Cottage Cheese: Yea or Nay?

When I was a teen I babysat for a family across the street who had four children, all under the age of five. Can you imagine feeding that many kids? (ok, maybe you can if you have four kids!!) One of their favourite foods was cottage cheese - affordable, simple and packed with protein, the kids would gobble it up alongside their perogies and vegetables.

Me? I would shudder. 

I never liked the texture of cottage cheese. I always found it a bit slimy and lumpy. But when I hit my twenties and started to eat a healthier diet, I realized that cottage cheese was a great post-workout snack. It's packed with protein and added salt, which is great for those depleted electrolytes.

My kids don't agree - they won't touch cottage cheese when I try to sneak it onto their plates. The texture is definitely hard to get used to!

Gay Lea just launched a new smooth cottage cheese, and we recently got a chance to do a taste test! I was curious to see how this would go over in our house. Check out my daugthers' reactions:

This new product comes in three flavours: Vanilla Bean, Salted Caramel and Lemon. My family gave all of them a taste, and our favourite was the caramel. The texture is totally smooth, and the taste compares to greek yogurt - slightly tangy. And unlike regular cottage cheese, the smooth treat is sweet instead of salty.

My husband and I agree that one big plus for this product is that it contains 25% more protein than leading Greek yogurts (10g!) Our kids love their fruits and veggies, but tend to shun protein of any kind - so using these as snacks will make me feel better about my kids' daily protein intake.

Is there anything I didn't like about the product? I did worry a bit about the sugar content - 12g per container. But the snack is so filling that we only ate half of a container before wrapping it up and putting it back in the fridge. And as my husband pointed out, milk already has naturally occurring sugars, so the 12g are not all added. The product certainly doesn't taste like it has a ton of sugar either - more tangy than sweet.

In all, this new product was a win for our family, and I'll definitely be going out and buying more. Right now Smooth Cottage Cheese is only available in stores across Ontario - check in with your local grocer to see if they carry it!

Are you a cottage cheese lover or hater? Would you try this product?

Disclosure: I am part of the Gay Lea Nordica Smooth Cottage Cheese Campaign and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.