Benefits of Eating Cheesecake

Cheesecake consists of a few simple ingredients -- cream cheese, sugar, eggs, sour cream and vanilla -- that are mixed and baked on a graham cracker crust. A blueberry cheesecake usually has a topping of fresh or frozen blueberries that have been boiled with a little sugar, but it may also have blueberry sauce swirled through the cake. One slice of commercially prepared cheesecake without the blueberries has 401 calories, 28 grams of fat and 32 grams carbohydrates. Twenty-seven grams of the carbohydrates are pure sugar; the rest are fiber from the graham crackers. At least half the fat is unhealthy saturated fat, including 69 grams of cholesterol. Cream cheese contributes a little over 70 percent of the total fat, and sour cream is responsible for about 20 percent. The blueberry topping adds another 27 calories, 2 grams of fiber and 5 grams of sugar.

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One slice of plain cheesecake provides 23 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. In the cream cheese and sour cream, vitamin A is found primarily in the form of retinol, which is used by cells in the eyes that turn light into visual images. Retinol also supports the cells that enable night vision. Eggs provide retinol, but they also contain other forms of vitamin A known as lutein and zeaxanthin. Lutein and zeaxanthin function as antioxidants that protect the retina and may help prevent age-related macular degeneration.

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