Processed Cheese

Processed Cheese: Nutrition and Complete Guide

Processed cheese — known technically as "pasteurised processed cheese" or "pasteurised process cheese food" — is manufactured by blending natural cheeses (most commonly cheddar, Colby, and similar American cheeses) with emulsifying salts (sodium phosphate, sodium citrate), water, additional dairy ingredients (whey, skimmed milk powder), and sometimes flavourings and colouring. The mixture is heated, emulsified, and poured into moulds or formed into slices. The resulting product has unique properties not found in natural cheese: it melts extremely smoothly and uniformly without becoming oily or stringy (because the emulsifying salts disperse the fat evenly throughout a water-protein matrix); it has a long shelf life; and it has very consistent, predictable flavour and texture. These properties made processed cheese enormously commercially successful — Kraft developed the modern form in 1916, and it became central to American food culture through military ration inclusion in World War I and II and subsequent mass marketing. James L. Kraft patented his pasteurisation process for cheese in 1916.

Nutritional Value and Context

Processed cheese provides 376 kcal and 22.2 g of protein per 100 g, with 31.2 g of fat. Calcium at approximately 600 mg per 100 g is good, partially from the added dairy solids. Sodium is higher than natural cheese due to the emulsifying salts. The nutritional quality of processed cheese is reasonable — the protein and calcium are genuine — though the extensive processing, additives, and sodium content place it a significant step below natural cheese from a food quality perspective. It excels in cheeseburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, and nacho cheese sauce where its smooth melting behaviour is specifically required.

Processed Cheese in more detail

Processed cheese is a genuine piece of food engineering, and understanding what it is makes both its uses and its label make sense. Real cheese is an emulsion held together by a calcium-bound casein network; heat it and that network contracts, squeezing out fat and water — which is why melted cheddar goes greasy and stringy rather than smooth.

Processed cheese solves that by adding emulsifying salts, typically citrates or phosphates such as E339i - Monosodium phosphate and E331ii - Disodium citrate. These strip calcium out of the casein network and let the protein disperse properly, producing a cheese that melts to a smooth, uniform sauce and re-solidifies without splitting. That is the entire reason a cheese slice melts the way it does on a burger and a slice of cheddar does not.

The technique dates to Swiss patents of 1911 and is not inherently a mark of low quality — the same principle, applied by hand with sodium citrate, is how many chefs now make the smoothest possible macaroni cheese from good cheddar. What varies enormously is what else goes in: some processed cheese is largely real cheese plus emulsifying salts, and some contains a great deal of added water, milk powder and vegetable oil. The ingredients list, in order, tells you which you have.

Under UK labelling rules a product with less than a specified cheese content cannot be called cheese at all — hence “cheese food” and “cheese slices” as terms.

Nutrients worth knowing about

Per 100 g this page shows 371 kcal, 18.13 g protein, 31.79 g fat, 18.06 g saturated fat and 4.18 g of salt.

That salt figure is the one to take away, and it is the highest of any food in this section by a wide margin — roughly double a Camembert and around two-thirds of the entire 6 g daily maximum in 100 g. Salt is not incidental in processed cheese: it works with the emulsifying salts to control texture and keeping quality, which is why reduced-salt versions are a genuinely difficult product to make.

It supplies Calcium, Phosphorus, Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin), Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) and Vitamin A. The added phosphate emulsifying salts also make it a notably concentrated source of phosphorus — relevant to anyone with reduced kidney function, for whom EFSA has explicitly said the phosphate group ADI does not apply.

These figures describe the American-style generic product our source dataset records. UK processed cheese slices are typically a little lower in salt; check the pack, because the range across brands is wide.

Other processed and hard cheeses