southsamurai

No idea. Don’t know anything about the case, nor any texas specific lawsuit issues.

To rupture? I would be highly dubious of that claim. Without some kind of factor weakening or otherwise changing things, there’s no headphones out there that could do that, even with a perfect seal.

Damage hearing, absolutely. But that’s a far cry from rupturing an ear drum. That’s hard enough to do on purpose. I’ve seen people try to clap hands on the ears to attempt a rupture and never seen it work.

I’ve had some big fucking handguns go off near my ear without a rupture. Couldn’t hear shit for days in one case, but no injury to the membrane itself. Fuck, I’ve been right near the stage for Iron Maiden and was fine the next day.

Eardrums are hard to rupture at all, much less without a very good seal and large amounts of air moving.

Yah, the labeling laws are overly complicated in the favor of corporate bullshit. It hides the stuff that’s little more than oil that’s been thickened up and laced with flavoring behind the association with what was originally just cheese with some emulsifier.

I’ve got family that runs a dairy farm, and makes some cheese, the basic kind that’s used to make old school American. There’s about three grades of things that are allowed to have cheese on the label, with other words in fine print before they start saying “American slices”, or “sandwich slices” and can’t put cheese on there.

Fwiw, American is just a mild cheddar processed with sodium citrate.

I’ll have a lancre blue, hold the homicidal rage

Which version? Kraft makes several types. That’s the point of focusing on labeling and ingredients, so that no matter what their marketing department changes, anyone that cares can find what they actually want.

Serously. Kraft makes something like 5 sliced cheeses for different markets. Might even be more than that.

That being said, I did the work for you, despite the sense of entitlement.

The Kraft “American cheese slices” that have a front label that says “kraft singles”, and specifies 2% milk is a cheese product rather than a pasteurized processed cheese. The ingredient list of cheeseless, but does include dairy.

The “deli deluxe” has cheese as the first ingredient, and has added water and milk alongside the standard emulsifiers, colorants, and preservatives. It is American cheese rather than a cheese food or a cheese slice, though it obviously isn’t as good as it once was. Years ago, when they came out with the deli deluxe, it was only cheese, sodium citrate, and salt. The cheese itself had the colorants, but no extra preservatives.

The Kraft singles branded without the specified 2% milk on the front has cheese as an ingredient, but it is the second ingredient, with the first being milk. It also has a longer list of ingredients, including dairy products. This it in between the other two, and (iirc) is classed as a cheese food.

Out of those three, the deli deluxe is as close to the original version James Kraft made as you’ll get today.

Having used all three at various points, the 2% is crap. It does melt well on a hot sandwich, but fails in other applications because it gets a little separated over time when heated. The non 2% labeled is fine for most purposes, and has a better taste imo. Both the non 2% and the deli deluxe can be used for cheese sauces that include other cheeses, as there’s enough sodium citrate to emulsify a decent enough amount of unprocessed cheese.

Imo, the best option available at a chain grocery is boar’s head. It’s essentially the bare minimum of ingredients for yellow American cheese. Barring that, the Kraft deli deluxe is the best commonly available brand. I haven’t tried every brand out there, and not all brands are available everywhere, so there may be plenty that are as good as boar’s head, and I just haven’t had them.

Out of the chain stores, the only one I like is publix. Their basic cheese is the same as deli deluxe. harris teeter, and giant eagle are acceptable, as well, but publix melted the best and tastes the best to me. The rest of the chains fell short in other ways, or didn’t even have cheese as an ingredient.

Borden sucks. Worst name brand cheese I’ve ever had.

Horizon organics is crap too. You’d think a brand focused on organic milk would do better, but it’s bland and melts poorly

Can’t recall any other brands that stand out.

Personally, anything labeled “product” or “slices” isn’t worth the money. However, the stuff labeled “product” can be okay for something like a grilled cheese if the budget is tight. It will melt, and there is some flavor there.

The stuff labeled “slices” doesn’t even melt right at all, and is almost always cheeseless, replacing that with processed oils and trace amounts of dairy products. The worst of those are nothing but oils, colors, and some artificial flavoring.

As always, check your labels. The ingredient list will usually be an accurate guide, whereas front labels sometimes use font sizes and design to hide exactly which designation it is.

Aight, lets set some terms.

A lot of what people call American cheese, isn’t. But the term has become used for anything yellow and in a package, despite there being regulations about what is and isn’t allowed to be called cheese.

So I’m not going to waste time covering all of that, and I’ll focus on the versions that are cheese, or at least were at one point.

So, waaaaay back, long before processed cheese was a thing, American cheese existed in other usages. As far back as colonial days, “American” cheese was just the term the English used for cheddars or other cheeses made in the colonies that also existed in England.

Time passes, and it turns out that American cheese makers grew in skill and range. But there was still “American” cheese. This was usually a form of mild cheddar, often uncolored. You can still find that kind of cheese, if you don’t mind it being called mild white cheddar.

So, some bright lads in Switzerland were looking for a way in the early 1900s to make cheese more shelf stable. They were not the only ones, but they were the first. They used ementhal.

Here in the states, James Kraft was working on the same thing, but found a different way there, and using a different base cheese. That base cheese? A mild cheddar.

Essentially, the process in “processed cheese” is taking actual cheese, heating it, stirring it, and adding an emulsifer. That’s it. The process just takes regular cheese and makes it both shelf stable, and smoother.

Essentially, when you make any given cheese sauce for something like homemade mac n cheese, and you use flour as the emulsifier, you’re doing the same thing to it. It isn’t as shelf stable, obviously, but you’re processing the cheese.

So, Kraft not only made shelf stable cheese, he did it using “waste” cheese. When you’re cutting cheese up for shipping and sale, you end up with little chunks and slivers that are not saleable as they are.

This meant that Kraft’s process was inexpensive to produce overall, though it did eventually stop being made of only waste cheese. That led to what’s still called “government cheese”. It was literally given out by the government in various ways.

Now, the ugly side of things.

Even cheese waste is more expensive than oil and chemicals. So the Kraft company (and pretty much every other mass cheese making company) started fucking with it. Adding in more than just cheese, emulsifiers, and stabilizers. There’s shit on the market that gets labeled now as “American slices”. But that shit ain’t cheese any more than vegan cheese is. That gradual race to the bottom by international conglomerates looking to give as little value in their products as possible fucked up the “American cheese” goodness.

And the original processed cheese was a boon. Shelf stable even without refrigeration, well blended for use in multiple applications, and meeting a bare minimum of flavor requirements. It’s the shit that came later that developed the reputation that tarnished all processed cheeses.

If you go shopping, you can still find real cheese that’s been processed. Look at the label. It should have nothing but cheese, sodium citrate (or a similar chemical) and maybe something like tocopherol (aka vitamin e) as a preservative. That’s it. That’s all the good stuff has. There may be annato listed as a colorant, since that’s how many cheeses are made yellow.

Typically, you’ll only find it in the form of a blend of cheddar and Colby, selected for a mild flavor and easy, consistent melting. Salt levels can be higher than with an unprocessed cheese, so check for that if you’re sodium restricted.

But what purpose does it serve? The same as any cheese. It just does it while melting in a smooth, homogeneous way, and lasts longer without going bad

It can also reduce waste, though it has become a product in such demand that chest is produced in quantity just for processing. But there are smaller dairies that process their own out of waste pieces. My uncle used to do so, though after he retired, my cousin took the farm a different way and reduced the things they sell, so he only supplies the family now .

The problem processing solves has already been covered, but I’ll sum it up again. It solves shelf stability as the primary, with melting ease being a secondary benefit. The process using heat means that the cheese is pasteurized when it’s finished. So it can sit for very long times compared to unprocessed cheese, and even longer than that refrigerated (which also extends unprocessed cheese life)

Refrigeration does solve storage life for unprocessed cheese as well. And, it is dead simple to add emulsifiers when cooking, so the melty factor isn’t as big a deal as it used to be.

It is also a very good option when you want a mild, even, predictable taste.

So, check your labels. Make sure you’re getting actual processed cheese rather than “cheese food” or (gods forbid) “american slices”. That being said, “cheese food” is still mostly cheese, and the rest is typically going to include more dairy products than other things . Those shitty “slices” have no cheese at all, and are not allowed to call themselves cheese here in the US.

Now, this is already long, and there’s going to be some short attention span asshole complaining about it.

But let me finish with a fact. All cheese is processed. Period. The only differences are in exactly what processes are used. You take milk, and you use chemicals (be they sourced from something “naturally”, or via a lab) to change that milk. Rennet isn’t exactly dripping from trees, ya know. It is not somehow superior to sodium citrate by virtue of originally being taken from calf stomachs.

Oh, you didn’t know that’s how cheese is made? Yeah. Back before labs, rennet was a side product of calf processing. But no matter what’s used to do it, you can’t make cheese without curds. And making curds means curdling milk. Which is inherently a chemical process.