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Comment by dairylee | Hacker News Reader

> Shredded cheese when you could grate your own

I find pre-grated cheese so bizarre. The cost alone compared to a normal block of cheese should be enough to put anyone off. It's not even like it's an arduous task to grate it yourself (Or is it... [1]).

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWS3IxfDOHE

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>The cost alone compared to a normal block of cheese should be enough to put anyone off

Hm, I find grated cheese is often cheaper pound by pound than blocks of cheese. Same for other precut ingredients like bacon for instance. The reason being that it's an easy way for producers to process the ends which can't be sold otherwise.

In the UK it's a lot cheaper for the blocks:

  - Tesco Extra Mature Grated Cheddar 250g
    - £ 2.25
    - £9.00/kg
  - Tesco Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese 220g
    - £ 1.90
    - £8.64/kg
  - Tesco Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese 400g
    - £ 2.85
    - £7.13/kg
  - Tesco Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese 700g
    - £ 3.50
    - £5.00/kg

edit: Added price for a 220g block of cheese

I suppose as long as we are comparing areas, my local grocery (Lucerne is a Safeway store brand). If you get the same size of each, do the prices come more inline? I'm used to paying fairly close to the same price regardless of packaging if it's the same size from the same brand. But of course regional and national influences, along with consumer expectations, surely play a part in the pricing.

    - Lucerne Cheese Natural Medium Cheddar - 32 oz
      - $9.99
      - $0.31/oz
    - Lucerne Cheese Shreaded Sharp Cheddar - 32 oz
      - $9.99
      - $0.31/oz
    - Lucerne Cheese Sharp Cheddar = 32 oz
      - $9.99
      - $0.31/oz

> If you get the same size of each, do the prices come more inline?

Just had another look and while they don't sell a block that weighs the same as the pre-grated it is much closer in price for a similar sized block.

£9.00/kg for the pre-grated (250g) and £8.64/kg for the block (220g).

weird, I have the exact opposite for where I shop for cheese. The blocks are usually cheaper (usually like half as much). Though they like to play games with the prices. Where 16oz will be one price one week and 2 8oz will be more than the 16. Then 2 weeks later the opposite will be true. The downside is grating it takes time. But if you do go with block get a firmer cheese. Some of the brand names will not be very firm and slime out the grater. I usually have pretty good luck with the 'store brand'.

I switched to block cheese when I found out that pre-grated cheese (SO convenient) has anti-caking agents which alter the flavor. The only thing I did to make this easy? buy a 2nd grater so I could still grate cheese if the first was in the dishwasher. I'm sure it's already paid for itself.

On a 5lb block of cheddar, I use a plastic sandwich bag over the exposed end of the block with a rubber band wrapped around to keep it fresh.

The anti-caking ingredient has a negligible effect on flavor. Where you want to avoid them is when you're cooking a dish where you want the cheese to melt smoothly. Using the pre-grated stuff is fine for things like tacos, burritos, pizza, and even omelets. For stuff like mac and cheese and other cheese-based sauces, that's where you want to grate your own if you can. --And if you can't, well, the food will probably taste just fine even if it doesn't look quite as good.

It also sometimes has extra ingredients to stop the strips sticking to each other and in the majority of cases uses lower quality cheese.

And those ingredients add to the allergen potential. And even with them, it still has a fraction of the shelf life of cheese in block form due to surface area:volume ratio.

I prefer "mexican blend" (cheddar, monterey jack, asadero, queso quesadilla) cheddar for garnishing Mexican-type foods. Pure cheddar is great stuff, but I'd prefer store-brand Mexican blend over grated Tillamook Sharp if I'm making a quesadilla. Keeping and grating those individually would suck.

I get the finely shredded Mexican blends for hard-shell tacos.

It's impractical to get the thin, fine lines of shred off a block of cheese, and even if I do, without the cellulose it will just clump again when I try to stuff as much other stuff as possible on top of it. It's a better product for the dish.

The bigger blocks of cheese are cheaper.

I've noticed not much difference in price in the small blocks (The blocks that fit in your hand. I'm to lazy to look up the weight.) are sometimes more expensive than grated, or sliced.

I'm pretty sure the companies know most of us do not want 5 lbs of cheese in our fridge, so they jack up the smaller blocks?

While I'm here, I try to buy my spices, including dehydrated onion, at Costco quantities. Most restaurants use the same, but get better pricing through Sysco type companies.

Some Costco's sell yeast blocks which last a long time refrigerated.

If you are lucky, you can find high gluten bread flour there too. It's much cheaper than the better bread flours (King Arthur, etc.) at the supermarket.

The one thing I disagree with is bottled lime/lemon juice. After it's opened once, it tastes nothing close to a fresh lemon/lime.

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