This article is all about Harz cheese. This protein-rich food is an integral part of my diet and I don’t want to have to go without it. There are many good reasons why numerous other athletic and fitness-conscious people see it the same way.
With its first-class nutritional values, any nutritional plan can easily be upgraded with a little Harzer Roller and maybe even unhealthy food balanced. So it actually always fits very well into your eating habits. That applies whether you want to lose weight and define your muscles and just as much if you would like to effectively build muscle mass .
Unfortunately, due to its intense taste and smell, the Harzer doesn’t just have friends. I think that’s a shame, because the arguments in favor of the small cheese are really not to be despised. For this reason I wrote this article as an ode to the Harz Roller. In the following I want to give you my most important reasons why it is one of the best foods for athletes. I would also like to briefly explain why it is particularly suitable for building muscle and also for a diet.
Then I would like to give you a few tips on the subject of taste and smell. There are certainly ways to deal with it. In this way I have turned some Harz skeptics into real Harz cheese friends. 🙂
6 reasons why Harz cheese should be on every fitness menu
Regardless of whether you are losing weight or with your bulk phase diet want to gain weight and build muscles, with the good old Harzer you always have a valuable ally on your side. It’s definitely high on my top fitness food list. At eye level, if at all, only the lean quark .
In the following I want to introduce you to my top 6 reasons why this is the case and why I think that this little rolled cheese should also find its way into your menu.
1) Harzer is an absolute protein bomb
Who needs a ton of protein shakes when they have Harz cheese in the fridge? With 25 to 30 grams of protein per 100 grams, the small roll cheese is a real protein bomb. When you consider that many athletes do not meet their protein requirements optimally, this is definitely a good thing.
2) Harzer Roller has almost no fat and no carbohydrates
Most of the time, cheese has a lot of fat in addition to protein. But not the Harzer. With 30 grams of the best casein milk protein, you get just 0.5 grams of fat. Since the saturated fat in cheese doesn’t necessarily have the best reputation either, it’s definitely a good thing.
Incidentally, the little roller cheese has almost no carbohydrates (0.1 grams are usually given). Even my beloved low-fat quark has around forty times (!) As many carbohydrates as Harz cheese.
3) Harz cheese keeps you full for a long time
The saturation effect of Harzer is surprisingly good. Thanks to the casein protein, it occupies the stomach for a long time. Even 100 grams lasts for 3 to 4 hours for me. This also means that the protein is slowly absorbed over a longer period of time.
This helps you a lot to stick to your diet and that with a consistent calorie deficit. Really blatant crash diets you can only get it reasonably justifiable with a large amount of such low-calorie and highly filling foods.
Few calories, but enough protein to ensure the supply for maximum muscle maintenance , make Harz cheese the perfect diet food.
4) Harz cheese is damn healthy
Harz cheese is healthy. It contains a lot of calcium as well as magnesium, zinc and iron. Calcium in particular is almost exclusively obtained from dairy products and it plays an important role in building and renewing bone mass.
By the way, most varieties are naturally (almost) lactose-free. Most people who are lactose intolerant have no problems with Harz cheese.
5) Unbeatable vegetarian options
No other vegetarian food has such a nutritional ratio. So much protein with so few other macronutrients can only be found in very lean meat. If you want to do without it and don’t want to constantly resort to supplements , you will find a great vegetarian opportunity to meet your protein requirements without loading a lot of carbohydrates and fats
6) Harz cheese is cheap
The cheapest Harzer scooter is available at the discounter for less than one euro for a 200 gram roll. I think that’s an amazing price for the concentrated amount of protein and taste!
By the way, most of the Harz cheese comes from Germany. Often it is even available regionally. So it is not the worst food for the ecological conscience.
How healthy is Harz cheese really?
Harz cheese is a natural, vegetarian product with a lot of protein. In this way he contributes to a protection against protein deficiency (which is more common than many think). The protein it contains also has a very high biological value. So it is rich in essential amino acids .
In addition to the many proteins, Harzer contains little fat and carbohydrates. This offers the possibility to meet the fat requirement very heavy on omega 3 fatty acids and thus to prevent an omega 3 deficiency , which affects many Central Europeans, without straining the calorie account.
Despite the low calorie density, it keeps you full for a relatively long time and is therefore an absolute secret weapon, especially in the fight against obesity. As you probably know, obesity is a big problem in our society and the cause of many diseases.
At the same time, the Harz cheese tastes very intense, which is not the case with many diet foods. The typical diet foods are often rather bland alternatives to the calorie bombs that you try to avoid with them.
Last but not least, the cheese is also a valuable source of calcium. This plays an important role for your bones. It is needed for the development and renewal of bone mass. High bone density is never a bad thing and becomes more important as you get older.
Harzer Rolle – cheese without fat, how does it work?
Harzer Roller has such good nutritional values, that can hardly be true. I thought so a few times. But how is it that this cheese has so little fat? All of the other types of cheese that are known to have a high percentage of fat as a rule. In fact, many types of diet cheeses are being worked hard and tricked to get the fat content below 20 percent. Unfortunately, these cheeses usually have less and less taste.
The Harz cheese is a so-called sour milk cheese. It is made from sour milk quark, which matures with the addition of bacterial cultures within a few days and is then sold. The cheese matures slowly from the outside in. That’s why a really fresh Harz roller still has a firm, crumbly quark core. The nutritional values hardly change on the way from quark to cheese, but the taste even more.
How does Harz cheese taste best?
The flavorful Harz cheese is admittedly not for everyone. I actually know people who absolutely can’t stand cheese. For this reason, I want to give you a few tips on how you can make it edible or even a real pleasure. I am convinced that most people don’t like it because they haven’t tried it properly yet.
If the naked Harz roll cheese is too intense for you, you can always try the variant with noble mold. This tastes a little less intense. In this variant, it also has the advantage that you can eat it more easily by hand without having everything stuck to your fingers. I usually buy the blue cheese variant myself.
What I also want to stress at this point is the issue of getting used to it. If I now say that you get used to everything, it might not sound so positive, but there are just things that you have to learn to love first. I used to hate Harzer too, but now I like it very much in combination with the right other foods. Sometimes I even eat the mold variant pure.
Combination with other foods is the keyword. Depending on what you like and what you are currently in the mood for, there are different ways in which you can combine your Harz cheese or how you can use it. Here are a few suggestions:
- With hummus (in different variations; my favorite: spicy)
- With a little ketchup or mustard
- As a gratin cheese for gratin
- Harz cheese cubes in a salad
- Baked to Harz cheese chips
My favorite – Harz cheese with spicy hummus
If you can break away from the idea that Harz cheese has to be a hearty meal, I can also recommend you to try it as a dessert with apple sauce or some jam . I think that’s really an interesting change.
I will soon be writing an article in which I will present my favorite Harz cheese recipes.
Why does Harzer Roller stink and what can you do about it?
Those who like to eat Harz cheese run the permanent risk of making themselves unpopular with their fellow human beings. Admittedly, the little cheese has a great smell potential as it ripens. If you still want to share your refrigerator with other people or occasionally eat with people, you may have to come up with something. After all, no matter how good a food item is, it can also have very good nutritional values, and if it makes you very unpopular with others, then it’s probably not worth it.
There are various ways in which you can minimize the odor nuisance of Harz cheese:
- Put it in an airtight lunch box in the refrigerator
- Keep your fridge cold (below 4 degrees)
- Buy it for a long time and eat it promptly (the closer to the best before date, the more odorous)
- Buy the (significantly!) less odorous noble mold variant
- Under no circumstances take it with you when it is warm or you won’t be able to eat it within a few hours on the way
You should have already significantly reduced the odor pollution from your Harz cheese. Just give it a try.
Where can you best buy Harz cheese?
Since healthy shopping is always an issue anyway, I want to briefly address that here. In principle, you can get Harzer in almost every supermarket these days. The variant with the noble mold is unfortunately not available everywhere. Just take a look at the supermarkets in your area to see where it is cheapest for you.
The noble mold variant aka basket cheese, as e.g. Loose also offers a very prominent sour milk cheese under the name Quäse with similar nutritional values, which only has a different name for marketing reasons. This is actually available in every second supermarket. If something like protein cheese or something catches your eye, then please first look at the nutritional values to see whether it is really worth it. As a rule, this is also a completely normal Harz roller or basket cheese, which is simply a little more expensive.
If you don’t know yet, I now have the majority of my groceries delivered to my home by the Rewe delivery service. The cold chain is not interrupted for as long as when I cycle to the nearest large supermarket and back. Above all, I save a lot of time and the dragging of groceries.
Harz scooters abroad
Anyone who has fallen in love with the Harzer will quickly find that it is even more difficult to get abroad than, for example, the lean quark, which is also extremely popular among German fitness athletes. After all, it is very good to get as quarels, mainly made in the Czech Republic, in Poland, Austria and Switzerland. While it is still possible in the surrounding countries, it will be much more difficult in southern Europe.
Due to the spread of German food discounters, you can also be lucky in other European countries. However, they usually don’t have it in their range there, unless the regions are very popular with German tourists.
Your conclusion on the Harz cheese
The Harz cheese is definitely a great food and among the vegetarian protein sources with its gigantic nutritional values, it is definitely one of the best. I hope you have recognized that after reading this article at the latest. Despite the many valuable ingredients, you should definitely not forget to eat enough fruit and vegetables and by no means drink too little .
If you want to lose weight, you should always achieve this through a (moderate) calorie deficit through diet and targeted training. The Harz scooter can be a real secret weapon here. With the preparation tips you will get enough variety and benefit from the advantages of the cheese without it quickly becoming too boring for you. The anti-odor tips don’t make yourself unpopular with your fellow human beings and you can eat them regularly in the future.
You might even learn to really appreciate Harz cheese and in the future (like me) you will even use the hashtag # harzerkäseliebe 😉
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