What is the deal with Goat and Sheep Cheese/Yogurt and Cholesterol

July 10, 2024 10:34 AM

I'm hosting a friend who has high cholesterol and has cut out dairy and eggs from their diet in order to lower the numbers. I'm wondering what the literature says on goat and sheep cheeses and cholesterol, which seem to be better and possibly even positive. More details inside.

My google searches turn up information but I don't know enough about high cholesterol to evaluate it, and I don't want to trust the sources of farms and producers of these products, which is where I'm finding a lot of data. It seems that goat MILK can lower bad cholesterol, and I see articles saying that feta is pretty good as far as cheese is concerned, but I don't understand if that might make it ok. Fortunately friend is visiting us in a country where we have LOTS of goat and sheep butter, yoghurt, and cheeses, so if there is credible medical literature to support indulging, that would be welcome to my friend. Note, we are not looking for general diet advice about cholesterol, just whether it might be ok to eat some goat or sheep butter, yoghurt, and (preferably) cheese. Please include links!

Minor note, the kind of goat cheese we have is not the "chevre" French kind, fwiw.

posted by perrouno to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

This is a complex question that I am actually interested in myself. My doctor said that if you eat cheese, try to stick with goat cheese for cholesterol reasons. That seemed like really weird advice, so I looked into it a little. Basically, they are very similar, but the fats in goat milk are more supportive of the good cholesterol and less likely to make the bad cholesterol. There are also vitamins in there that cow milk doesn't have. Here is a detailed article about it. Also, feta cheese has fat, but it has less fat than other cheeses ex. cheddar, and it's very strongly flavored so you'll probably eat less of it in a serving.

That said, all animal products have cholesterol, and if your personal cholesterol levels seem to be impacted by what you eat (many people's aren't particularly; they are genetic and only respond to meds, or impacted more by triglycerides which are mostly about eating carbs/sugar) then you might want to eat fewer animal foods in general.

That said, people CAN eat whatever they want-- it's always going to be a trade-off somewhere with every food. If you look at the actual dietary guidelines for people with high cholesterol, they never say "go whole plants vegan or just lie down and accept death" they say stuff like "minimize excess animal fat, saturated fats, sugars, etc. and eat more fiber where possible" because they know that people are people and eating is a pleasure of life. I suppose that's the long-winded way to say you are the captain of your own destiny, enjoy your life. Visiting your friends who have access to amazing goat and sheep cheese is probably a pretty good reason to indulge for once.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:50 AM on July 10, 2024 [3 favorites]

This article finds that goat and sheep milk has about 1/3 the cholesterol of cow's milk. However, in general, the current consensus seems to be that dietary consumption of cholesterol isn't a huge (but may be a minor) concern: "The amount of cholesterol in your food doesn’t necessarily translate to the amount of cholesterol in your blood vessels." Saturated fats are currently believed to be a higher risk factor. However, to make things even more complicated, there's a debate over the health effects of full fat dairy products.

As always, the dose makes the poison. A little bit of any food isn't going to harm your friend. What "a little bit" means depends on their personal medical condition, but I can't imagine that tasting a few ounces of cheese a few times would have any meaningful effect on their health, but it might make their trip more enjoyable.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:52 AM on July 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

If your friend made the decision to cut out dairy and eggs to address their cholesterol levels, you should just ask them how they feel about eating cheese made from sheep and goats milk. You won't get the answer from Science^TM, because Science no longer thinks dietary cholesterol is that important.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:56 AM on July 10, 2024 [2 favorites]