Once upon a time, in a land where Lego blocks built castles and Barbie dolls posed as princesses, you believed that the moon, a not-so-far away secondary planet, was made of green cheese.

Unfortunately, Neil Armstrong disproved the myth when you learned in the fourth grade that it was only the color of the moon that was similar to cheese. Holes that resembled cheese spores on the rock’s surface were only craters. The moon was, in fact, not made of any cheese.

Now that you’ve outgrown the belief that the moon is made of dairy products, you are probably more concerned with cheese myths that address the contents of cheese, where it comes from and how it affects people who eat it. Local dieticians take a crack at a couple of common misconceptions circulating the practice of cheese-making and cheese consumption.

*Cheese is made from the inside of a cow’s stomach: False … Kind of*

The simple answer is no. Cheese is made from milk. According to Leia Weston, an extension educator for Nutrition and Wellness, sometimes cheese-makers use enzymes to enhance the taste of the cheese.

“The enzymes are the material used to make the cheese ripen and those come from the inside of the stomach,” Weston said.

Meanwhile, Vijaya Jain, dietician at the University, provides an example of a cheese-making process in which cheese makers use enzymes.

“It is an enzyme that they use called Rennet drawn from the lining of the intestine,” Jain said. “Not all cheese is made with Rennet. That is the case in which cheese is made from an animal source.”

*If there is a small amount of mold on the cheese, it can be scraped off and the rest of the cheese will be salvaged: True*

Beware, the true tag comes along with fine print.

While Rebecca Roach, teaching associate for Food Science and Human Nutrition, suggested that removal of mold should save most of your cheese, Jain said she was inclined to throw it away. Both answers are true depending on the type of cheese you consume.

Weston explains the difference between salvageable cheese and cheese you should dispose of.

“If it is soft cheese like feta, Brie, crumbles or blue cheese you cannot just take it out,” Weston said. “That cheese has spores and the mold will probably spread.”

On the other hand, hard cheese will do well when it molds. Cut off an extra inch past the area of mold and the rest of the cheese will be fine, Weston advised.

*Lactose intolerant people cannot eat cheese: False*

Tolerance to cheese all depends on the individual.

According to Jain, lactose intolerant people often tolerate dairy products like yogurt and cheese. Weston explains that many can tolerate cheese because a lot of the lactose is fermented and converted to another form during the making of the food.

Therefore, the little lactose in cheese does not bother a lactose intolerant person’s stomach so much.

“A small amount of cheese is better than drinking a glass of milk,” Weston said.

*Cheese is high in fat: True*

“Cheese is protein in (the form of) fat,” Roach said.

Although cheese does carry literal baggage, it also provides plenty of nutrients which are essential for a healthy body. Also, the choice of cheese could largely cut down or drive up your caloric intake.

“The hard cheeses like cheddar are high in fat,” Jain said. “Other cheeses — like mozzarella — you can get them in varying degrees of fat.”

Yet, the lower the fat content of the cheese, the more you compromise the taste of the original cheese, Weston warned.

“You can find two percent versions of cheddar and sometimes you can even find fat free,” Weston said. “Those are not very good.”

For the healthy-conscious, cheese can still be a part of the daily diet.

According to government recommendations, a serving of cheese that corresponds to drinking a glass of milk is about an ounce and a half of hard cheese.

“That is the equivalent of about six dice of cheese,” Weston said.

_Lyanne is a freshman in Media._