DEAR PEGGY: Does cottage cheese contain calcium? Being a milk product, can I count it as a milk serving in my daily intake? —D.B., Plantation, Florida
Due to the curding process, cottage cheese retains only 30% to 50% of the calcium of the milk it is made from. As a result, you'd have to eat as much as 2 cups of cottage cheese to get the calcium in 1 cup of milk or yogurt. In other words, 1 cup of cottage cheese only offers 100 to 200 milligrams of calcium compared to the 300 milligrams found in a cup of milk.