Edam

Edam is notable for histamine, FODMAPs, lactose and oxalates. Clear on tyramine, salicylate, sucrose, oligosaccharides, sorbitol, fructose, nickel and gluten.

Edam contains moderate levels of histamine. Edam is a washed-curd cheese, and that is the detail that places it: part of the whey is replaced with water during the make, which washes out lactose and stops the acidity going as far as a cheddar's - a less acid, less broken-down paste makes fewer amines. A young edam is a four-week cheese and sits low; the aged version, sold as a harder and deeper yellow wheel, has had months more and behaves like the other aged cheeses here. The name covers both, so the age is what you read. Across a shelf of retail cheeses the spread is enormous and the variety is a weak predictor. Pasteurisation, starter culture, salt and ripening time are the real variables.

Edam contains only low levels of FODMAPs. Edam is low because the lactose is gone, eaten by the starter bacteria over weeks of ripening. Lactose is the D of the acronym, and an aged cheese has almost none left - which is why hard cheese is one of the few dairy foods a low-FODMAP diet keeps.

Edam contains only low levels of lactose. Edam is pressed and ripened like the hard cheeses, and it lands just short of them: it is NOT among the twelve cheese types measured with undetectable lactose, because it is semi-hard and ripened for weeks to months rather than for years. What is left is a trace rather than nothing, and that is the difference between edam reading low here and gruyere reading none.

Edam contains only low levels of oxalates. Edam contains no oxalate of its own - oxalate is a plant compound and this is not a plant. A firm, long-keeping cheese: ageing loses water, not oxalate, because there was none to lose. Its calcium even helps the rest of the plate: it binds oxalate from whatever is eaten alongside. Amounts vary by brand and recipe, so always check the label of the exact product.