COSTCO’s Best and Worst Cheeses for Keto

look i love cheese it's honestly one of the reasons i was close to 300 pounds before and one of the reasons i picked up the ketogenic diet during my transformation was because it was a diet that i could actually eat cheese on now as time went on and i learned what i know now i realize that not all cheese is created equal so costco has a wide variety of cheeses so we're going to rip them apart we're going to break down which cheeses are best on the ketogenic diet and which ones you may want to avoid because there's definitely a little bit of nuance when it comes down to the specific kinds of things that are in cheese so let's head on in and we'll bring some of the cheeses back out to the car and go into a little bit more detail with the science now you might be thinking this is just some young whipper snapper with a backwards hat on he doesn't know what he's talking about look i do know some biochemistry i was in the healthcare industry i did lose 100 pounds i came out of that private equity world and got into the world that i'm in now i just have to change my look every now and then when i go into costco so they don't kick me out for doing little videos in there so please bear with me and the little kind of i don't know whipper snapper look oh and if you're doing keto you have to check out thrive market after this video i put a special link down below special access for people to watch my videos okay so anything that you really could think of that's a pantry staple for keto you can get through thrive market and get delivered to your doorstep i have a huge partnership with them i do a bunch of stuff with them so as far as keto fasting any of that stuff goes definitely need to check them out i even have specific keto and fasting grocery bundles that i have created with thrive so you can get things that i would get at the grocery store that simply so please do after you watch this video after you learn all about cheeses check out thrive market trust me it will be worth your time it's awesome okay now let's go shopping the cheese section is so hard to film in because it's always full of people just mesmerized by all the cheese i get it there's a ton in there and there's a lot to choose from hopefully i can make your trip to costco a little bit quicker let's start right out the gate with bree all right so any kind of soft cheese is usually going to have less of a beneficial probiotic bacteria content what that means is you're not getting the same kind of benefit that you would get from a harder cheese that doesn't mean that soft cheese is always bad however on a ketogenic diet you really want to go easy with the soft cheeses so i was a big fan of brie now brie generally is a delicious cheese but because it's not aged very long it's not the best kind of cheese that you want to have on keto so i'm usually going to skip the brie but then when we look at some of these other soft cheeses we see the wonderful creme fraiche and goat cheese so let's talk goat cheese for just a second you see goat cheese is different because it's a different kind of protein i'll explain when we're back in the car when i'm not just having people surrounding you like crazy wondering what i'm doing but it's a different kind of protein which means that it's a different effect in your body altogether okay so it has that 67th amino which sounds like greek to you but that 67th amino that we have in goat cheese which is different from couches makes it have a different effect all together as far as an inflammatory response in the body so short answer with this whole video the best cheese you could possibly get is going to be goat cheese hands down now which goat cheese do we get so i'm going to flip the camera around i'm going to show you the different prices and we'll determine which one's going to be the best bang for the buck the nice thing with goat cheese is goat cheese is goat cheese whether it's organic or not it's pretty much going to be about the same so now we can really look at prices so you got cypress grove 20 bucks for a little thing of it okay then we've got 599 for this well creme fraiche is a little bit different but then we've got this uh here we go the 15 ounce tub for six bucks so if you want spreadable goat cheese that's a pretty darn good way to go but best bang for the buck is this kirkland signature fresh goat cheese it's not organic but you're getting two of these things for 669 really really good bang for the buck now if you're trying to make like a lasagna or something like this and you want to use this in place of ricotta that's definitely going to be the way to go this one's a little bit harder to use because it's a little more firm whereas this one's really soft now personally i have a bunch of this one at home so i'm going to get the other one i'm going to get the soft spreadable because it's a little bit more unique and i've tried this one plus it's from sonoma california which is kind of cool i'm originally from sonoma so it gives me a chance to throw them a little bit of a bone all right now i found some swiss cheese and some gruyere depending on how you want to say that it's a really interesting fact there was a cool study that found that cheese that was ripened or came from cows that were at a higher altitude contained higher amounts of cla probably has something to do with oxygen delivery and all that stuff we can go down the bio camera out but let's take a look at this so therefore if you go with aged high altitude cheese it's even better so when we look at swiss well switzerland is high altitude 3a usually comes from switzerland as well which brings me to the next flavor that we find here in the costco cheese aisle okay we've got this one pound of gray again depends on how you want to say that right that is a really good price a very good quality cheese okay so it's technically not really a swiss cheese it's great from switzerland but uh it's still gonna be a very similar similar flavor just a little bit more sharp so again that price if you like great that is a very very good one for 11 for that so i'm gonna grab one of those then i found a complete gold mine i want you to see this this is really cool because if you look close and you actually read labels you can find some really cool healthy benefits when it comes to cheese now let me touch on real quick the benefit that we get with goat cheese is because it's a different protein it allows us to be able to have more cheese without the negative effect so what if i told you i found something at costco that has three different kinds of cheeses in it that are all like delicacy style cheeses they're all from goat but different flavors look at this okay we've got this spanish cheese selection here so we've got manchego cheese which is sheep's milk okay which is even better than goat milk okay then we've got a straight up goat's milk cheese it's more high quality and then we've got i think i'm saying this right eberko which is sheep goat and cow's milk blend but it's a soft cheese but it's still aged a little bit now it doesn't seem like you get that much but this is a fancy cheese and it's only 9.89 and even says right there okay milk type mixed sheep goat and cow great for entertaining so it's perfect if you're putting it on like a deli platter or you're creating some kind of charcuterie or something like that so this one is definitely a winner i'm going to pick this one up because that is a killer killer price another one you're going to come across a lot is going to be organic cheeses and should you be paying attention to organic cheese if you're going for cow milk cheese yeah organic's going to help you out but the reality is it doesn't mean that it's grass-fed it doesn't mean that it's grass finish it doesn't mean that it's going to have a beneficial omega profile so you're spending a lot more money to get organic cheese when it's still going to be the same kind of problem so what you want to look for is grass-fed grass finished or at least grass-fed not necessarily organic i don't care if the cow is eating organic if it's still eating organic soy so take a look at this one you're going to spend a few more bucks 12.99 and get an organic one where it really doesn't matter all that much that i would rather you just get good quality european cheeses where the quality matters first and foremost and it doesn't necessarily have to be organic the organic is kind of an american thing okay we slap an organic label on things because we have to because we know we have so much adulteration of food but if you get true good imported cheese well they have higher standards than we do those higher standards mean we don't have to pay extra for an organic label we just have to know what we're looking for so don't spend that extra money it's not worth it especially with a soft cheese like a jack or a monterey jack it's not that good cheese and go for the higher quality go for the aged go for the hard cheeses i hope that that is really embedded in your brain by now now we get into the world of the cheddars and the cheddars are kind of wild because you do have to pay close attention to how they are you can have a mild cheddar that's not aged very long or you can have a sharp cheddar this age quite a long time like 15 20 months the longer something is aged the more cultures it has and the more the bacteria content becomes beneficial so we want more aged cheeses of course we know this right well cheddar if you get it from the typical grocery store is not aged very long okay it's usually just kind of adulterated and manipulated to become that cheddar taste so let me show you a couple different cheddars they've got and how to choose the best one so we have this coastal rugged mature english cheddar okay 6.99 for a big block of it aged for 15 months that's really good stuff and we have this kingdom organic aged cheddar traditionally crafted aged in the birth place of cheddar using organic milk from pasture raised cows on small family farms so it's organic but it's also really high quality stuff and it's from the uk so it has all these different designations on it which makes it really good 8.99 so two dollars more and you get one that is actually considered organic not that it matters all that much but truly pasture raised we don't know about with this one even if we look at the label there's not much there okay so this is really clean stuff like if we look at the ingredients of it we have organic pasteurized cow's milk salt starter culture rennet that's it so i would go for this aged cheddar spend two dollars more in this particular case because it's that much cleaner then we move into kerrygold kerrygold in the keto world has gotten a huge name because they were the original sort of grass-fed grass-finished butter but a lot of recent publications have come out and said no they're not really grass-fed grass finished so now we have kerrygold cheese it is good cheese when you're at a regular supermarket but when you're at a place like costco that has tremendous choices then it's a different ball game okay so let's take a close look at what this shows and also what you pay for because you're paying for the name ireland cows graze on the green pastures of small family farms this milk is churned to make kerrygold butter and cheeses they don't specifically say that's what they are doing with kerrygold it says in ireland cow's gravy that's a pretty bold statement that's like saying hey uh i sell cars and in america cars are made in really high quality plants but it doesn't mean that mine is it just it doesn't matter so i like kerrygold i like their brand overall but i think it's a bit deceptive and when you have better quality choices like that it's kind of a no-brainer good news for gouda fans okay amber my wife is the gouda queen she's always loved gouda she doesn't like smoked gouda and word to the wise smoked cheeses are usually not as good anyway they usually actually kill off some of the benefit i can go into detail a little bit later really want me to but they have this dutch traditional gouda cheese which is 579 a pound and i'll flip around i'll show you and i'll explain why gouda is so awesome gouda which is not necessarily aged very long like i don't know how long this one is aged imported from holland uh the nice thing is gouda is the highest k2 vitamin k2 cheese you need vitamin k2 to absorb vitamin d so on a ketogenic diet you're getting all these good fats in that could synthesize vitamin d properly but without vitamin k2 they're useless vitamin d does not get into the bone does not do its job unless k2 lets it in so if you're eating cheese what good is calcium and k2 from the cheese or excuse me what good is calcium and vitamin d from the cheese if you don't have k2 to get it in so gouda is going to be a calcium balancer too much calcium in the body causes a problem it's excitatory so what that means is it triggers your body to be tense we don't want it it's the opposite of magnesium it's not calcium deficiency that's a problem it's too much calcium calcification of the arteries things like that this calcium too much of it is the problem we need calcium in our teeth but we need vitamin k2 as well so gouda is a great cheese for that now here's another one i found we have aged gouda in this one which is aged over a year and this one is 8.99 a pound so a couple dollars more but you get the benefit of the gouda being the vitamin k2 and it being aged kind of a win-win really this might be the best cheese here at costco so i like the soft gouda amber likes the soft gouda but this one's going to be a little bit healthier but i'll go ahead and i'll grab the gouda just because i feel like it's a great cheese anyway even though it's soft so let's go ahead and grab that sucker and that's pretty damn cheap all right pizza fans i might be breaking your heart mozzarella is probably not the best cheese in the world it's hardly aged at all but if it's really good and clean it's going to be a better cheese than like some of the sliced mozzarella that's not real mozzarella you want to get the mozzarellas truly in water however when you're at costco they have some options in the mozzarella category that make things even better granted it's a couple bucks more but trust me it is so unbelievably worth it they have buffalo mozzarella flown in weekly from italy buffalo is a different fatty acid profile it has higher conjugated linoleic acid which has been shown to be very beneficial when it comes to weight loss also an anti-inflammatory omega but this is not a bad price 12 bucks for a little over a pound of good quality buffalo mozzarella and buffalo at least in the states usually have to be fed grass now i don't know what the standards are in italy with this but if you're looking to make some kind of caprese or something like that you were so much better off spending two dollars more in getting buffalo mozzarella okay so you can see the cheeses that i've picked out here so far we're really on a good roll that's not to say that mozzarella is not terrible it's just usually soft and it's usually not going to have all the benefits that you're going to get from other cheeses remember cheese can be a health food if it's done properly now as we expand we get a little bit further i just found some feta let's talk feta it's easy to say hey let's just go ahead and get these feta crumbles because they're 7.49 or let's go ahead and get this feta in brine look it feta is feta to some degree but if you can get feta that is sheep feta 100 pure sheep's milk once again the highest quality cheese that you can get now let me tell you a fun little fact goat milk and sheep's milk is high in mcts yes medium chain triglycerides do you know what that means that means that goat milk and sheep's milk is the most ketogenic food that you could possibly eat it is actually an mct okay it's the most ketogenic cheese i mean you could eat straight coconut oil and it would be very ketogenic but we're talking some good stuff here so pure sheep's milk sheep feta is going to be the best thing that you could have for like a salad or making a dressing or some kind of greek salad something like that you know a greek salad would be super effective because not only are you getting the really good quality proteins getting the mcts but you're also getting the vitamin d from the olives you're getting things like that so making a greek salad on keto is phenomenal it's something you definitely should consider doing now it doesn't mean that all these other fetas are bad but you have to look you have to really read them like check this out not all shetta is made from sheep okay look at this look closely artisan cheese maker blah blah blah blah blah we use only milk from cows not treated with rbst not the fetid you want it's not the same what about this one premium authentic greek feta cheese okay this one is sheep's milk so this one's good to go but it's a lot more expensive okay 28 ounces but you're paying for the brine okay 21 ounces with no brine this one's the way to go for sure the one that i grabbed okay that's the one we want so try to chill on that one show on that one just because it's a big name doesn't mean it's good go for that one all right queso fresca alfresco excuse me uh great cheese okay in moderation not a super high quality cheese you want to be having a lot of it's a soft white colored cheese so it's uh it's made from pasteurized milk usually right this is going to be just the kind of the same kind of cheese nice thing is it can be crumbled and it's used in mexican dishes a lot but it doesn't mean that it's an amazing cheese it's just something you want to have in moderation parmesan all right so parmesan is considered a functional food okay so food technology and pharmacology published something to show that they consider it a healthy functional food because it's biologically active okay because it's aged so long because the kind of cheese that it is it becomes a healthy functional cheese that actually has some benefits so we really want to lean into the parmesan as much as we can okay whenever you can get good quality parmesan now a couple things to note imported parmesan italy like product of italy requires that parmesan is made from a2 milk okay this means it's required that it comes from cows that have not gone through what is called a genetic mutation that we experience here in the u.s mainly okay so most u.s cows are what are called a1 milk a1 protein you have to take my word for it's complicated but a1 protein triggers a different response within the body okay a2 milk is hard to come by in the states but in europe it's a lot more prevalent so this for instance we've got parmigiana and this is straight from italy but it's still a kirkland signature white label brand that you can save a heck of a lot of money on 1349 for an aged cheese it's going to take you a long time to go through now if you want to go a little bit more upscale you can go with an organic certification okay this one is going to be let's see where is this one out of i don't even know but this one's aged for 24 months which is pretty impressive so not only does the aging process allow for more bacteria to be present but it also allows for the proteins to break down more making it easier for you to digest this is a big thing if you're someone that's like lactose intolerant and you're trying to introduce cheeses like you know sparingly parmesan usually isn't going to cause an issue for people that are lactose intolerant believe it or not which means it's a very very beneficial thing so i'm going to grab this parmesan because it's the way to go in my opinion and i've saved the best for last the best cheese that you could probably get at costco right now if you're looking for just the highest quality literal healthy cheese is going to be peccarino now pegarino is parmesan in essence but made from sheep so if we hit all the marks or what i don't even know how long this one's aged nine months so look at this one okay so with this pecorino we hit all the marks okay aged for nine months made from sheep's milk kirkland's signature brand so it's affordable at 6.99 a pound that is so amazing so not only is it cost-effect effective it is truly what we want okay it's an amazing taste it's just sheep's milk so it's that a2 protein i mean it doesn't get any better than this now there's a couple cheeses here that aren't really uh in this area that i couldn't really talk about like munster i wanted to talk about so i'll touch on that for a second munster cheese is the second highest in vitamin k2 okay so mustard cheese although a soft cheese it might cause you a little bit of gastric distress but it's a very good quality cheese i'm gonna see if they have some monster over in another area let me real quick show you the blue cheese just so that you have an idea blue cheese has a lot of bacteria in it that's why it's blue that's why it's the way it is so you just want to go easy on it okay try to go for one that's a little bit more firm okay like this point raised blue is pretty darn good it's 12.79 a pound though pretty expensive now this chemisola i think is how you say it that might not be a bad way to go you're still going to get like a blue cheese type style but it's really soft so if you're looking for true good quality blue cheese you want to go with this harder one that's going to be the point raised blue but again not the greatest cheese there is however out there i don't think it's that costco a goat's milk blue cheese i think i've seen it at costco before just gonna take a quick trip over to the non-specialty cheese section because i think they have some monster slices there and we can break them down so we can kind of compare the difference between munster cheese that is going to be uh potentially processed because it's in a different area so we're walking over here let's take a look you see costco does a good job of making sure that cheeses are in different areas so that people that know what they're looking for know to pay attention because these kinds of cheeses aren't going to be the best ones generally but let's break it down i found a few here it's a little bit more affordable different styles let's take a look really quick no artificial flavors let's see what's in this havarti here i mean it's clean pasteurized milk salt that's really it havarti is a soft cheese now there is some evidence that shows that when the beta casomorphins are broken down from somta cheese and havarti you get a little bit of a positive benefit they get broken down into different microbes and different vitamins so havarti is not one that you might want to choose a lot it is a very soft cheese but man is it delicious and it is a nice treat every once in a while it is like the perfect sandwich cheese if you're using some keto bread or something like that it's just perfect then i found this organic medium cheddar just because it's organic doesn't mean that it's great it does say it's pasture raised on family farms um so as far as price goes let's see 10.79 that's not the best price and it's nice it's already sliced so as far as like the sliced cheese category goes this one's not a bad price but the higher quality cheese is definitely the cheddar that i already got i'm gonna pass because i don't need to get more cheese but that one would be good to go this tillamook i'll tell you right now is pretty much garbage so don't bother that this variety pack is still semi-processed so don't bother with that then this joel's jarlsberg light kind of a benefit here of course whenever it's a light cheese it's going to be processed a little bit because they're going to be removing the fat out of it but what's cool is still a swiss cheese and still authentic swiss cheese that's actually let's see distribute it no this isn't even really made in switzerland so if it's not coming from cows that are actually in switzerland or at high altitude it's not going to get you much benefit but there is one benefit that comes with swiss cheese let me show you your sodium kind of a cool thing to do just to enjoy this cheese but this is also a light one i mean if you're looking for just a lower calorie cheese yeah it's good to go obviously keto friendly lower sodium so if you were trying to get ready for photoshoot or look really really good and drop the salt a little bit this wouldn't be a bad cheese to get personally i'm not the biggest swiss fan i think it kind of lacks flavor in my opinion but that's just me sonoma jack uh basically semi-processed i don't want to bother with that provolone the last one i want to look at okay let's see here if you're going to get provolone just get one that's not smoked so crafting wisconsin cultured pasture clean ingredients pretty straightforward but um let's see what we got here aged for 60 days so not bad still better options if you're going for provolone i'd rather go for munster okay it's gonna be similar taste in a lot of ways but you're going to have a lot more benefit sorry about my headphone there you're gonna have a lot more benefit as far as what you're getting with vitamin k2 and actually being able to deliver calcium to the proper place so there you have it munster over the provolone let's go check this stuff out and i'm gonna have a house full of cheese don't go away yet we're gonna do a quick little recap when we're in the car here so that you know exactly why you have a quick little recap to be able to jot some notes down okay so you might want the play-by-play without having to ride through the whole video so anyway let's go and break it down griez makes the cut because it's very high in conjugated linoleic acid which is good for overall weight loss this comes from cows that are raised at high altitude so that one made the cut okay then we went with the kingdom organic cheese this is the cheddar choice okay it's organic plus it's pasture raised from small farms and is aged for i can't remember how long it says something like 10 or 12 months which makes it phenomenal for a cheddar then we have the goat cheese high in mcts so a very very ketogenic cheese plus this one's spreadable which just makes it amazing and bang for the bucket was like six bucks super awesome in the cheese front okay then we have the sheep's feta you have to pay close attention with feta remember that okay it doesn't always equal what you think okay feta could be coming from cows which doesn't really help us much we want sheep feta so we get the good kind of casein protein and so we get the mcts okay now we go to mozzarella route mozzarella needs to be buffalo mozzarella why higher standards better fat profile and it tastes a heck of a lot better it is a couple dollars more but it's so worth it okay parmesan needs to be parmesan from italy because parmesan from italy uses cows that have the a2 casein protein a different kind of cow milk that is much better for cheese than what you're typically going to get in parmesan that's made in the states this kirkland stuff is a good price and it's brought over from italy now gouda which is so awesome because gouda is an amazing cheese because of its vitamin k2 content super high vitamin k2 means that the calcium that's in the cheese is actually getting into the bones properly meaning it's doing its job okay so we went with that one then i found this nice little find which was a tri-blend of spanish cheeses that were all from sheep goat or maybe a slight hybrid of sheep goat cow that is so cool because there's a really good price and if you want to look fancy while still making sure that you are eating the right cheeses and doing the ketogenic diet the right way this is the way to roll then last but not least the best overall winner was the pecorino romano okay this is true good quality italian aged cheese nine months for six bucks and it's cheap milk that is exactly what you want my friend so anyhow thank you for watching don't forget to like subscribe like subscribe comment whatever the whole shebang see you tomorrow

Channel: Thomas DeLauer

Views: 47,891

Rating: 4.9286847 out of 5

Keywords: cheese review, best and worst types of cheese, cheese reviews, different types of cheese, grocery shopping, grocery haul, healthiest types of cheese, best types of cheese, is cheese good for you, is cheese healthy, cheeses you shouldnt eat, cheese you shouldnt put in your body, costco reviews, parmesan cheese, grocery haul healthy, cheese haul, grocery store cheese, healthiest type of cheese, thomas delauer, COSTCO's best and worst cheeses, keto, keto cheese, costco

Id: aX01JQLocJ0

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 20 2020