Cheese 'Food' Slices

Don’t you just love cheese slices? The very idea of them fills me with a gladness that someone in their infinite wisdom could come up with a product so tasty and versatile for the great masses to enjoy and yet be scorned in equal measure by food snobs, luddites and the just plain unadventurous.

Yes, they are perceived by all as ‘plastic’ cheese. Due to their ingredient content they have to be called ‘Cheese Food Slices’. Notice the title ‘Food’ in there? That to me denotes an element of manufacture rather than natural process. As such the powers that be state they cannot be perceived as cheese so they add the food nomenclature. They contain, and I quote: Cheese (60%), Water, Whey Powder, Butter, Emulsifying Salts (Sodium Polyphosphate, Trisodium Phosphate), Milk Proteins, Calcium Phosphate, Natural Colours (Beta-Carotene, Paprika Extract)

So the cheese slices, to any that don’t know they are little square slices of very soft, very yellow cheese individually wrapped in their own little plastic envelope. They are the kind of thing you get on a burger at McDonalds. To call them slices may be a little misleading as I don’t think they are actually sliced. It looks to me like they are formed from a little squirt of thick liquid. No matter. They are delicious. I have a preference for the Tesco own brand items, as they have the best taste and consistency. But to be honest I haven’t found a Cheese Slice I didn’t care for.

I have them on toast, on bagels, on burgers, on chicken burgers, on muffins, on their own and in ham sandwiches. In Haslet sandwiches, crisp sandwiches, in chicken sandwiches, chip butties, bacon butties, fish finger sandwiches, fish cake in a bun, poached egg, on chips (if there is no grated cheese to be found), sausage butties, as the cheese in ham and cheese toasties, there are literally thousands of applications for the humble cheese slice.

As an added bonus, they are only 60 Kcal for each little slice. So they are not at all as fattening as they appear. OK they are laden with heart attack inducing cholesterol but you only live once and it’s not as if that’s all you would eat. They are, as well as things like fish fingers and Pot Noodles, considered shit, real food substitutes that should not be consumed. But that is missing the point of these delicacies.

It’s OK to dumb down once in a while, try it you may be surprised.