
• Quark
• Ricotta
• Creme Fraiche
• Chevre

 

Remember – Heat is Not a Friend to Probiotic Sources

Probiotics from any source – cultured dairy, fresh farmers cheese, fresh liquid whey, raw sauerkraut, miso paste, natto, new fancy ‘yogurt’ cheese slices – are all living organisms which become inactive (killed) when heated.  To benefit from them, they must be enjoyed cold, raw or incorporated into liquids no warmer than room temp.

 

~Teri