By Jordana Brown
A flexonline reader is hard to trick. Not only are you driven to
attain mammoth muscle, you’re extremely well educated in how to
do that in the quickest, healthiest manner. You know, for
example, that dairy products are great sources of protein. But
in our never-ending quest to stump you, we have a doozy of a
dairy question: Which is better for muscle — yogurt or cottage
cheese?
On one hand, yogurt is heaving with calcium, particularly when
compared to cottage cheese, and it also has significantly more
potassium (great for postworkout recovery) and carbs than
cottage cheese.
On the other hand, cottage cheese starts out the way all cheeses
do, as a big mash of milk and enzymes, which cause the milk to
curdle. Other cheeses get drained, pressed and aged, but cottage
cheese is only drained and washed. Most of the calcium is washed
away, along with most of the whey protein, but the casein
protein remains intact.
THE WINNER: Cottage
cheese, TKO Round 8
REASON The
decision comes down to cold, hard macros. One cup (eight ounces)
of low-fat cottage cheese contains a stunning 28 grams of
protein; an eight-ounce container of low-fat plain yogurt
contains only 12 g.
Yes, much of the whey (the milky liquid that you’ll sometimes
find at the bottom of the container, and yes, this is where your
protein powders come from) is removed. But that is why cottage
cheese is such a fantastic source of casein protein, the
slow-digesting kind that will keep catabolism at bay during long
periods between meals or overnight. For that reason, we
recommend a nightly cup of cottage cheese. It is also high in
glutamine, which can increasegrowth
