Jump to navigation Velveeta broccoli cheese soup to search Pasteurized prepared cheese product. Not to be confused with Belvita.

Velveeta is a brand name for a processed cheese product similar to American cheese. It was invented in 1918 by Emil Frey of the “Monroe Cheese Company” in Monroe, New York. In the 1930s, Velveeta became the first cheese product to gain the American Medical Association’s seal of approval. The name Velveeta was intended to connote a “velvety smooth” edible product. Smoothness and melting ability are promoted as properties that result from reincorporating the whey with the curd. Kraft Foods has marketed Velveeta as an ingredient in chile con queso and grilled cheese sandwiches. In the 1980s, Velveeta used the advertising jingle, “Colby, Swiss and Cheddar, blended all together” in its US television commercials to explain its taste and texture because real cheese was used in the product at that time.

Velveeta Brand History, Accessed December 23, 2010. There is No Shortage of History When it Comes to Velveeta”. Food and Drug Administration to Kraft Foods North America, Inc. It serves many purposes, from functioning as a smooth and creamy cheese sauce for homemade mac and cheese to gooey goodness inside a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s also the base of many dips that are served at parties and social gatherings. But how did Velveeta come to be and why is it sometimes so controversial?

According to Delish, Velveeta was the brainchild of the Monroe Cheese Company. The company asked Emil Frey, a Swiss immigrant, to help out. Frey discovered that the scraps of cheese could be melted together with the help of whey and reused as a new product with a smoother consistency. Originally marketed under the Velveeta name as an independent New York company, the salvaged cheese bits became a hit when Kraft bought the company in 1927. Since its debut, Velveeta’s become a kitchen staple that’s beloved and decried in equal measure. Here’s how Velveeta is really made.

Velveeta falls under the classification of a pasteurized processed cheese, according to Michael Tunick a research chemist with the U. Department of Agriculture who wrote The Science of Cheese. Per Tunick and Insider, calling a produced “pasteurized processed cheese” means that it’s a mix of older and fresh cheeses that are ground up into a single product. A variety of orange-hued cheeses were originally used to concoct a rectangular slab of Velveeta, though the process has since changed somewhat. The most common example of an emulsion is that of water and oils, like vinegar and olive oil. They can be mixed by hand, but once the action stops, the two antagonists will split again.