A War Against Convenience Foods Part 2 - Cheese

     This is probably going to be one of my shortest entries in my convenience foods section, so why don't I take a couple of paragraphs to explain why I'm waging a war on them.  Please note that most of these don't actually have anything to do with cheese.  I'll get to cheese in a bit.
     Convenience foods are three things:  1) they're convenient, 2) they're expensive, 3) they're unhealthy [mostly].  Now, one of those things may seem pretty good, mainly that you think you'll spend less time if you have a box to make your dinner.  I won't argue that box dinners have all the ingredients that you need, except for meat and water.  Heck some of them have the meat now.  But here's the problem, they also have a lot of added salt, chemicals, and soy that you really don't need in your diet.  I'll take a week about soy someday, but for now let's look at the thought process here.
     Any time you buy a box dinner you're buying things you can get off the shelf for a lesser price then mix them together to make the same dinner.  If you buy a chicken and dumplings box dinner, you'll get canned chicken (added salt), canned vegetables (added salt), dried chicken broth  (added salt and chemicals), and what amounts to Bisquick to make your dumplings.  The next time you're tempted to buy a box of this stuff, go find the ingredients to make what you want and weigh it out.  Sure a box of Bisquick might cost more than that box to make 1 dinner, but you can use said box for tons of breakfasts and dinners.  Next week, I'm going to completely deconstruct one of these dinners and tell you what's really there.

     Now on to the cheese.  Not all cheese - shredded cheese specifically.  Why?  Because when I looked at my cheese aisle the day after starting this blog I realized that shredded cheese is, in it's basic form, tricking you.  A bag of shredded cheese that looks the same size of the block of cheese next to it costs exactly the same.  That sounds like a deal until you realize that the bag weighs half as much as the block.  That means that the same amount of cheese is twice as much shredded as it is in a block.
     To make matters worse, the bags of shredded cheese are now kind enough to put announcements like "2 cups" on the bag on the opposite side of the weight.  If you were in scouts or ever listened to anyone who was, you've probably heard the old saying "a pint's a pound the whole world 'round."  When you realize that 2 cups are in a pint and 2 cups are 16 ounces you probably think that 2 cups of cheese is equal to a pound.  Here's the thing.  A pint is a fluid measurement while a pound is a weight measurement.  That means that, though a pint is 16 fluid ounces, that doesn't mean that it's 16 dry ounces.  In fact, the bags labeled "2 cups" also say that they're 8 ounces.
     Ok, so you might now realize that you're paying twice as much for the same amount of cheese, but now you're thinking "But it's already shredded!"  Remember the first part of what convenience foods really are was "convenient."  I can't argue that.  Be honest though, how much is that really worth?  Can't you get a cheese grater and grate a block of cheese?  Heck, can't you teach your kids to do it?  My daughter loves grating cheese.
     The other problem with grated cheese is that it goes bad a lot faster than a block of cheese.  Remember, bacteria and mold only show up on the surface of a product.  That means, if you have a block of a cheese, you have 6 sides that mold can grow on, and honestly, you can cut that mold off when you're ready to use it again.  If you have shredded cheese, every single piece of shred has 2 sides where mold can grow.  Once mold starts to grow, it'll go to another piece and another and another until you have mold everywhere in your bag of cheese and you have to throw away what was left.
     So, the next time you need cheese, buy a one or two pound block instead of an 8 ounce bag of shredded.  Then, get out your grater when it's time to use some shredded cheese; grate what you need, and put the rest back in the fridge in plastic wrap.  If you're a family that uses a lot of shredded cheese and you want a bag, consider a food processor with a shredding blade to get it done quickly.  Or, you can grate the whole block manually and think about how many calories you're burning.

What convenience foods do you use? Comments? Questions? Tweet to @cookingcheap