The news this week that cheddar prices are set to rise by 10% seems unlikely to trouble devotees of its plastic cousin, who will be able to respond by laying in huge stockpiles of spreads, triangles and slices. Processed cheese, of course, isn't really cheese. National regulations here and in the US insist the labels say "cheese food", "cheese spread" or something equally opaque. Rather, it's based on cheese, a cheese memory: there's something instantly artificial to its whole business.

And "business" is the operative word. 75% of the "cheese" sold in the US is now processed: heat-treated, emulsified, compounded with sorbic acid, polyophosphate and other laboratory delicacies. Kraft Singles, the lurid squares flopped on burgers from sea to shining sea, today rejoice under the name "pasteurized prepared cheese product" – a long way from nature and nourishment.



Britain fares little better. You know the brands already: the red-waxed roundels of Ba Ba Babybel, the Dunkers, Philadelphia, the cachinnating bovine. I don't eat it very often, so I bought a load by way of research when writing this. It was all horrible. Laughing Cow smells alarmingly of nothing. On the tongue, it's clammy and cold, chilled snot whiffing of silage. Dairylea is epically disgusting: baby-sick panna cotta. Cheestrings – technically not processed, but a heated, elongated cousin – sent me their "shots" to try: lentil-sized lumps that looked like Brian May's dandruff.

All grim, then. But that's hardly surprising: processed cheese has always put consistency, shelf-life and profit before flavour. When Walter Gerber mixed hot shredded Emmentaler with sodium citrate in 1911, finding that the cooled product took longer to spoil, he knew he could make money from it. James L Kraft, of course, became the daddy, making a fortune flogging tinned cheese to the US government during the first world war. Although he lost his home in the 1929 Great Crash, by then it was too late: Kraft-work was ubiquitous.

Children seem to like the insipid fattiness of processed cheese, and manufacturers exploit that. Dairylea seem to have filmed a new advert every two weeks for the last 40 years. I remember this one from about 1990 and thinking at the time that "Veronica Dribblethwaite" was a brilliant name. The modern ads are rarely as good (with this honourable exception); but fans of Peep Show might be pleased to recognise the "cleanshirt" kid promoting Dairylea Dunkers. And I must point you towards an adorable nine-year-old Elijah Wood squealing "Hooray!" at bright orange "cheddar" gunged over broccoli.

Perhaps through routine, then, or habits set in childhood, processed cheese has fans. WoM's own Simon Majumdar explains his appreciation for it. "It's all about context," he says. "The peeling of a Dairylea triangle and its taste transport me back to my childhood à la recherche du triangle perdu." Blogger Chris Pople enjoys high-end burgers with cheese "sourced from the nearest corner shop". He wrote to me: "On their own, Kraft Singles taste like salty latex – but on a freshly seared burger they just work. That slimy layer of processed goo lubricates and seasons the meat, transforming beef in a bun into the mighty American Cheeseburger."

I know what he means. I had my first McDonald's in years the other week: it shocked me like fingers in a plug socket. It was filthily brilliant, and the cheese was everything. Triangles and pastes aside, burger cheese is a yellowy slice of foodie doublethink: objectively disgusting but subjectively delicious – good because it's bad. What do you make of processed cheese?