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A History of Individually Wrapped Cheese Slices (1979) [pdf]
- gdfasfklshg 8y agoGiven the problems with plastic waste how can anyone justify individually wrapped cheese slices? (Constructive answers only please. I am genuinely interested in seeing if there are any arguments in favour.)
- Hnrobert42 8y agoIndividually wrapped cheese slices could lead to less spoilage.
- gdfasfklshg 8y agoThis is potentially true. As far as I can see from the article this is only achieved by the use of preservatives. I wonder if similar results in limiting spoilage could be achieved using different preservatives without the wrapping?
- Doxin 8y agoExcept in practice individual slices all go bad at (roughly) the same time. If a block of cheese goes moldy you can just slice off the mold and keep going. Cheese goes bad outside-in, pre-sliced cheese has way more surface area.
- paulie_a 8y agoAs someone from Wisconsin it is wrong to even call that stuff "cheese". The plastic wrapping and the contents are pretty much the same thing.
- sithadmin 8y agoMeh, this is just snobbery. Processed American cheese is still in fact a cheese, and whether you like it or not, it has its place.
- paulie_a 8y agoIt has its place. It is called the garbage.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoIsn't it technically a "processed cheese product"? Why eat something so intensely boring, when there is so much great cheese out there?
- YinglingLight 8y agoTake pride in what you create, rather than what you consume.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoI make amazing food, using quality ingredients.
- Pfhreak 8y agoI used to agree with you. Then I read this: https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/07/whats-really-in-american-cheese.html https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/07/whats-really-in-american... The answer to your second question is: Texture. The way process (not "processed") cheese melts is definitely different than similar cheeses. There's a gooeyness and meltability that's unique for applications like a grilled cheese or burger, and good process cheese is just cheese that's been melted with a few salts. It turns out there are many different American cheeses: Pasteurized Process Cheese - Various cheeses melted together with an emulsifying agent. Pasteurized Process Cheese Food - Mostly cheese, but with a higher % of 'the other stuff'. Pasteurized Process American Slices - Not actually cheese. A vegetable oil horrorshow.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoPotentially less spoilage, because it would be limited to just one slice, and also less risk of smelly fingers. It's simply a convenience and comfort issue for a lot of people. We've gotten used to pre-sliced, pre-portioned food products. There's also a big convenience benefit for breakfast buffets and similar situations where slicing your own cheese is seen as inconvenient, messy and time-consuming. Personally I don't even like to buy pre-sliced cheese, never mind individually packaged slices. I have a perfectly reasonable cheese slicer, and a cheese knife for softer cheeses. We absolutely do not need plastic packages with 10 slices of cheese, separated by individual plastic sheets. Most of the time the pre-sliced cheese also tastes worse, and tends to go sour-smelling after a day or two, once the package is opened. I find it extremely puzzling that we've managed to turn a thing meant to preserve dairy potentially for years, into something prone to spoiling extremely quickly. There's a similar issue with pre-sliced serrano ham and other meats that are packaged with plastic sheets between them. Sure, it helps you to take out a single slice cleanly, but the plastic waste is insane. I'm not sure if there's a better packaging solution, but honestly I would just prefer to buy a whole piece of cured ham, and slice off thin pieces myself instead.
- icc97 8y ago> where slicing your own cheese is seen as inconvenient, messy and time-consuming > Personally I don't even like to buy pre-sliced cheese, never mind individually packaged slices. I have a perfectly reasonable cheese slicer, and a cheese knife for softer cheeses. We absolutely do not need plastic packages with 10 slices of cheese, separated by individual plastic sheets. Perhaps it's just a weird English mature cheddar thing, but half the joy of eating cheddar is trying to make nice clean slices and eating the extra bits that crumble off. If I'm making a sandwich only half the cheese I cut off goes into it, I eat the other half.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoOh yes, definitely. Cheese is just full of savory goodness, I hate to let even a tiny piece go to waste. So what if it crumbles? It'll still fit on my bread just fine, and still taste just the same :-)
- whywhywhywhy 8y agoFor cheeses like Edam, Gouda, Emmental you can't really, they work absolutely fine stacked in a multipack. But for that sort of fake American cheese that melts beautifully onto burgers if you shipped them packaged together the slices would merge together in a warm kitchen in my experience.
- megaman22 8y agoWith the American cheese, I've found that the white has a higher melting point than the orange, usually, so a big block of sliced white american cheese holds up well. I don't really have any idea why that would be the case, but it's definitely been my experience.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>I've found that the white has a higher melting point than the orange, usually, so a big block of sliced white american cheese holds up well. This is my experience as well. I still buy the yellow cheese because its lower melting point is more suitable for rapidly melting over things I want to melt it over. Even though the theoretical shelf life may be the same regardless of packaging the block of cheese in a ziplock from the deli will go bad faster than wrapped singles, probably extra air (the same way bread in a large container goes stale faster than bread in a bag) and possibly because of a difference in preservatives. In practice singles have a much longer shelf life. Everything has tradeoffs.
- adrianN 8y agoIs plastic waste that much of a problem in first world countries? We're pretty diligent with transporting our garbage to landfills where the plastic doesn't really do all that much harm. It was my impression that the vast majority of all plastic waste that ends up in the ocean comes from countries that don't have proper garbage management, where people just dump everything into the next river.
- gambiting 8y agoI feel like it's an issue because everything is plastic wrapped these days. My local supermarket has plastic bags of apples, where every single apple is individually wrapped in more plastic - just WHY???? not to mention the stupid amount of plastic containers used for ham, cheese, bread....few of which are recyclable. I've had some deserts lately, where the outer packaging was plastic, then there was a plastic tray, holding two plastic cups, each with a plastic cover on top. It's an absolute madness, I feel like I'm shitting right on the environment just by having some dessert. Not that long ago all ham/cheese would come wrapped in some waxed paper. Bread would come in a paper bag. Nowadays I'd estimate 80% of my refuse bag is just plastic. And sure, my recycling bin is full too - but the refuse bags are not going to be recycled, it just goes straight to the landfill, where the best hope for it is that it will be used for fuel at some point, like it is in Scandinavian countries. So yeah sure - it's not going in the ocean. But I don't think we're a lot better at it either.
- Joe8Bit 8y agoIn short, yes. The creation, processing, transportation and recycling of plastics is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions[0] and other forms of industrial pollution like water table pollution from landfills. A conservative estimate[1] puts 10% of all plastics created (from first world countries too) being deposited in the worlds oceans, to disastrous effects[2]. The US economy is one of, if not the largest, contributing factor to the above pacific plastic waste problem. Even if we're better at recycling plastics than some countries (still pretty terrible at only ~10%) and not letting them leak out into the environment, the sheer volume we consume and dispose of still makes the US and other Western countries by FAR the biggest contributors to plastics pollution. 0: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/efficiency/industry/technical-info/benchmarking/plastics/5211 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/efficiency/industry/technical... 1: http://plastic-pollution.org/ http://plastic-pollution.org/ 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
- greggman 8y agoThis topic brings up the issue of wrapping in Japan. Japan is notorious for having excessive wrapping. Individually wrapped cookies in a box with a plastic tray to hold each cookie. The bottom half of the box is sealed with a plastic tear off cover. The top of the box slides over. Then the entire box is wrapped in paper. If you purchase if they will then put it in a branded paper bag. If it's raining they will then put that paper bag in a plastic bag to protect it from the rain. That's 6 levels of wrapping. It's a cultural thing AFAICT. Sure people speak out once in while but it seems unlikely to change without some major major concerted national PR effort against it, getting celebrities, politicians, etc all on board pushing for months or years and possibly even organizing boycotts until things change. But, if someone wants to do their part of make a small dent here well, here's a project you can try to take on.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoFunny, I just wrote a comment on this below. There are some things that are uniquely Japanese that make zero sense. Wrapping is one of them.
- derefr 8y ago> some major major concerted national PR effort against it, getting celebrities, politicians, etc all on board pushing for months or years Why do you need PR when the parties responsible for all this wrapping are corporations? It’s not the dagashi down the street giving you six layers of wrapping. When big corporations are doing something you don’t like, you don’t use PR to fix it. We’ve had plenty of PR about recycling in the US and it’s affected consumers plenty and corporations not—at—all (except where the responsibility ends up in the hands of individual consumers, like office managers.) No, the way to make corporations change their behaviour, is to just make a law about it. For example, a “consumer waste reduction corporate tax incentive.” It’s the bottom line that says that extra wrapping is good (for some reason); so it’s the bottom line that needs to be convinced otherwise.
- chrisseaton 8y ago> When big corporations are doing something you don’t like, you don’t use PR to fix it. > No, the way to make corporations change their behaviour, is to just make a law about it. But for example society in the UK and US (not sure where else) has basically just decided that plastic straws are not acceptable, and major corporations have made huge changes in a matter of months to remove them. That's much faster than implementing a law.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoIf plastic waste on cheese slices bothers you from environmental perspective, please do not google Japanese candy / sweets as those come individually wrapped, packaged in more plastic, inside a box, wrapped by plastic. When I was first introduced to Japanese sweets I could not wrap, tehee, my head around the reasons for why this is happening.
- wingerlang 8y agoMaybe so that you can grab a few on the go, or eat small amounts and keep the rest fresh. At least this is how someone I used to know used super-wrapped stuff.
- sasaf5 8y agoAFAIK the individual wrapping is for sharing the snacks. In east asia you get chastised if you buy a snack for yourself ("are you gonna eat it alone?"). That explains the little plastic trays under the cookies too. Just open the paper box and slide off the tray in front of your friends. But then, isn't it ironic that this group-centered practice leads to a selfish, polluting outcome?
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoI'd be likely to buy such things slightly more often, since I could eat a few and not waste the rest. The way it goes now is that i have packaging anyway that gets thrown out, but half a box of cookies is likely to get thrown out as well. I recycle all of my plastic. I use enough reusable bags that I have to buy trash bags - the current batch is made from corn and is compostable. But through all this, I'm not sure that a responsible plastic being recycled or composted is any worse than throwing out actual food. Additionally, perhaps it would be easier for folks to control their eating with the packaging just because it takes so much longer to eat. My understanding is that the bubble packaging on pills helps to reduce suicide in a similar vein (it deters folks overdosing on pills, at least).
- vinceguidry 8y ago> a small 5# process cheese cooker. Things like this make me wish I had a more rural lifestyle and had the space for stuff like this. Cooking is great and all, you can do an awful lot with just tools you can store in a kitchen. But experimenting with ingredients, and man, tools is a whole 'nother level. YouTube channels like Alex French Guy Cooking where he makes his own mozzarella, worked with other YouTube makers to create the best pasta roller ever made, a massive, amazing meat tenderizing mallet, and just the YouTube makers in general almost have me wanting to rent my one bedroom condo out so I can go live out in the sticks and buy cheap tools like a small 5# process cheese cooker, tear off my shirt and Hulk-transform into a mad scientist.
- cwkoss 8y agoThe post scarcity economy is going to be so cool.
- anonu 8y agoThis is a fascinating history. The trial and process of innovation here is one any engineer can appreciate. Unfortunately individually wrapped cheese goes against two things I've removed or reduced in my life: 1. Processed foods 2. Plastics.
- alliecat 8y agoI can't comment on cheese slices, but as somebody who lives alone and has an appetite resembling a small rodent, I very much appreciate individually wrapped perishables, especially when said wrapping is recyclable/compostable. I throw out a lot less when I can buy large quantities of smaller "perishable units" at once, vesus shopping little and often.