The #1 Change I Noticed When I Ate Cottage Cheese for Seven Days Straight

Bowl of cottage cheese

Cottage cheese with pineapple was a favorite snack of mine growing up. It made its way into my lunch boxes and after-school snack regimen. The sweet pineapple mixed with the tangy, curdled texture of plain cottage cheese was a winning combination.

It's been a while since I enjoyed cottage cheese for a snack. My go-tos have become fruit and cheese, a handful of nuts or whatever my toddler didn't eat off his high chair tray. So, when an editor approached me about eating cottage cheese a try, the nostalgia set in, and I jumped at a chance.

Just the thought of consuming an old favorite food puts a good taste in my mouth—a welcome thing as I navigate a mix of post-holiday blues. Plus, cottage cheese can be healthy, and I'm trying to clean up my diet a bit after loving all the Christmas classics.

Cottage cheese also became buzzy last year, thanks to TikTok. Videos with the hashtag cottage cheese have 1.3 billion views, prompting headlines that read something to the effect of "Why Is Everyone On TikTok Eating Cottage Cheese?"

I guess I'm late to the cottage cheese party. I'm not a mom, I'm an uncool mom. Still, I'm an uncool mom who pledged to try cottage cheese every day and see what happened. The minor dietary tweak had me noticing a significant change.

Related: The #1 Change I Noticed When I Ate an Apple Every Day for a Week

Health Benefits of Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese isn't just an easy, for-all-ages snack idea. According to Cleveland Clinic, it boasts some serious health benefits, including:

• Low in calories (the cottage cheese I ate had 90 calories per half-cup serving)

• High in muscle-building, satiety-inducing complete protein (Mine had 15 grams per half-cup serving)

• Calcium to help with bone strength

• Aids in weight loss

• Amino acids that support everything from better sleep to energy levels

• Full of probiotics that help with digestive health

• Blood sugar control

A 2018 study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that consuming protein-rich foods about half an hour before bed was positive for muscle quality and overall health. Sounds like a great bedtime snack to me.

Related: The Is the #1 Biggest Health Benefit of Cottage Cheese, According to Registered Dietitians

Why Is Cottage Cheese Trendy?

It's not precisely clear why TikTok has embraced cottage cheese, but the health benefits above are probably a good place to start. One user, Tiffany Magee, took things to the next level when she started posting herself mixing cottage cheese with mustard (and chicken sausage). Magee has a large following (1.5 million views).

Other pontifications include:

• A love of bowls by Millenials (guilty—acai bowls from my local deli are bomb)

• A move back to cow's milk

• A desire to lose weight

To be clear, I'm not attempting to lose weight, I'm just trying to return to a lower-sugar diet after a season of merrily eating my mom's holiday cookies for dinner. I feel better physically and mentally when I consume these foods. I don't say this to shame people who do want to drop a few pounds, but the cottage cheese trend has some diet-culture vibes that I'm not here to cosign. However, I 20/10 endorse adding cottage cheese to your fridge for one main reason.

Related: This Is the #1 Healthiest Fruit, According to Registered Dietitians—Is It Part of Your Diet?

The Biggest Change I Noticed After Eating Cottage Cheese Every Day for One Week

When I added cottage cheese to my diet, snack time became fun again. My typical diet usually consists of eating mostly the same things every day. It's one less decision I have to make."What's for lunch? Oh, stir fry." "What's for snack? Almonds and fruit. No time? Goldfish crackers off my toddler's tray." It's a convenient way to reduce stress. Real talk: It's also boring.

Adding cottage cheese to my diet was exciting. Maybe I need to get out more, but shifting to a new food as a snack gave me something to look forward to. Since I'm busy, I kept the recipes simple, adding strawberries, bananas, apples and spices. My unexpected favorite: I'm a huge egg nog fan, so I tried sprinkling a little nutmeg in my cottage cheese. Sorry, pineapple, you've been replaced.

Cottage cheese on toast with peanut butter was a runner-up and one that had me feeling full on a day when dinner was late. As for fruits, the sweetness of the banana and strawberry in the cottage cheese was a good alternative to pineapple, which I had no time to chop.

As a recovering diet culture subscriber, I'm learning to shift my mindset and accept that food is more than fuel—it's fun and nostalgic I'm not trying to romanticize curdled cheese here, but making an old favorite snack new again gave me a mental boost. It was a small self-care sprinkle.

Related: 'The #1 Change I Noticed When I Drank Black Coffee Every Day for a Week'

What Else I Noticed When I Ate Cottage Cheese for a Week

Besides actually looking forward to my mid-afternoon snack, I welcomed a few other changes into my life during the week I ate cottage cheese:

• I felt fuller longer. The 15 grams of protein my cottage cheese contained was more than the 6 grams of my typical cheese snack. Also, the sugar in the cookies I consumed provided spikes and crashes, quickly leaving me feeling ravenous. I felt satisfied longer after eating cottage cheese. I'm no fun when I'm hangry, so my loved ones enjoyed this perk.

• My gut felt better. Not everyone will share this opinion of cottage cheese or dairy more generally. However, my stomach continued its road to post-holiday recovery during this week.

• I felt inspired. I didn't go down the rabbit hole of trying TikTok recipes. I did try mustard and cottage cheese, but it definitely wasn't for me. Still, the excitement of trying new foods inspired me to give some a try. As a pasta fan, I have my eye on this protein-packed recipe for this weekend. I just have to get myself another container of cottage cheese.

Here's what I didn't notice: I did not lose weight. I wasn't trying to. However, no single food swap is a magic bullet for anything, from weight to gut health, so just please keep that in mind and speak to a dietitian if you have concerns.

Next up: The Simple Test You Should Get Every Day if You Want To Live to 100

Sources

• 7 Reasons Why Cottage Cheese is Good For You, Cleveland Clinic