Baby bells vs Cheese Strings

[TinyGang]

I know what the mn verdict is on the dreaded cheese strings (although I must admit mine do seem to enjoy them from time to time).

However, they also like those little baby bell cheeses and sometimes have one as part of their lunch. I say sometimes, because they are quite expensive, so we don't have them all the time by any means.

Are they considered to be a more healthy alternative, or are they in the same league as cheese strings? I ask, because they both seem be similar (ie bendy, processed cheese ) except not such an artificial colour.

I give mine BB, too..

err, are cheese strings bad?

babybel not so bad - quite like edam - but still quite salty so wouldn't give a toddler more than one.

cheese strings are truly revolting

Can i ask what about dairylea triangles(i think they're new-they come wrapped like a babybel)? I've just started to buy these for ds' lunchbox.

why revolting? Have they a ton of salt in or something I should know about and don't?!

I get bags of babybel lights because I can eat them on slimming world diet and dd has 1 every now and again. I just tend to cut "normal" chees into cubes/strips if she wants cheese.

I didn't think they were that bad either, but they had a mixed reaction on this thread, so then I wondered where BB's fell within the collected wisdom of mn.

I buy cheesestrings occasionally and babybel my kids like both. Have started buying the new Tri-bites for them to and they always go down a treat. I prefer tri-bites to cheesestrings myself. They taste much nicer.

don't mean to start anything here.... but why not give them "real" cheese?

I give dds "real" cheese too. Just buy the others on occasions just to add a bit of variety to their lunchboxes.

Not seen them Sparkler, will keep an eye open

I suppose all things in moderation, and a good variety of things is the way to go.

ds has always spat out babybel when someone else has given him one, & has never, to my knowledge, encountered a cheese string. lumps of cheddar work well in our house. and i'm not such a virtuous mum, am pretty lax about sugar....

Same as Sparkler. My ds lovs cheese & will take sticks of mature cheese to school. Lunchbox's can get so boring it's nice to add a variety & i would rather put a tri-bite(thanks for the name!) in his lunchbox for a change than some other options.

Quite simply my kids won't eat cheese

I have tried babybell, edam, gouda, chedder, brie and parmesan. They will eat grater chedder on pasta, and sometimes 'raw'. Otherwise they will not eat cheese cubes, slices, chunks, strips in anyway shape or form.

But they will eat cheese strings, dairylea cheese strips, dairylea tri bites and the original dairylea triangles.

So to whoever asked, I would prefer a lump pf cheese, but since it will come back unaten I do a cheese 'snack' or a 'shrivelled gibbon penis' (eg pepperami) in their lunch box everyday.

Crunchie, I am getting a Dr Tatiana flashback at that reminder!
We have Baby Bels for outings as the wax cover keeps them intact. In the house we have "real" cheese but I was reminded on here by someone that a lot of proper cheese is also very high in salt. Camembert and Brie are the current favourites, but you can't put triangles of those in a lunchbox unless you want your child to be a real Billy no mates.

Er, but isn't Babybel real cheese? It's just a sort of Edammy mild cheese in small portions - you can also buy full-size Bel cheeses, or used to be able to. It's not 'processed' with any additives as far as I can tell. I also don't really understand about why everyone hates Cheestrings so much - the texture is a bit spooky, but so is Port Salut (IMHO). I don't buy them, but I'm not quite sure why they are seen as soooooo bad. They're stringy mozzarella with a bit of flavouring. I don't work for them or anything but having checked out labels on most food products due to DS1's sensitivities they come out as one of the more innocuous - much better than eg Dairylea. We don't have any flavourings in this household, but that means no Kellogg's Bran Flakes or Special K either.

I think Babybel is real cheese. My kids like playing with the wax, so that's an inducement for them to eat cheese. Can't stand the Lite ones though, I reckon they're tasteless.

Marina what about the pick and mix mini cheeses - do they do brie or camembert? Surely not too smelly as it would be wrapped?

We're hugely into stilton at the moment but only Colston Bassett as it's the creamiest in our opinion.

have you ever tried to pull strips off normal cheese it can't be done so god knows what they add to those strings to make them stringy!

Honestly, though (and I really don't have any vested interest in Cheestrings and never buy them), if you look at the ingredients there is nothing added (apart from said flavours and colour in the orange ones) - I think it is either the level/amount or type of rennet/enzyme they use for fermentation or it's something today with the moulding process (this is from a meeting I had years ago with the company that makes them, so can't recall precisely, but clearly remember them saying it was just a special type of mozzarella). There's a massive difference between textures of types of cheeses anyway, from liquid Camembert to crumbly Stilton to hard Parmesan, so stringy doesn't seem beyond possible to me; melted ordinary mozzarella is so stringy it's a choking hazard. OK, will get off the subject now! I just think they get a bit of an unnecessarily bad press....

Is cheese strings a brand name? There are certainly cheeses that "string" when pulled. Mozzarella does this and I think was the orginal inspiration for cheese strings. When I was a child you could buy mozzarella in long bar shapes and package your own cheese strings for lunch (which we frequently did). You really just need to read the ingredients and check what's in the particular brand of cheese strings that you are using. Or to save money, buy some mozzarella and make your own. I think there are some greek cheeses that work too.
BabyBel's are a real cheese that's packaged in red wax and therefore really expensive.

definitely cheese strings, mmmmmmmmmmmm. I have a 7month old so don't buy them for him but could eatthem myself easily.