Yak cheese is high in heart-healthy fatty acids

Yak cheese is high in heart-healthy fatty acids

Is there a web site for everything?

Apparently not. I just looked for “awebsiteforeverything.com” and that site doesn’t exist. Yet.

But other than that, there are web sites for just about everything. For instance, yak cheese has a web site: tibetcheese.org. And the site is worth a visit if you want to see a picture of a cute kid beside a couple of wheels of yak cheese or get a recommendation for which wines this semi-soft cheese goes best with.

But you’ll find the really good news about yak cheese at the web site for the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

This past March, JAFC published a study in which researchers from Canada and Nepal compared the fatty acid composition of yak cheese to dairy cow cheddar cheese purchased in a Canadian grocery store.

Results: Yak cheese contained three times as much omega-3 as the cheddar, and four times as much conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) – the fatty acid that’s been shown to help increase lean body mass.

There’s no mystery why yak cheese has such high fatty acid levels: The cheese is made from milk taken from animals that spend their entire lives grazing on high plateau grasses in the Himalayas. That’s why the cheddar might have compared much more favorably if it had been made from milk taken from dairy cows that were free to roam grassy pastures.

You’ll probably only find yak cheese in specialty cheese shops. But make sure it’s imported from Nepal. There are yak herds in the U.S. that may not be raised free-range.

Sources:
“Fatty Acid Composition of Yak (Bos grunniens) Cheese Including Conjugated Linoleic Acid and trans-18:1 Fatty Acids” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Vol. 56, No. 5, 3/12/08, pubs.acs.org