Can babies have cottage cheese?

The verdict

Yes. Cottage cheese is named directly. The NHS says babies can eat pasteurised full-fat cheese from 6 months old and gives three examples: hard cheeses such as mild cheddar, cottage cheese, and cream cheese. Ireland's HSE lists the same three.

Canada names it too. The Canadian Paediatric Society lists dairy foods including full-fat yogurt, full-fat grated or cubed pasteurized cheeses and cottage cheese among the milk products to offer after 6 months.

Being named individually matters, because the phrase soft cheese carries a warning in this guidance and parents reasonably assume cottage cheese is caught by it. It is not.

Why the listeria warning does not apply

The exclusions are about how a cheese is made, not how soft it is.

The cheeses the NHS and HSE rule out for babies are mould-ripened soft cheeses such as brie and camembert, ripened goats' milk cheese such as chevre, soft blue-veined cheese such as roquefort, and anything made from unpasteurised milk. What these have in common is a ripening process that raises the pH of the cheese as it matures. Listeria monocytogenes favours moist, low-acid conditions, and unusually among food pathogens it keeps multiplying at refrigerator temperature.

Cottage cheese is not ripened. It is a fresh, acid-set curd made from pasteurised milk, drained and packed. It stays acidic and it has already been heat-treated. That is why it sits on the permitted list next to cheddar rather than next to brie, despite being one of the wettest cheeses in the chiller.

The one thing to confirm is pasteurisation, which is a label check. HealthLink BC's instruction is to give only pasteurized milk products and to check the label to confirm it.

Serving it

Cottage cheese needs no cutting or shaping. The curds are soft enough to be squashed on the roof of the mouth, which is the working definition of soft in New Zealand's choking guidance, and it presents none of the risk that a cube of hard cheese or a stick of string cheese does. The AAP names chunks of cheese and string cheese among choking hazards; loose curds are the opposite of that.

For a baby who is still on smooth textures, cottage cheese can be blended or pressed through a sieve to remove the lumps, or stirred into a vegetable puree. For a baby working on lumps, the curds are a useful early lumpy texture that does not need chewing, which is exactly the transition the NHS wants moved along: it advises moving on to mashed and finger foods as soon as a baby is ready, because it helps them learn to chew, move solid food around their mouth and swallow.

It also works as a spread on a finger of toast. The NHS says white bread can form a ball shape with a dough-like texture in the throat if it is not chewed properly, so lightly toast white bread or use brown, and cut it into narrow strips.

Salt, which varies more than you would expect

Cottage cheese is drained curd with salt added, and how much varies substantially between brands. The NHS sets the limit for children under 1 year old at less than 1g of salt a day, and no more than 2g a day between 1 and 3, because babies' kidneys are not fully developed and cannot process it.

That makes the label the deciding factor. Some plain cottage cheeses are among the lower-salt cheeses available; others are not. Reduced-salt versions exist and are genuinely useful at this age, unlike reduced-fat versions.

Rinsing cottage cheese briefly in a sieve under cold water removes some surface salt along with some of the dressing, which is a reasonable step if the only tub available is a salty one.

Full-fat, and the flavoured tubs

Buy full-fat. The NHS recommends full-fat cheese, yoghurt and fromage frais up to the age of 2, because young children need fat and energy to grow, and says lower-fat dairy can be introduced gradually once a child is 2 and eating and growing well. Australia's Raising Children Network advises against reduced-fat dairy until 2 years.

Skip the flavoured tubs. Pineapple, chive, onion and similar versions add sugar, salt or both, and the pineapple ones bring a second problem: New Zealand classes raw pineapple as fibrous or stringy food, a choking category where the fibres make it difficult for children to break the food up, with the remedy being to slice thinly across the grain of the fibres.

Add flavour with food instead: soft fruit blended through it, cooked vegetables mashed into it, or a little unsweetened fruit puree.

Protein, calcium and where it fits

Cottage cheese is a useful source of protein and calcium and an easy way to add both to a meal without cooking. What it is not is a good iron source, and iron is the nutrient infant feeding guidance is most focused on in the second half of the first year.

The Canadian Paediatric Society's advice is to start with iron-rich foods such as meat, poultry, cooked whole egg, fish, tofu and well-cooked legumes, and to offer iron-rich foods at least twice a day. Cottage cheese belongs alongside those rather than instead of them. Stirred through mashed lentils or served with flaked fish, it earns its place.

From age 1, the NHS suggests at least 350ml of milk a day or two servings of foods made from milk such as cheese, yoghurt or fromage frais.

Cottage cheese as a dairy allergen

It contains cows' milk protein, so it introduces one of the common allergens. Guidance is not to delay it. HealthLink BC says to introduce common food allergens including milk products when a baby starts solid foods at about 6 months, and to keep offering them regularly once tolerated, because that may help prevent an allergy developing. ASCIA's rule is to keep introduced allergens in the diet at least once a week in age appropriate servings.

Introduce it on its own the first time rather than alongside two other new foods. It is not a workaround for a diagnosed cows' milk protein allergy, because the proteins are the same as in milk, and the NHS warns against cutting out a major food group without advice from a health visitor or GP.

Where guidance differs

It does not. The UK, Ireland and Canada name cottage cheese explicitly as suitable from around 6 months. Australia and New Zealand include cheese generally among dairy foods for the first year. The US does not name it but its only cheese-related caution is about chunks and string cheese, which is a hard cheese problem.

No authority in any of these countries restricts pasteurised cottage cheese for a baby over 6 months. The entire practical advice is: pasteurised, full-fat, plain, and check the salt.