10 unnecessary silly facts about cheese

From soft creamy goat cheese to fragrant red mold and spicy gorgonzola… Oehlala. On average, we seem to eat about twenty kilos of cheese per person per year. Did you already know this about the most addictive piece of pure pleasure?

1. Crazy but true: the holes in holey cheese are caused by gas formation caused by lactic acid bacteria. Yes, they let out a kind of farts. OMG.

2. Did you know that in 1906 there were over a hundred cheese factories in North Holland? Now there are only two large cheese factories: in Lutjewinkel and the Beemster.

3. The most expensive cheese costs no less than a thousand euros per kilo. Not Dutch by the way, but Serbian cheese made from donkey milk, called ‘Pule’.

4. Officially, a mature cheese can only be called ‘old cheese’ if it has matured for ten months. If it has matured for less time, it is an extra aged, aged, young aged, or a young cheese. Ahaaa.

5. Spreadable cheese can contain up to twice as much salt as regular cheese.

6. Oh, and fun fact: cheese protects your teeth against cavities. It stimulates saliva production, which in turn protects against cavities – yes, even if it's holey cheese. Mooha.

7. Seventy percent of the calories in regular cheese come from fat, and cream cheese contains no less than ninety percent fat. This makes it so fatty that it is equivalent to eating Vaseline. Whuuuut.

8. Did you know that for one kilo of cheese, ten liters of cow's milk, nine and a half liters of goat's milk, or six liters of sheep's milk are needed? Quite heavy actually...

9. Mice do not really like cheese at all. There, now you know that too. They will eat it if there is nothing else around, but if they have a choice, they always prefer sweets or carbohydrates.

10. We really do live up to our name as cheese heads. But only three percent of the Dutch say they never eat cheese. Of the 97 percent who do eat cheese, 66 percent say they do so daily.