I like cheese, though not a huge swiss fan. I prefer aged brick, muenster, havatri and extra sharp cheddar. These are my 4 lines on the cheese hockey team. Muenster and havarti are great on pizza, they are more melty than mozzarella, stay creamier longer as the pizza cools and have more flavor. I saw on Wisconsin Foodie that brick is also a good choice for pizza, ironically on Detroit style pizza, which to me is a knockoff of Chicago style with brick instead of motz. The high butterfat content of the brick makes the bottom and the edges of the pizza very crispy because as it melts the oil in the cheese fries the bottom of the pie. Interesting concept.
This is for everyone, but will be obvious why I'm saying it here to Tim:
In 2018, I had a 'small' heart attack, even though I've been a runner my whole life. And when you have a heart attack, you get three doctors: a regular cardiologist, who worries about the plumbing; an electro-cardiologist, who worries about the electrical rhythms of the heart; and you get a 'preventative' cardiologist, who tries to help figure out why the attack happened, and how to prevent another from happening.
At my first meeting with the preventative cardiologist, she asked me a bunch of questions and listened to me and my 'story' for maybe a half-hour. And at the end of that, she said the #1 main reason I had had a heart attack was I was a male in America over the age of 50. Period. Full stop. (I think a big factor was that when I was twenty I ate like I was a twenty year old runner - pasta, pizza, M&Ms etc etc - and then for the next 40 years, I continued to eat like a twenty year old runner.) She said there is a good deal of opinion among cardiologists that trying to sort out which 50 year old males should be taking statins to lower their cholesterol and which don't need to isn't worth the effort and risk: that on your 50th birthday, you should get a card in the mail from your doctor, "Happy Birthday! Here's your prescription for statins". My cholesterol was not bad. It wasn't great, and it wasn't as good as one might have expected for a life-long runner. But it was always below 200, and 'the rations' were pretty good.
If your LDL is above 75, you are building up arterial plaque which will ultimately cause problems. If it is below 75, you can start to reverse the build-up. And statins are VERY effective in reducing you cholesterol levels, particularly your LDL. The farther above 75, the worse; the farther below, the better.
My father owned a couple pizza restaurants, my entire life. They are still operating, and are still in the family, in Green Bay and Neenah. Trust me, I like pizza. But I can't eat it like I used to. And (besides making my father roll over in his grave at the idea of anything besides mozzarella) the cheeses you mention (besides being great) are all higher in fat and cholesterol that mozzarella. If you're gonna eat cheese, mozz is about the least bad choice.
Get your cholesterol checked. SOON. And talk to your doctor about statins.
