Gorgonzola

Why gorgonzola is rated low

Gorgonzola comes in low, and it is worth being clear about where that answer comes from: the rating is estimated from what the cheese is made of rather than from a measured serving in a lab. It is a dense, fatty blue cheese with very little fermentable carbohydrate left in it, and no FODMAP subgroup is recorded against it at all. The portion data has a single rung, and it is a generous one: Any typical portion reads LOW, whether the cheese is crumbled cold over a salad, stirred into a sauce or eaten in wedges off a board. What the rating does not stretch to is a helping well beyond a typical portion, which simply is not covered here, or the rest of the plate the cheese turns up on, which is usually where a blue cheese dish actually goes wrong.

What changes your risk

• Serving size The low rating is attached to Any typical portion, not to an open tub. A helping far past what anyone would call a typical portion sits outside the data entirely, so there is nothing here that says an unlimited amount is fine.
• What the cheese is melted into Gorgonzola rarely arrives alone. It usually shows up in a cream sauce, a stock based soup or a pasta sauce, and those carriers can bring onion and garlic with them. The cheese stays where it is, but the dish does not.
• Stacking across the whole meal A low rating is per serving, not per meal. Blue cheese on a wheat cracker, next to a handful of dried fruit and a glass of ordinary milk, adds up to a meal with a real FODMAP load even though the cheese itself contributed almost nothing.
• Dressings, dips and seasoned mixes Blue cheese dressing, blue cheese dips and cheese spreads are not the same product as a wedge of Gorgonzola. They are often built on a base that carries onion powder or garlic powder, and the label is the only way to know.
• Heat changes nothing Melting Gorgonzola into a sauce or baking it under a crust does not lower or raise its FODMAP content. Cooking does not destroy FODMAPs, and nothing leaves the cheese when it melts.

What else works

If you want to vary the cheese board or need a second cheese for a recipe, cheddar, parmesan and swiss are all low FODMAP choices that behave the same way in cooking, and Gorgonzola sits happily beside them. The lookalikes to watch are the soft and fresh cheeses people assume are interchangeable with a crumbly blue: ricotta, cottage cheese, cream cheese and mascarpone are not low, and neither is ordinary milk or cream, which is what a blue cheese sauce is usually thickened with. A blue cheese dressing is a different product from the cheese itself, so treat it as its own item rather than as Gorgonzola in liquid form.

How to keep it low

Buy a wedge rather than a tub of pre crumbled or pre blended blue cheese, since the wedge is the plain cheese and the tub can carry added ingredients you then have to read for. Wrap it in paper rather than plastic and keep it in the door of the fridge where it is least likely to dry out. Crumble it yourself straight from cold, which gives you far more control over how much lands on the plate than spooning from a dressing jar does. When you are building a meal around it, put it on rice, polenta or a plain baked potato rather than on a wheat baguette, and when you are eating out ask for the blue cheese on the side so the dressing does not decide the portion for you.

Common questions

how much gorgonzola can i eat on a low fodmap diet

The portion data gives one rung for Gorgonzola, and it is low at Any typical portion. There is no tested figure beyond that, so a helping far larger than a normal serving is simply not covered.

is blue cheese ok on a low fodmap diet

Gorgonzola is rated low, and the rating is estimated from the cheese's composition rather than from a measured serving. The usual problem with a blue cheese dish is the dressing, the cream sauce or the bread it sits on rather than the cheese.

can i eat gorgonzola during the elimination phase

Yes, it is a low FODMAP food at Any typical portion, so it does not need to be taken out during elimination. Tolerance still varies between people, and reintroduction work is done with a dietitian.

is blue cheese dressing low fodmap too

Not automatically. Bottled blue cheese dressings are built on other ingredients and often carry onion powder or garlic powder, so the dressing has to be judged on its own label rather than on the cheese's rating.