TAG | Let’s talk about yak cheese: Study finds it healthy |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Friday, 28 March 2008 | |
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Mamun M. Or-Rashid, from the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada), and fellow colleagues compared the fat content of cheese made from yaks of Nepal with cheddar cheese made from cows in Canada. For those of you not up on your yak knowledge: The yak, or species name Bos grunniens, is a long, shaggy-haired, horned bovine that is found in the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and Mongolia. Yaks are domesticated animals that are herded by farmers, while others are wild animals. Wild males and females stand about 6.5 feet (two meters) in height at the shoulder. Domesticated male yaks are less then 4.9 feet (1.5 meter) in height at the shoulder, and female yaks are about one-third of that size. Wild and domesticated ones are either brown or black in color, with some domesticated ones containing a bit of white color The Or-Rashid team found that yak cheese is lower in overall fat content when compared to the cheese of grain-fed cows. And, it contains three times the levels of omega-3 fatty acids than cheddar cheese. Omega-3 fatty acid is a beneficial fat (“good fat”). The study also found that yak cheese contains high amounts of alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), a type of omega-3 fatty acid that is commonly found in flaxseed, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), another healthy type of fat. Their conclusion, within the researchers' paper, is, “The results suggest that cheese from yak, grazed on Himalayan alpine pastures, may have a more healthful fatty acid composition compared to cheese manufactured from dairy cattle fed grain-based diets.” The researchers think that the differences in the fats in the two types of cheese, which is produced from the milk of yaks and cows, is due to what the animals eat. Cows, which were used in their study, were fed industrial types of grains, while yaks ate pasture grasses and shrubs. The result of their study is written up in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a journal of the American Chemical Society. It is entitled “Fatty Acid Composition of Yak (Bos grunniens) Cheese Including Conjugated Linoleic Acid and trans-18:1 Fatty Acids .” It was released on the ACS website on February 12, 2008. Its authors are Or-Rashid, along with N.E. Odongo, B. Subedi, P. Karki, and B.W. McBride. So if you are trying to reduce your input of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or "bad fat" and increase your input of high-density lipoproteins (HDL), or "good fat," try yak cheese. Of course, yak cheese is more difficult to find in stores than traditional cheeses, such as cheddar cheese. However, many gourmet food stores will carry the exotic cheese. So, "spread" the word, you might even want to yack it up!
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