Bill Sanders

Somewhere on this list is the cheese your gut has no problem with, and it is probably not the one you were told to try. Three separate things upset people, and they pull in opposite directions. Lactose is the milk sugar. It leaves with the whey and gets eaten during ageing, so old cheese has none. Casein is the protein. Most cow herds are A1. Sheep and goat are not. Histamine is made by the bacteria while the cheese ages, so it climbs the longer it sits. Which means the advice everybody gives, to buy the mild stuff, is right for one of those and exactly wrong for the other. Fresh, if you flush or get headaches - Mozzarella: 20% fat. Trace lactose, no histamine. - Ricotta: 13% fat. Lactose present, no histamine. - Mascarpone: 44% fat. Some lactose, no histamine. Fattiest thing in the aisle. - Young chèvre: 21% fat. Goat. Low lactose, low histamine. The gentlest dairy going. - Feta: 21% fat. Ewe. Low lactose, moderate histamine. It never asked for a salad. Aged, if milk bloats you - Mature cheddar: 34% fat. No lactose, high histamine. Cut it thick. - Manchego: 33% fat. Ewe. For everyone who blames the cow. - Aged gouda: 31% fat. Butterscotch, crystals, the richest K2 going. - Pecorino: 30% fat. Ewe. Roman soldiers were issued it. The blues, which are the aged end taken further - Roquefort: 31% fat. Ewe, raw milk, aged in the Combalou caves. Salt, cream and a slap. - Stilton: 35% fat. Opened Boxing Day, rediscovered in March, still magnificent. - Gorgonzola dolce: 30% fat. Spreadable. Not a starter cheese, a finishing one. Blue is the highest histamine on the board, so it is the wrong end entirely if you flush, and the best flavour available if you do not. Then the elite tier, which is raw milk This is the actual dividing line and almost nobody knows it. Pasteurise the milk and you kill the native flora the pasture put there, then add back a laboratory starter with a handful of strains in it. Raw milk keeps hundreds. That is where the depth in a great cheese comes from, and it is why the best cheeses in Europe are legally required to be made this way. - Parmigiano Reggiano: raw cow's milk, mandatory. Two years. - Comté: raw cow's milk, mandatory. Fridge-cold is a crime here. - Gruyère: raw cow's milk, mandatory. - Roquefort: raw ewe's milk, mandatory. - Beaufort: raw cow's milk, mandatory. Summer milk off alpine pasture. And then Stilton, which by law must be pasteurised. The traditional raw milk version still exists, made to the old recipe, but it is not allowed to use the name and is sold as Stichelton instead. Britain wrote its own best cheese out of its own protected designation. So: bloating means go older. Headaches and flushing mean go fresher. Heavy on cheddar but fine in Spain means it was the cow, and you can have sheep and goat for the rest of your life. Either way you get complete protein, calcium, B12, vitamin A, and K2 in every aged cheese with a great deal of it in gouda. Ewe's milk carries more CLA. Then American singles, which cannot legally be called cheese in their own country because they fall below the 51% threshold. The packet says pasteurised prepared cheese product. Seventeen ingredients, individually wrapped, engineered to melt. Everything else here is a superfood and always was. Find the one you can digest, and buy far too much of it.

"The obstacle is the way." Nobody, in 2026, is doing this better than an Anglo-Nubian goat called Keith. 5.51am. Latched pen door. Most goats experience a latched door as confinement. Keith experiences it as a structured opportunity. He addresses the latch. The latch yields. 6.14am. Bramble blocking the lane. The bramble has thorns. The bramble would defeat almost any other animal. Keith eats the bramble. The obstacle becomes the breakfast. The breakfast becomes the path. 6.31am. Steve, on his front step, in a dressing gown. Keith regards Steve. Steve regards Keith. After thirty seconds, Keith proceeds. The obstacle has been integrated. 7.42am. Closed gate. Keith cannot, by simple physics, open it. He could climb. Climbing would be effort. Effort, in Stoic terms, is for when necessary. He waits. At 7.47am the postman opens the gate. The obstacle resolves itself through patience and the postal service. 9.15am. Wet barn roof. A hazard, by every reasonable assessment. Keith reframes it as an opportunity to practice balance. He spends forty minutes on the wet roof. He does not fall. He descends a slightly more accomplished goat than he ascended. 11.20am. Dave, in the yard, in an attitude of mild remonstrance. Keith approaches Dave directly. He looks at Dave with the steady regard of an animal who has read his Epictetus and understands that what Dave thinks of him is not, fundamentally, in his control. Dave finds himself unable to remonstrate. The obstacle dissolves. 3.10pm. New reinforced fence on the north side. Keith assesses it for forty minutes. He identifies a section where the post has, in the recent rain, taken on a 4mm flex. He works the section. The section yields by 4pm. The world will, daily, place obstacles in front of you. You can experience them as oppression, complain about them, file 28 complaints, and live the rest of your life in the dressing gown. Or you can, like Keith, eat the bramble. The bramble, in either case, is going to be there. Eat the bramble. Be the goat.