Is Lappi cheese actually lactose-free?

[lundeen]

My local cheese shop sells two types of lactose-free cheese. I remember that one was called "lappi" from finland. The story goes that the Lapps of finland are lactose intolerant so they invented this cheese.

My question is: Is the modern version actually lactose free and if so how little lactose is actually in the product?

I am not interested in fake cheese products (that are lactose free) so if you know of any other traditional cheeses that are lactose free I would also be keen to know their names.

[Pam]

I wouldn't have thought that any 'proper' cheese was lactose free as it is all made from milk of one sort or another.

I've never heard of Lappi cheese, but I'd be interested to find out more.

[matt]

likewise, never heard of lappi cheese before and would have thought it would need milk of some sort to be "real cheese"

i wait with interest to hear what it is. a quick browse of the www is called for.

[matt]

well that didn't take long

www.fact-index.com/l/la/lappi_cheese.html

made from partially skimmed cows milk. so fairly safe bet it's got lactose and so on in it.

but if someone finds the grail quest results ie real cheese without real milk please let me know.

[lundeen]

If you go to:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/s...per/percent.htm (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper/percent.htm)

you'll see that a number of cheeses can have zero lactose. It seems to me the problem is that there is inconsistency from brand to brand or maybe even batch to batch so its hard to know if the cheese you want to eat is lactose free.

Perhaps Lappi cheese is different because it is consistently lactose-free. I am having a hard time finding info on this issue even on the www. I'll ask the guys at my cheese shop next time I'm there.

[Pam]

I don't think it would help my daughter unfortunately, she is intolerant to milk protein which seems to appear in cheese even when it is lactose free (I've seen veggie cheese with added casein).

[lundeen]

So I went back to the cheese shop to ask about how they knew their cheeses were actually lactose-free. It turns out that the package the cheeses come in actually labels them as lactose-free. Now if they are following Canadian regulations (I'm from toronto) that means they have very low levels of lactose.

Anyway, that's good enough for me to consider them lactose-free. For your information the two traditional cheeses were "Lappi" cheese (which tastes like Mozzerella despite what you might read on the internet) and "Grubec" cheese which is a type of Swiss cheese. So far I've had no problems with them.

I guess this calls for a smiley face :thumbsup: