Gouda? I thought it was tofu!

Sweetface and I are lucky enough to live near my parents, and visit them on the weekends pretty regularly. A couple of weekends ago, Dad walked into the TV room where we were watching a movie, with a strip of about five string cheese packets clutched in one hand. This is not an unusual snack for him, and when he was on the Atkins diet, it didn’t seem to affect his weight loss. But now that he’s on the “Dad eats what Dad wants” diet, I worry about his cholesterol and high blood pressure.

“Dad, you eat a lot of cheese,” I say to him, trying not to be confrontational about it. Stating my concerns as if maybe he didn’t notice.

He said, “You ain’t the boss of me. I’ll do what I want.” Okay that’s not exactly what he said, but except for the liberal sprinkling of profanities, that was the gist.

When I talked to him this Sunday about maybe coming over to visit next Saturday, he asked, “Oh. Is that when we’re having my Cheese Intervention?

“No, Dad.”

Just because Dad isn’t annoyed enough with me and my failed Cheese Intervention, I have analyzed the Nutritional Information on a package of string cheese. Aside from the fact that 50 calories of the string cheese is from fat, one serving of string cheese is a pretty healthy snack.

Even two servings, isn’t really so bad, unless someone is watching their sodium intake. But ingesting 5 string cheeses means you’ve eaten 400 calories, 30 grams of fat and a whopping 1200 grams of sodium. Not to mention the fact that 30 grams of fat is nearly half the amount of fat that the government thinks people on a 2,000 calorie diet should have for the entire day.


Serving Size 1 piece 28 grams





For comparison I will link to the McDonald’s website, and the Nutritional Information on the Quarter Pounder (R). Note that there are slightly more calories, but about half as much fat. And the walk to the McDonald’s is much further than the walk to the refrigerator.

I know that my Dad will probably tell me that he doesn’t want the government all up in his deli drawer. But I have to say that if I end up taking care of him in his old age, he’s going to eat low fat, sugar free rice pudding and do Tai Chi and like it.