Laughing Cow Light Cheese Wedges seem to have the market cornered on flavorful, low calorie spreadable cheeses. But Weight Watchers has decided to test their luck and create their own variety. While WW offers their new cheese product in many flavors, the Weight Watchers Parmesan Peppercorn Spreadable Wedges caught my eye for its prospective robust flavor profile.
From the very start of this cheesy battle, I was a bit baffled. You only get 6 cheese wedges in Weight Watchers' cheese wheel while Laughing Cow portions out 8 wedges from the same size wheel. Although the WW wedges may appear to be larger, they are actually 2 grams smaller than the comparable Laughing Cow creation. After further inspection, you can see that the ingredient list for Laughing Cow is very au natural, while that for Weight Watchers is as follows: cultured milk, water, nonfat milk, Maltodextrin, milk protein concentrate, oat fiber, salt, sodium phosphate, cream, sodium polyphosphate, black pepper, calcium propionate (preservative), sugar, glutamic acid and enzymes.
Subsequent to this analysis, I realized that I was not even comparing two of the same products. Laughing Cow describes their product as "light pasteurized cheese", while Weight Watchers deems their spreadable wedges a "pasteurized process cheese product".
The texture of Weight Watchers Cheese Product is a little bit gummier than LC, but they are both creamy and easily spreadable. The peppercorn aspect of this flavor is pronounced by bits of pepper dispersed throughout; although, I wouldn't say that the Parmesan is quite as prominent.
Each 19 gram Weight Watchers Parmesan Peppercorn Spreadable Wedge provides 30 calories, 2 grams of total fat & 1 gram of saturated fat (3% & 5% of the daily value), 10% of the DV for sodium, 1 gram of fiber (4% of the RDA), no sugar and 2 grams of protein. Very similar to Laughing Cow Wedges.
Overall, both companies offer a creamy, low calorie way to get your cheese fix for only 1 WW point. However, The $2.50 price tag on Weight Watchers Parmesan Peppercorn Spreadable Wedges might be a bit cheaper than what you will see Laughing Cow, but I think I am going to stick with Laughing Cow's offering of cheese rather than an overly processed WW "cheese product".