People have become increasingly interested in probiotics over the previous five years. This likely due to the emergence of probiotic supplement and Greek yogurt as the cool kid in the world of dairy. Greek yogurt contains probiotics in case you missed one, of what seems like a thousand,Jamie Lee Curtis Activia commercials where she touts the benefits of probiotics contained in yogurt. There is truth to those commercials according to studies because probiotics do in fact help with digestion. But what about cottage cheese?
Does cottage cheese have probiotics?
The good news is that cottage cheese does have probiotics. The bad news is that it is not in ever cottage cheese product like most yogurt brands. In fact, you will probably have to hunt to find a product with probiotics. In order to identify a cottage cheese with probiotics, you can review the label to see if there is verbiage stating that it has “live cultures“. The label will often list the type of live cultures contained in the product like L. acidophilus, L. thermophilus, B. bufidum, etc.
Live cultures are added to dairy to help with fermentation and/or to provide a health benefit to the consumer. A live culture is considered a probiotic when it supplies a known health benefit to the person eating the product. Some of the benefits of probiotics found through studies include the following:
- Delaying child allergies
- Relief of diarrhea
- Aid in relief of irritable bowel syndrome
- Generally eliminates bad bacteria in the gut
- Assist with urinary tract infection relief
- Help maintain urinary tract health
- Promote a healthy immune system
- Help prevent or aid in alleviating a yeast infection
Cottage Cheese With Probiotics
We here at The Dairy Dish did a search for brands that contain probiotics. Below is a list of some brands that contain probiotics. We have also provided the type of probiotics contained in the cottage cheese if it was readily available.
| Cottage Cheese Brand | Probiotics within the product (if available) |
|---|---|
| Nancy's Organic Lowfat | L. acidophilus, B. bifidum, and 4 strains of lactic cultures |
| Horizon Organic | |
| Breakstone's LiveActive | |
| Trader Joe's Lowfat | L. acidophilus, L. Bifidius |
| Good Culture | L. Acidophilus, Bifidobacterium Lactis |
| Organic Valley | L. acidophilus, L. Bifidus |
Other Probiotic Options
In case you can’t find cottage cheese with probiotics, there are other foods you can eat that contain them. These foods include yogurt, miso soup, sauerkraut, sour dough, kefir, probiotic milk, tempeh, kombucha, vinegar, kimchi, and sour pickles. Additionally, there is also supplementation in pill form (see below) with many pills cantaining several probiotucs strains.
Do you have any info on homemade cottage cheese -prepared using lime juice? There is a wikihow detailing the process and I use it. I am wondering what is the probiotic content.
tks,
nan
Homemade cottage cheese will not have probiotics unless you add them to the recipe. It is most likely that the recipe you are referring to will not contain probiotics.
This should be an easy fix. You could add some acidophilus milk to the pot after cooling the milk. When you add this to sourkraut for instance it becomes lacto-fermented (and more nourishing imo). The book Nurishing Traditions has a recipe without using lemon juice (which artificially hastens the curdling process). It uses 2 quarts raw grassfed milk with1 cup kefir or full fat yogurt. 🙂
Thanks Leslie. Excellent tips! I believe this is the recipe you are talking about here. Here is the book they talk about in the article.