Why Gouda is likely the most nutrient dense type of cheese you can buy even if you buy supermarket brands made with conventional milk.
If I was forced to choose a single cheese to eat for the rest of my life that would best maintain my health, it would be Gouda cheese.
Is Gouda my favorite healthy cheese?
Not really.
While I certainly like Gouda cheese and don’t mind eating it, my taste buds consistently rank several other cheeses quite a bit higher on the enjoyment scale such as Brie which I craved during pregnancy.
Why Gouda cheese then?
Gouda and the X Factor
You might be shocked to learn, as I was, that Gouda cheese is higher than most liver, grassfed butter, and even pastured egg yolks in the critical nutrient Vitamin K2.
This is the nutrient identified by Dr. Weston A. Price as the elusive “Activator X”.
Vitamin K2 along with the other fat soluble activators A and D are synergistically responsible for the vibrant health and extremely high resistance to aging and degenerative disease as experienced by Traditional Cultures and as described in Dr. Price’s groundbreaking book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
Vitamin K2 is extremely difficult to get sufficient quantities of in the diet. This is the case even if one consumes grassfed meats and dairy on a regular basis.
The reason is the worrisome depletion of our soils which grassfed farmers are valiantly turning the tide on, but which will still take several decades if not even a century or two to reverse on a widespread basis.
On top of this, many families are currently struggling to afford any grassfed meat and dairy at all.
An inflationary economy requires creative and practical solutions for the food budget. This ensures that this critical and elusive nutrient is in the diet in sufficient quantities.
This helps secure freedom from tooth decay and high immunity. Such vigilance prevents degenerative diseases like osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, periodontal disease, cancer, and diabetes among many others.
K2 is also the vanity vitamin as it is known to prevent facial wrinkles. K2 deficiency can be written all over your face…quite literally!
Synergy with No Toxicity
Vitamin K2 has no known toxicity even at high intake levels.
However, it is most effective when consumed in the presence of the other fat soluble activators Vitamin A and D.
Therefore, getting Vitamin K2 from food is always the best way to go if at all possible.
Gouda Cheese Top 3 for Most Elusive Nutrient
This is where Gouda cheese comes in.
You see, the food that is highest in Vitamin K2 is natto, which is very difficult to find and even more difficult to consume due to its very horrible taste and texture. If you are game, you can usually find it at Asian specialty stores. Look for it in the freezer section.
Natto contains about 1,103 mcg of K2 per 3.5 ounce portion. This is more than any other food by a large margin. Note that it is best to source organic natto due to toxicity issues from GMO soybeans.
The second highest food in Vitamin K2 is goose fat particularly from the liver which has 369 mcg per 3 1/2 ounce portion.
While highly delicious and wonderful to eat, goose liver pate is very hard to find in most places. It is also a very high end, gourmet food which makes the price out of reach for most.
Rounding out the top 3 foods highest in Vitamin K2 is none other than the humble Gouda cheese. It boasts 75 mcg per 3 1/2 ounce serving! This compares to pastured egg yolks and butter, which each have about 15 mcg of K2 per 3 1/2 ounce portion.
Grassfed or Organic Not Required
Here’s the really excellent news…
Gouda cheese is extremely high in Vitamin K2 even if the milk it’s made from was not grassfed.
This is due to the bacterial cultures used to ferment milk into Gouda cheese. Bacteria produce a special type of Vitamin K2 (MK-7) which according to current research is as effective as the animal form of Vitamin K2 (MK-4) at preserving human health when combined in the diet with the other fat soluble activators A and D.
Of course, grassfed Gouda cheese would be best as Gouda made from this highest quality raw milk would be high not only in MK-7 but also MK-4, the animal form of K2.
For some, however, supermarket Gouda cheese is all they can find or afford!
In other words, Gouda cheese is high in Vitamin K2 regardless of how the milk was produced. Gouda even if made from the milk of the average grainfed, conventionally raised cow, is still very much worth it to buy from a nutritional standpoint!
Other hard cheeses would also be high in Vitamin K2, but Gouda is the highest of them all. Perhaps this is a reason why cheese is the most stolen item in the world!
Sources
Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox, by Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue ND
Have you tried French Comté? it’s delicious! normally I don’t like cheese and never liked the taste of cheese growing up, but this was really something.
how much gouda should i eat daily for adequate k2?
3.5 ounces of gouda has about 75 mcg of K2. The amount recommended varies by age, but typically 100-200 mcg/day works very well according to the book linked above.
I just bought some basic Gouda cheese (pasteurized) at an Intermarché in France (where I now live). I remembered that it was high in K2 and, wanting some variety, it was the only Gouda I saw. I hoped for the best when I saw on the label “conservateur: E251,” but I shouldn’t have. It’s sodium nitrate. Why would that need to be in a cheese?? Sad news, and I’m pregnant… I wonder if I should just wait and return it? I doubt I even can.
Sarah,
I love cheese and serve it to my family after dinner with fruit every night but it definitely gives me a zit. I’ve done many experiments to verify. I don’t know why this is but if you have any ideas about it I wonder if you could offer a guess as to which cheese might not do this. Goat does not work. Kate
Do you use pasteurized or raw cheese? Pasteurized definitely is harder to digest even though cheese is a fermented food. The heating process denatures the proteins and they can trigger a mild allergic reaction in some people it seems. My husband can ONLY eat raw cheese.
I’m not ready to trade k2 in conventional Gouda for glyphosate from grain fed cows. Does Whole Foods have organic Gouda?
We get an amazing raw gouda at WF. Not crazy about WF in general, but they do generally offer a good selection of raw cheeses at many locations.
Gouda cheese in NOT the best source of Vitamin K2 because 100 grams of Gouda cheese contains 19.04761905 grams of Saturated Fat. (This is Baby Bell Gouda cheese, which is a very high quality Gouda cheese.) In calories, the Saturated Fat content of 100 grams of Baby Bell Gouda cheese is 171.4285714 calories. Vitamin K2 cleans your arteries and puts the calcium into your bones where the calcium belongs. See:
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4663571/
Menaquinone-7 Supplementation to Reduce Vascular Calcification in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease: Rationale and Study Protocol (VitaK-CAC Trial)
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So here you are, trying to clean out your arteries with 75 mcg per 3 1/2 ounce serving of Gouda cheese, and the 3 1/2 ounce serving of Gouda cheese contains 171.4285714 calories of Saturated Fat, which clogs your arteries!!!
So what is the best source of Vitamin K2? The best source of Vitamin K2 is NONFAT, PLAIN (unflavored) yogurt or NONFAT, PLAIN (unflavored) Greek yogurt, which has half the micrograms of Vitamin K2 than Gouda cheese, but you can eat NONFAT, PLAIN (unflavored) yogurt or NONFAT, PLAIN (unflavored) Greek yogurt as much as you want because it has ZERO FAT. So you forgot to think about more than just Vitamin K2 per hundred grams, you should think about how much saturated fat you must ingest to get the Vitamin K2!!! I have not eaten any saturated fat for many years and my artery ultrasound is EXCELLENT!!!
Time to get off the “saturated fat clogs the arteries” train, my friend. That flawed research has long been disproven. Dangerous 1970’s thinking! Many cardiologists are no longer advising their patients to avoid saturated fat. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/cardiologist-lowfat-diet-scientifically-and-morally-indefensible/
Great article!
Glad to hear that since I love Gouda. How does Edam and Jarlsberg rate in terms of K-2?
p.s. I take a K-2 (MK-7) natto-based supplement.
so does it mean all kinds of Gouda cheese, regardless of the bacterial/ cultere used to make them, has good levels of vitamin k2 especially MK-7?
Yes
Mikey Mike pretty much summed up what I wanted to say. I doubt very much that the K2 in Dutch Gouda and a commercial non-grass-fed US knock off are going to be even be close to the same. And as for synthetic K2/MK4, if you are really looking for a therapeutic effect, that is the way to go. I go natural 95% of the time, but sometimes if the research is there as well as safety I make an exception. At 66 I do not have the digestion to eat enough fat and dairy to get the amount of K2/MK4 I need. I take the Jarrow MK7 also. By the way, love your website and your articles!
Natto is “difficult to consume due to its very horrible taste and texture” ? I love Natto, make it myself (it is not difficult at all). I am of Polish descent and did not “grow up” eating it.
So, please Sarah, do not discurage others from trying Natto by describilg it as something it is not – for many of us anyway. Who knows, maybe they will acquire the taste for this valuable food.
Other than that – a wonderful article like all of your work, Sarah. 🙂 Many thanks. You are greately appreciated.
How about Kimchi, Kale with some gouda cheese for wit.K2 and more?