Say Cheese!

I love cheese. 

Sharp or mild, goat or cow, soft or hard, blue or white or yellow or green, stinky or um...not stinky.

But I know that, being someone with slightly high cholesterol numbers, I shouldn't eat too much of it no matter how yummy it is. 

Alas!  A new survey has me thinking that Danish researchers are geniuses!  (And not because I like to eat Danish, too.)

According to a recent Danish study, cheese may not be so bad for cholesterol after all.  OK, they compared it to eating butter--but it shows that in moderation, cheese isn't as bad as you might think.

According to an article from the Chicago Tribune, here's how the tests were conducted:

The group surveyed about 50 people. Each person was put on a controlled diet and added a measured amount of cheese or butter daily.

Throughout, each participant was compared against his or herself, to follow changes in the body caused by the foods. Researchers gave each person cheese or butter, both made from cows milk, equal to 13 percent of their daily energy consumption from fat.

During six-week intervals, each person ate the set amount of cheese or butter, separated by a 14-day cleansing period which they returned to their normal diet. Then they switched, and for six weeks those who had eaten the cheese before, ate butter, while the butter eaters in the first phase ate cheese.

While eating cheese, the subjects showed no increase in bad or overall cholesterol, while when they were eating butter, their cholesterol increased by an average of 7%.

According to the article, it could be the calcium and/or protein in cheese that helped these results to occur.  Whatever the reason, I'm all for it. 

So does that mean that on a grilled cheese sandwich the cheese and butter cancel each other out and it's just like eating toast?