10 Holiday Party-Food Dilemmas, Solved

Soft or Hard Cheese?

The Better Choice: Soft Cheese

Brie is hardly a health food, but some soft cheeses (like Brie and goat) are slightly lower in calories than hard cheeses (like Cheddar and Gruyère). A one-ounce serving of Brie―about the amount you'd put on two crackers―contains 94 calories; one ounce of Gruyère has 117 calories. While all cheese is high in fat―most of it the artery-clogging, saturated kind―soft cheeses have a tiny bit less fat than hard (eight grams in an ounce of Brie, nine in an ounce of Cheddar).

But… You'll get a slightly bigger dose of calcium from hard cheese. A serving of Gruyère packs 286 milligrams of bone-strengthening calcium, while a serving of Brie contains a mere 52 milligrams.