Cheese. Cheese has long been considered a food to avoid for heart health due to its high content of saturated fatty acids, but despite the fact that the study’s volunteers ate more fat than they normally did, those who ate cheese daily had no increase in their LDL or total cholesterol.

When eating butter, the same people saw their LDL levels increase by about seven percent on average.

Researchers speculate that the calcium in cheese may aid in the removal of fat by the body. Other possible reasons for the Not Guilty verdict for cheese include the fermentation process used to make cheese or the large amount of protein in cheese, either of which could affect the way cheese is digested. Read story >