Since moving to Canada and learning that Philly Cream Cheese has double the carbs of American Philly Cream Cheese I have been hunting for a lower carb Cream cheese to buy.

Kraft.ca says it is due to government regulations, but is all Cream Cheese like that in Canada? So far every cream cheese I have found has the same carb count, double the American count.

Anyone have any sources? I am in Quebec and close to Ottawa, I will buy online if necessary.

It's the same cream cheese, it's the labeling laws that are different. Ours don't allow nearly as much rounding...

Almost all cream cheese is the same. I use the house brand at the Real Canadian Superstore, even the No Name brand. Economical.

According to an email I received from Kraftcanada:



They are not the same product at all, Canadian is lower fat and calories and higher in carbs.

I put them into fitday and came up with this:

American 28g
Calories 100
Fat 10
Carbohydrates 1
Protein 2

Canadian 28g
Calories 84
Fat 7
Carbohydrates 2
Protein 2

It isn't about rounding or any math at all, they are different products with different nutritional amounts according to Kraft.

No wonder cheesecake always tastes better in the USA!!!!

*wink*

I LOVE Arla organic cream cheese -- the flavour is sooo much better than philly, kraft, etc.

http://www.arlafoods.ca

The package reads:

per 2 tbsp (30g):

calories: 90
CARB 0g

fat 9g (14%)
saturated 6g
trans 0.3g
cholesterol 30mg
sodium 110mg
fibre 0g
sugar 0g
protein 2g

Ingred: Pasteurized organic cream, salt, bacterial culture

That's it! YUM!

I pay just over $4 for I think 250g at Famous Foods in Vancouver. They'll have it at Choices, Whole Foods, Capers, other health food stores, etc. as well.

Considering all of the wonderful cheeses they make in Québec, you can probably get a pure cream cheese without stabilizers.

For a commercial brand, see if you can find Western Creamery cream cheese. It's made in Brampton, Ontario, but it’s distributed by Liberté (which is Montréal based). I'm sure I've seen it in a grocery store when visiting Ottawa.

The nutritional information for 100 grams is 250 calories, 23.8 g of fat, 6.7 g of protein, and 2.1 g of carbs, which means that 30 g is less than .7 g of carbs.

Thank you for the link, it sounds really good

I haven't seen those store names yet, but I haven't ventured into Ottawa either, hopefully I can talk DH into making the trek soon ( he hates going to Ottawa for some reason).



Forgive me, I am new to Canada, I had no idea they made cheese here in Quebec. /happy dance

I haven't seen anything but philly and a few store brands with the same nutritional information as philly which is no help. The only stores I have been to are IGA, Loblaws, Metro, Maxi and SuperC. All of which are in Gatineau down the hill from us (Buckingham) except for a Maxi and a Metro we also have here. I haven't seen any other store names yet.

I sorta live in the middle of nowhere, it is definitely a culinary wasteland if you enjoy cooking as I do.

I would LOVE to find a source for any and all cheeses here, even if I had to drive a bit once a month to stock up, any direction you can point me in to find this cheesy goodness locally?

Hi Sandi,

I'm pretty sure I got the Western Creamery cream cheese at a big Loblaws when I was visiting my brother-in-law in Gloucester (one of the Ottawa burbs). What I don't remember is if it was in with the regular cream cheese or in a specialty section. You might e-mail Liberté (www.liberte.qc.ca) to
find out which stores in the Ottawa/Gatineau area carry it.

I'm afraid I don't know much about where to get cheese in the Ottawa area. However, I just googled "cheese Gatineau" and my first hit was
I also came across a website called A Taste of the Outaouais (http://www.agro-outaouais.com/home/index_e.php, which includes the Gatineau area. Look under Products for producers of cheese and meats (lots of options). Lucky you!

OMG...

I am drooling over the possibilities this June.

Too bad they are closed for the season, but I will be making this a regular part of our shopping when the weather permits.

Thank you so much, they even have resources for beef and other things, I think it will take me a while to go through it all.

Thank you SO much

You're welcome. If you're ever in Québec City, check out the Marché du Vieux-Port. Absolutely wonderful. There are also various gourmet "routes" throughout Québec that feature similar small producers of real food (http://www.gourmetroute.com/). And while looking for that website, I stumbled across the website for the Route des fromages fins (http://www.routedesfromages.com/?lg=en).

I am so envious.

Things have changed in the product line-up. I see the fat grams are lower and the calories are higher, at least for the Philly.

They DO still round, however; much to my annoyance. We USED to have NF labels accurate to 1/10th of a gram, by law, here in Canada. The labelling laws have changed (in 2003 and taking effect ever since 2005).

If you go to Ottawa, go to the Byward market. http://www.byward-market.com/ If you go to Montreal, go to the Atwater market, they have the BEST cheese there. http://www.montrealfood.com/atwater.html My sister used to live across the street from the Atwater.

Jo

I'm confused ..... in Dr. Agatston's South Beach Diet book he says that low fat dairy is ok because they DON'T replace the fat with carbs, in dairy only.

Now I'm wondering if this is the case ..... are the carbs really that high in cream cheese that it would make a difference to a low carb diet?

I love cream cheese and find I'm still losing weight while eating light cream cheese .... just wondering if Dr. A includes this product when he talks about all low fat dairy being ok as they don't add carbs

Paula

Think of it this way....

Say you have a 100g of cream cheese and it has (just numbers for an example) 80% fat, 10% carbs and 10% protein, which would breakdown to 80g fat, 10g carb, 10g protein.

You decide you want to have a lower percentage of fat so you remove half of the fat....

Which gives you 40g fat, 10g Carb, 10g protein equaling 60g

Because you remove some fat you no longer have a full 100g of cream cheese, you have 60g so what do you do to get a full 100g of cream cheese? You add more cream cheese, of the same fat-reduced type, which gives you a higher ratio of carbs/protein to fat.

Imagine that instead of fat you were removing moisture, if you removed half the water then it would be drier and lighter but because you add the same drier compound to make up the weight difference it is still drier than what you started with because it still has less moisture and more of the other ingredients.

It could be said that it is just about math but you still get more non-fat components added when you reduce fat, same as if you reduce any component, you have to make up that loss with somethign else which will change the proportions.

Does this help?