"Cheese food" is the American and Canadian regulatory term for products that aren't spreads and aren't imitation cheese, yet no one pretends the product is anything but a convenience product stand-in for cheese proper.

I realize what I type is redundant, but cheese food is one of those terms that says "we can't think of a better descriptor".

Soon enough the FDA will be defunded and such distinctions will be meaningless.

I used to work in the dairy processing industry. The FDA and USDA have very particular rules about milk products. Mostly it comes down to fat content. For example, take a look at ice cream in the grocery store sometime. There is “Ice Cream” and “Frozen Dairy Desert” the difference being the % of butterfat in the product (you cannot legally use the word “cream” if the butterfat is less than 10%). There are loopholes, however, such as labeling the product as “low-fat”, in which case you can say “cream” even though it isn’t by the legal definition. The rules for cheese are similar.