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High-quality cheese made from the raw milk of pastured animals is an excellent source of several important nutrients. Each cheese is unique in its nutritional attributes, however, with some being superior to others.

One to consider, especially if you’re sensitive to lactose from cow’s milk, is goat cheese. Because goat cheese contains less lactose than cheese made from cow’s milk, it is typically well tolerated by those with lactose intolerance.

Even if you have an allergy to milk protein, you may be able to tolerate cheese made from goat’s milk because it’s formed with shorter amino acid protein chains than cow’s milk.1

Goat’s milk also has a chemical structure that’s similar to that of breast milk,2 and it has smaller fat globules than cow’s milk, which tend to make goat cheese easier to digest than cow’s milk cheese (even for people with a sensitive stomach). Nutritionally speaking, goat cheese also has some notable benefits.

Goat Cheese Contains More of Certain Nutrients, and Fewer Calories, Than Cheddar

Compared to an ounce of cheddar cheese (made from cow’s milk), goat cheese has about 40 fewer calories, less than half the sodium, and about three grams less protein (which is a good thing, since most Americans consume more protein than they need).

Meanwhile, goat cheese has
more vitamin D, vitamin K, thiamine, and niacin, and an equal amount of vitamin A, as cheddar.3 It’s also a good source of riboflavin (a B vitamin) and phosphorus.

To get the most benefit from goat cheese, you’ll want to stick with the same standards as you would looking for cow’s milk (or any other) cheese. This means the cheese you select should be made from high-quality milk, ideally raw organic milk from grass-pastured animals.

Unlike cows, however, goats are “browsers,” which means they also need access to natural “browse” (or woody plants, such as shrubs) from which to eat leaves.

Raw cheese made from pastured milk has flavors that derive from the pastureland that nourished the animals producing the milk, much like wine is said to draw its unique flavors from individual vineyards.