I was thinking the same thing. Go to the grocery store,hit the cheese aisle and you’ll see those packages of singles labelled “cheese food” a generous estimate at best.
The lawsuit would be more interesting if they were trying to force McDonald’s to label it Quarter Pounder with Cheese Food.
I agree with you. But then I will sue to change the menu from “cheese food” to “cheesy chemicals to go with your road kill sandwich on never-rot white imitation bread”
I term that stuff as “plastic cheese”.
I stopped consuming that stuff along with a few other items after passing a kidney stone.
Well, is a step up from “cheese substance” at least.
I come from a Caribbean island but I married a corn fed gal from northwest Iowa. If I may take a moment of your time, I would offer a defense of Velveeta.
Cheese results from acidifying milk which causes the proteins to clump together trapping fat in a net like weave. When heated, the fat renders out and you get oily goo dripping out. (Why some pizza and burgers made with "real" cheese can be greasy.) The fat in cheese also makes it less shelf stable for storage or shipping.
By adding Sodium Citrate to "real" cheese you can displace some of the Calcium which exists in milk and it makes the protein net more flexible. (Now it may be Sodium Phosphate which is just another type of salt and other milk proteins like whey but not, "plastic".) Heating this looser net allows it to melt more easily.
"Sodium citrate comes in and replaces the calcium ions with sodium ions, which are less positively charged (sodium: +1; calcium: +2). They thus make the caseins more negative. That means they’re less hydrophobic and more soluble, with the result that caseins now bind each other much more weakly than they did in cheese. They rearrange themselves into a looser, springier net, forming a substance that’s halfway between cheese and milk: the proteins are insoluble enough that their net can still trap fat molecules, yet soluble enough that the net is flexible and can withstand the heat rising up from a hamburger patty. Food scientists at Kraft describe it as partially reversing the process of making cheese." http://discovermagazine.com/2011/sep/16-the-secret-of-velveeta-how-cheese-food-is-made
Americans eat more, "cheese food" that real cheese and it stores longer and ships to market more easily. Copy and paste the link above and don't hate Velveeta. My Iowa girl likes her queso dip.