In my house, we like to keep laughing cow cheeses around for snacks. You can find them on most grocery store shelves advertised as a lighter cheese option.
I find them pretty satisfying for only 35 calories per wedge. But, how is it possible to keep the calories so low?
Ingredients
1 Wedge of Light Laughing Cow Cheese: Light Cheddar, Cheddar, Swiss and Semisoft Cheeses (Cultured Milk and Skim Milk, Salt, Enzymes), Whey, Cream, Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate, Salt.
The ingredients are comparable to other soft cheese spreads like cream cheese. The only unnatural ingredients are the sodium phosphate and sodium citrate which are both preservatives. Sodium phosphate is typically used to preserve meats, and is a healthier preservative to use than nitrites. Sodium citrate is regarded as safe since it is just the salt of citric acid.
Light Laughing Cow Cheese Nutrition Facts
As you can see, one wedge is very light, and adds a very small amount of calories to your diet. The main negative nutrition fact is that one wedge contains 210 mg of sodium. This is quite a bit for such a small piece of food. For the average person, it is recommended to eat less than 2400 mg of sodium per day.
The added bonus of this cheese is that one wedge delivers 8% of your daily needs for calcium. This is higher than I would expect for a small piece of cheese.
Taste
Light Laughing Cow Cheese has six different flavors: creamy swiss, garlic and herb, French onion, blue cheese, mozzarella with sun-dried tomato and basil, and queso fresco and chipotle.
My favorite is the French onion. It tastes the most like a real cheese to me. The others all taste a little artificial or have some kind of slight chemical aftertaste. Other people I know do not think so. They love all the flavors and detect no chemical taste.
Conclusion
I don’t like a lot of additives in my food, or preservatives, but for this particular product, I still consider it an option to include in a healthy diet. Plus, I don’t buy Light Laughing Cow Cheese all of the time. I do try to stick to real cheeses, but smaller amounts. That is how they keep the calories so low with this product–the serving size. One wedge is only 21 grams, and can be eaten in just a few bites.
What do you think? Would you include this product in a healthy diet?
Your body actually only NEEDS 1200mg of sodium a day. Eat more than that and you will find you retain a lot of water weight.
In Canada Laughing Cow Light a portion is 2 wedges (33g) and is 45 calories for a portion with 4g of protein, 10% of your daily calcium needs and 200 mg of sodium in that portion.
All cheeses have a high sodium content, so if you really want or need to watch your sodium, you have to keep track of what you eat with a food diary or an online calorie calculator that can also track your sodium consumption.
I agree that Laughing Cow has a slight artificial taste and this is one reason I won’t eat. The other reason is that it’s to expensive and I would rather have a small amount of real cheese.
I love Laughing Cow but I can eat the whole wheel, that’s why I can’t keep them in the house.
Hi !
There (in france) “la vache qui rit” cost about 8€/Kg (or less) and nearly 10€/Kg for the light version (prices on internet, so it’s cheaper in the supermarkets)
We buy it occasionally, but we only have the plain/unflavoured (creamy Swiss? I’ll have to look at the container) stuff up here (Canada). I don’t find it expensive if you buy the large wheel at Costco, it’s maybe $8 for a zillion pieces (or maybe 32).
It’s okay. I don’t really like the texture on its own, but spread on a cracker it’s tasty. I sure wouldn’t be able to overindulge in it, like I would with “real” cheese.
I eat this cheese because its low in calories as I only count calories. My diet has been so bad in the past that I intend to add one healthy thing each week.
I love cheeses! Especially gouda and chedar, but these kinds of cheese like The Laughing Cow is, are totally unhealthy because they contains a lot of salt and phosphor. I haven´t eaten it for a year!
I have never tried it, but that’s only because it’s so pricey. I prefer to use real Parmesan or Romano cheese because it’s very strong and I can use a small amount for a lot of flavor with not so many calories. I suppose if I wanted to use cheese as a spread for something, I’d try the Laughing Cow cheeses.
I love Laughing Cow cheese but it’s so expensive! I’d rather spend my money on the real thing and just use less. Strong cheeses are definitely best for this like good Parm or gruyere.
I’m a huge cheese fan. One thing I like to do is add a teaspoon or two of grated parmasean cheese (regular not fat free)to dishes like pasta. It really has a pretty intense cheese flavor for the 30 or so calories spent.