4 ms·

it's wood pulp. sawdust derivative. aka cellulose. don't buy pre-shredded cheese unless you like replacing up to 10% of your cheese with essentially sawdust at

• whyenot 2y ago
  Cellulose is not "wood pulp" or "sawdust." Only about 50% of sawdust is cellulose. The rest is hemicellulose, lignin, resins, and oils. Any plant material that you eat contains cellulose. It's just about the most benign thing you could add to food as an anti-caking agent. ...not matter what the eater.com article with the attention grabbing headline that you linked to might say.
  • wahnfrieden 2y ago
    I didn't say it's unsafe. The issue is replacing expensive product with filler
• happyopossum 2y ago
  A) Sometimes it's cellulose - corn starch and other anti-caking agents are also used B) it's legally limited to 4%, not 10%
  • wahnfrieden 2y ago
    That's fine to say it is so on paper however the legal limit is not respected with several common household brands testing at 8-9% in last results I can find. They're incentivized to pad the product with anti caking agents to reduce cost, and it is essentially unenforced. Expect this to worsen as FDA is undergoing planned dismantlement.
    • whyenot 2y ago
      Please provide a link to back this up. The Eater.com article you linked to elsewhere is from 2016 and refers to a specific enforcement action where a company plead guilty to food adulteration for adding excessive cellulose to parmesan cheese. Not a great example of something being "essentially unenforced."
    • 0xffff2 2y ago
      Can you link to some of this testing?
      • wahnfrieden 2y ago
        No
• lupusreal 2y ago
  Cellulose is literally not sawdust. It could be made from sawdust, but would be heavily processed and refined, removing lignin/etc.
• bityard 2y ago
  Nope, the shredded cheese I buy uses potato starch. And it's definitely a trace amount, not 10%.