Goat Cheese Delicious/Healthy

Goat Cheese is no longer for urban elitists. In the last few years goat cheese has been finding its way into suburban kitchens.

Stacked up against other soft cheeses, like cream cheese and Brie, goat cheese is significantly lower in calories, cholesterol and fat, while being an excellent source of calcium.

Ounce for ounce, chevre has 20% fewer calories than cream cheese and 30% fewer than cheddar. It delivers two-thirds of cheddar's cholesterol.

Goat cheese gets about 70% of its calories from fat, well below the 90% of cream cheese.

Compared to what's in everyday cow's milk, goat's milk fat is entirely different. Not only does goat's milk have less saturated fat overall it contains two to three times more of some surprisingly benign kinds of saturated fat: caprioc, caprylic and capric fatty acids. These fatty acids are metabolized more like sugar than fat, swiftly converted to energy rather than carried through the bloodstream and added to the body's fat stores. What's more, these fatty acids are less likely to clog crucial arteries. Dr. Jerome Knettle physician and nutritionist Mount Sinai Medical Centre, New York.

As its popularity grows, goat cheese is also becoming more widely available in varieties beyond feta and chevre. There's pastafilata, a mozzarella-like version, that's often dunked in hot whey and pulled into threads, as well as ricotta-like fromage-blanc, good in chowders and dips. A deliciously bold and creamy goat Camembert is available at specialty cheese shops.

Woolwich Dairy Inc., 425 Richardson Rd., Orangeville, ON L9W 4Z4. Tel: 519-941-9206; Fax: 519-941-9349.