It's no secret that dairy products should be bought with extreme caution. Sellers are now trying to lure the buyer with a beautiful name and everywhere they write that the product is farmed. And how to determine whether a product is good or not, let's try using the example of cottage cheese.
The most important tip: don't fall for advertising. Now you can pass off any product as eco-friendly, farm, bio, etc. In fact, it is only in the laboratory that they can figure out thoroughly where the natural product is and where its surrogate is. Therefore, on the packaging, first of all, read the composition of the product. The natural cottage cheese contains the cottage cheese itself (milk), sourdough and auxiliary substances - rennet and calcium chloride. Everything! Natural cottage cheese should not contain powdered milk, preservatives and vegetable fats.
Look at the date of manufacture. Do not buy cottage cheese if there is one or two days left before the expiration date. When opening the curd, smell it. Real cottage cheese smells like milk, and the taste is slightly sour or sweet, without a pronounced advantage.
If you have any doubts about the quality of the curd, do a small laboratory experiment. Put a drop of iodine on the curd. If the drop turns blue, then starch has been added to the curd to increase the volume of the product.
Natural curd has a uniform granular consistency. Too soft, sticky cottage cheese implies the presence of excipients or a violation of the storage of the product.
