>>733385
a few months ago i was curious about the state of imitation american cheeses containing vegetable lipids, which were a source of scandal in the 1980s and 1990s, so i went through and read the ingredient list of all of them that were available in my supermarket. i don''t believe they're still made. all of them i could find, including the cheapest bottom-shelf stuff, are made out of cheese and milk (and sometimes cream, in the case of boar's head) and the only variation is which preservative salts they include.
linton hopkins, the guy who ran the best burger restaurant in atlanta (which he eventually turned into a chain, which still makes good burgers, but not as good as the two dozen-a-burgers-a-week version made from steak trimmings) insists that kraft is the one to use for burgers because of its melting characteristics. i do think it melts better than the boar's head product, which is kind of crappy, but it's not any better than the horizon organic american cheese from what i can tell.
fundamentally the problem with american cheese is that the name is stupid. it's not a cheese. it's a product made out of cheese, specifically, a cheese sauce that's stored as a preportioned refrigerated solid.