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Admire the passion
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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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What does Hellman's have to do with mayonnaise though? That nitrogen-pumped piss is mayo the same way those American individually wrapped slices of milk-plastic is 'cheese'.
I'm going to continue to die on this hill: American cheese slices typically have cheddar cheese as the very first ingredient. They are made of real cheese, dairy, and an emulsifier. Basically think of a cheese sauce with a higher melt temp but nobody seems to claim fondue is fake cheese
Are they good though? That's subjective, I think they go great on burgers, grilled cheese, and ramen. Are they plastic or use fake cheese? No. If you want to be accurate while high horsing about it you could call them watered down congealed cheese though
Edit to add: the individually wrapped ones are an ecological nightmare. The deli deluxe ones are higher quality, not individually wrapped, and don't even cost that much more. Or just buy not Kraft they don't need the money anyway and other companies make American cheese slices too. You can even find emulsified cheese slices for other types of cheeses if you want variety on your burgers and grilled cheese
Fondue is literally just shredded cheese. The typical Swiss fondue, la moitié-moitié (half half) is 50% Gruyère and 50% Vacherin + a little bit of potato starch if it’s an industrial one (otherwise it’s only cheese and you add potato starch if you want, it’s only to have a better texture and not mandatory).
Other types are just different cheeses, from a single one up to a mix of 3, varying from regional preferences.
Ingredients of an industrial fondue found in any Swiss supermarket:
You're responding to someone whose point is really clear but to quote an article on the history of American cheese:
This swiss process was then picked up by a canadian by the name of Kraft looking to make a cheese with longer shelf stability for the purpose of being left open at delis for slicing. It was made by melting cheddar chunks together. And stirring.
The term american comes from British snobbiness.
The inability to legally call it cheese comes from the natural cheese lobby. If it matches this criteria it cannot be called cheese:
That having been said american cheese is disgusting and anyone who purposely eats it is insane to me.
So the term "Swiss cheese" for those industrial blocks is legitimate, it’s our fault 😔
American cheese is fine, don't conflate the real cheese (which is just Swiss without aging or bacteria) with Kraft American Cheese Food product.
I've had American cheese that wasn't the processed thing most people think of, just a cheese made from dairy, like any other cheese.
The problem is in labeling - since American cheese can be anything from real cheese to the processed stuff, people don't know what they're getting unless they know the producer.
I am not.
From a "is this edible" standpoint however I will conflate them because neither is edible.
And now I want fondue but the fondue restaurant here is usually booked months in advance.
Sad panda noise 😔
But if you can find the cheese it is really easy to do and homemade one as there’s 2 ingredients; cheese and cheese. Just use a machine to shred it because doing it by hand is not fun.
Since I don’t drink and don’t want to go to another shop to buy shit white wine, I replaced it with cheap blond alcohol free beer, it’s perfect.
A cheap blonde beer is a very good idea, thanks! We have premade mixes (and premade in a bag) here in NL, but I'll be by myself tonight,. I will eat the entire pot of fondue myself. Which I think we all agree, is a bad idea.
I don’t see any problem, say the guy who ate one (400g) alone 3 days ago 🙄
I had Ethiopian instead, but now I feel like I have permission to eat a whole pot of it on my own!
It would probably get much less hate if it was just called "Burger Cheese"
Amusingly I decided to see what my local grocery store has and found this:
TIL Sweden calls it hamburger cheese (I just moved here from the US). I'm pretty sure in the US someone would get shot for trying to take America out of the name though
Apparently the name was provided by British aristocrats. What do you think you, a nobody, are doing by sullying the name set by your betters?
Kraft Singles literally aren't cheese though. Go back and read the label. They're not allowed to call it cheese.
It gives American cheese a bad name as there are some great deli cheeses here that are 10000x better than Kraft
Afaik you make fondue from cheese. You put the different kinds of cheese in and melt them with some wine. That's way closer to just melted cheese than whatever american cheese is
They are not, objectively good, but they are very useful as an emulsifier for cheese sauces. One kraft slice can emulsify a liter or more.
That said, there is something nostalgic about a grilled cheese using cheap American white bread and Kraft slices.
They make a great emulsifier because they are cheese + emulsifier already. They use sodium citrate to emulsify cheddar and other cheeses into American.
You can buy sodium citrate and use that instead
I have a jar of sodium citrate in my pantry and have only pulled it out once since I bought it. I need to be more proactive about my pantry!
But you also have to buy according to your usage pattern. I very rarely use these cheese slices. And the only alternative to the individually wrapped ones here is a pack of ~12. They usually go bad in my fridge before I could use more than 3-4 slices. The individually wrapped ones hold up much longer.
Cheese freezes pretty well, depending on how you intend to use it later (most cheese get a little dry/crumbly).
They must be defrosted gently, unless you intend it to be melted.
That's good to know. Since I buy this type of cheese for it's melting properties, that won't be an issue.
Thanks for that information
Really depends on the brand. Some of them really make a burger pop with a rich cheddar flavor and creamy texture.
That's a good point about the plastic waste in your edit though. I don't eat a lot of cheese because I try to limit animal products, but I feel like they're usually separated with wax paper here. I'm told there are very high taxes on plastic packaging for the manufacturer.
I can't find any reference to nitrogen used in Hellman's mayonnaise. Do you perhaps mean that they fill the airspace at the top of the jar with nitrogen to displace oxygen and increase shelf-life? I believe that's a very safe and common practice in food packaging.
Noooo! Nitrogen is poison! If you breathe pure nitrogen, you'll die!
inb4 libtard scientists saying "hurr durr air is 70% nitrogen" yeah right LIARS
No, not at all. That I'd have no issue with. Now, Hellman's makes a number of different variants IIRC, and I can't tell you which particular one this was as I haven't bought it since, but: I mean 'pumped' as in 'foamy' or perhaps a better term would be 'areated'. Filled with visible bubbles of some gas - I don't actually know whether it was nitrogen or something else, but nitrogen would make sense due to the same reasons you pointed out. I suspect it was done as a shrinkflation strategy to sell the same apparent volume of product, whilst saving on material production inputs. It certainly did nothing beneficial for the texture. I don't really want my "mayonnaise" to feel like poorly whipped cream.
I've seen the same thing done for some cream cheeses, and likely for the same reason. I don't buy those more than once either.
Yeah, I've seen that kind of whipped cream cheese as well. They're always trying some new gimmick. Which I guess on one hand is nice because innovation, but mostly I just think they want people to buy it because it's shiny and new.
Those whipped cream cheeses are easy as fuck to spread on a bagel with the shitty plastic knives they give you. Same stuff, just made spreadable. You can just tear off a chunk and dip it if you want. No change to the taste and the difference in texture is negligible because the bagel is 99% of that.
This is one of the rare processed food "innovations" that's actually good. Regular cream cheese is only for cooking now.
"Pasteurized prepared cheese product"
I hate that I feel the need to chime in every time I see this, but no. Kraft Singles are not only garbage food, they're literally not allowed to call it cheese.
There are some great American cheeses, especially for sandwiches. I really like Cooper Sharp.
What mayo brand do you prefer?
https://www.zaansemayonaise.nl/
Hellmann's:
Zaanse:
Sounds like I'd prefer Zaanse's flavor profile better since they've got celery and mustard in there. but I don't see how Hellmann's is somehow not mayonnaise when comparing the ingredients.
Zaanse is the best Dutch mayo because it doesn't have that much sugar in it, Calvé for instance has more than double the amount of grams per 100ml.
I see Hellmann's is about the same sugar wise as Zaanse.
As a Belgian I grew up with less sweet mayo, like max half a gram of sugar per 100 grams of mayo. So often mayo from other countries taste too sweet.
Sugar? In a mayonnaise? Really?
That's it!
Egg contains sugar, very little hence saying added sugar is noticeable in taste.
Sugar in a recipe means adding sugar that is not in any of the other ingredients
Depending on the vinegar, a touch of sugar is acceptable.
Did I mention vinegar?
I usually make my own. Graasten's is pretty decent.
Heinz's "seriously good"