Raw Milk Cheesemakers Fret Over Possible New Rules

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Federal regulators are considering whether to tighten food safety rules for cheese made with unpasteurized milk — and the possibility has cheesemakers and foodies worried that the result will be cheese that is less tasty and not much safer.

The new proposals, which are expected in the next several months, come after a very tough year for this country’s fast-growing gourmet cheese industry, marked by recalls and two multistate E. coli outbreaks that sickened nearly 50 people.

Unpasteurized milk, often called raw milk, is prized by many cheesemakers, who say that it adds a special richness of flavor.

The debate focuses on a federal rule that requires cheese made from raw milk to be aged for 60 days before it is deemed safe to eat. Raw milk has not been heated to kill harmful bacteria, a process known as pasteurization. So aging allows the chemicals in cheese, acids and salt, time to destroy harmful bacteria.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/business/05cheese.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[pipoman]

1. Really

jeez, 50 people ill in a year? How many people ate cheese made in this manner during the year? We better hurry up and outlaw this ancient process...for the children, ya know...where will it stop?

[Tunkamerica]

2. I heard dirt has bacteria in it. We should really only be allowed to eat food grown hydroponically

in water triple filtered by reverse osmosis.

[harmonicon]

5. yeah, if people have been doing it for a long time, it must be good.

... you know, like slavery and wife-beating!

[pipoman]

11. Yea, cheese and slavery

just like peanut butter amd jelly, huh?

:crazy:

[PavePusher]

31. Wow. Just... fucking wow. Please know that you have entered the "No Credibility Zone"...

by virtue of hyperbolic false conflation.

There is no prize money.

[harmonicon]

32. Oh, I'm the one who's done so?

I don't think so. The reasoning that I was criticizing was, "people have been doing this for a long time, so it must be good." If one follows this thinking to logical extremes, you come up to the same conclusions that I did. Somehow I'm the one with no credibility? I don't think so.

[LanternWaste]

34. You may find an answer to your query.

"where will it stop...?"

Try reading 'The Jungle' by Upton Sinclair. You may find an answer to your query.

[jmowreader]

37. There's one little problem with using that book as the answer he seeks

Durham's and Brown's weren't even close to being as evil as they could have been.

[PoliticAverse]

3. Perfectly-safe perfectly-bland food for all! n/t

[SpiralHawk]

4. Industrial Ag, with the complicity of Obama, is squeezing small farmers more

and more and more...the Big Ag (R) folks are out to squash the mouse of clean, sustainable ag -- to totally crush it.

[harmonicon]

6. that has nothing to do with this.

I come from a family of dairy farmers, and fuck if they ever gave two shits about some snobby rich people's taste in food. They're getting squeezed out because the price of milk is down after decades of effectively subsidizing industrial farming.

[SpiralHawk]

9. Corpflap

Total corpflap.

[pipoman]

12. Maybe they should give two shits about what

the market demands. People trying to sell shit saying they don't give a shit what people want perplex me.

Shelf prices for virtually all dairy has been at near all time highs in the last few months. My price for butter is at $96 for a 36lb case this last week, in Dec. it was at $101 (same case has been between $66 and $73 for 3 years now). Cheese is up, cottage cheese is up, sour cream is up, heavy cream is up, buttermilk is up, ice cream is up, all at near record levels. Maybe if your family gave a shit about "snobby rich people's taste in food", they could come up with a way to capitalize on the record markets...but alas...

[harmonicon]

27. those prices are for you, not the farmers

I remember my grandmother telling me about ten years ago (she's dead now) that they were getting less money for milk than they were in the 60's. That's not counting for inflation, that's in real dollar amounts. Assuming that just because you're paying more for something means that those prices go all the way down the chain is a big mistake; or did you believe in trickle down economics?

What the market demanded for my family was milk. They made it and sold it to a wholesaler. It's a commodity. Maybe you have some romantic notation about a farm run by two brothers, their parents, and sometimes help from other family members being able to have some little shop selling raw milk cheese or something, but most working people don't have time for those kind of things. Yes, I know that having two careers would make more than having one, but there literally is not enough time in the day for it.

[tpsbmam]

19. Exactly my reaction. nt

[cali]

7. That's my neighbor Mateo in the picture

He and his brother Andy make fantastic cheeses and they have a big underground cellar to age both the cheeses Jasper Hill makes and cheeses that other small artisan producers make. I love what they do and what they make, and they're a big boon for our poor area.

[WranglerRog]

8. I agree with the last sentence in the article

Raw cheese is here to stay. I own a sheep dairy in the Ozarks of Missouri and produce several hard cheeses. I'm inspected several times a year and have found the (state) regulators to be very fair. As the article implies, food safety and sanitation are the key. Just as with the micro breweries of the 80's, this industry is in a real growth spurt and just as some of the large breweries tried to kill the micros the same will happen here. Some of us will fall by the wayside, some will be absorbed by larger dairies and some will survive.

To cross subject this post, I started the dairy after finding out I was to be laid off from the computer industry a few years ago. Yeah I'm over 50 and never want to work for another person again if I can help it. I milk my 60+ ewes 6 months a year and with the help of one other person we make cheese year round. Lotta hard work and a lotta fun. I have no intention of retiring to God's waiting rooms (Florida and Arizona) and expect to do this for a long long time.

So with that I'll say goodbye and head to the barn. I'm in the middle of lambing season. Hoo! Hoo!

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Welcome to DU.

I'm impressed by your entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to your farm.

[pipoman]

13. Love it..

and your cheese sounds great..

[cali]

15. neat. I'd love to know more.

[BuddhaGirl]

16. wow - good for you!!

:thumbsup:

[ElboRuum]

14. OMG... Bacteria! Mold! In cheesemaking!!! When will the madness end!??!?

:sarcasm:

[hollowdweller]

17. I've got sick drinking raw milk before

Twice. I'm pretty sure it was e coli because I had the same symptoms one time when I went to another farm to lease a buck and was going thru pens looking at does. Then I ate fast food on my way home and didn't wash my hands.

I've never got sick eating cheese, and I've never got sick drinking my own yogurt or home made cheese.But of course milking goats and making cheese for over 20 years I'm probably immune to any bugs in my own herd.

I like hard cheese made with raw milk, but not so much chevre'. I normally pasteurize the milk for stuff like feta and chevre'.

I don't have any air conditioning in my kitchen so really pretty much it has to be pasterized in the summer because with the heat and humidity it is very hard to not get yeast or mold in and it get contaminated. I'm not a commercial operation and have just always been a hobbyist so I can't sell anything.

There is a big raw milk and cheese push now. That's good but it's just like any other business and the gov't. The producers often push to have relaxed standards because it costs more to pasteurize or be REALLY clean so you can use raw milk.

So the bigger the push to eliminate any restrictions on the producers the more likely that people will get sick. NOT because you can't make it safe(although there's no way to ever make raw milk as safe as pasteurized most of the time) but just because the pendulum will swing toward a lack of regulatory oversight and loosening of regs to cut costs for producers.

[Scruffy1]

25. Thanks-the anti- science loons make me ill

[jpak]

18. As a raw milk cheese enthusiast (Maine cheeses rule:) I do not view these regs as onerous

They do not ban raw cheese or require pasteurization - only require a 60 day aging period - which protects public health...

....and raw milk cheese producers.

[cali]

20. Maine Cheese rules?

nah, that's Vermont cheese, according to just about every cheesemonger around. Heck, we even have a cheese trail (http://www.vtcheese.com/cheesetrail.htm) More importantly, you didn't read the article which refutes what you said about the 60 day rule. And I'll take Mateo's word for it that the rule is a problem.

[jpak]

21. Vermont cheeze = vile corporate spuge :)

There are many absolutely awesome artisan cheeses here in Maine - and local utilitarian cheeses too.

Best washed down with local hard cider and blueberry wines

yup!

[cali]

23. lol

Vermont has far more artisan farmyard cheese makers than Maine.

Vermont's Artisan Cheeses
By Lynn Smythe

“The word artisan or artisanal implies that a cheese is produced primarily by hand, in small
batches, with particular attention paid to the tradition of the cheese maker's art, and thus using
as little mechanization as possible in the production of the cheese." -American Cheese Society

Vermont has the largest number of artisan cheese makers per capita in the United
States. Artisan cheeses are not mass produced in factories. Made from sheep, goat or
cow's milk artisan cheeses are made in small quantities, primarily by hand, from
fresh, locally available ingredients. Farmstead cheese refers to artisan cheeses that
are made with milk obtained on site from the cheese maker's own flock or herd of
sheep, goats or cows.

<snip>

http://www.theheartofnewengland.com/travel/vt/vermont-cheese.html

[jpak]

24. more cheezy VT lactoprop - Maine invented it first

yup

:hi:

[cali]

26. lactoprop

:rofl:

[Odin2005]

22. Big Ag lobbyists strike again!

And people wonder why folks out in the sticks hate "big government"?

[burrowowl]

28. Some cheeses

very good ones are made with unpasteurized milk, in France they watch over it and I love Pont Eveque!

Also unpasteurized beer is excellent!

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hollowdweller]

33. What are you basing the nutrion on?

Mineral content? Butterfat? Protein? Mineral content? Digestibility?

[WranglerRog]

35. All of the above

Very digestible, much more so than cows milk. It's been shown to actually lower cholesterol due to it's high content of stearic acid. If you really want the specifics just search for "sheep milk health benefits". It really is amazing. This is one of the reason I chose my East Friesian and Lacaune sheep over dairy goats.

[saras]

30. They're missing the point

If you go and research the outbreaks, and other outbreaks of food poisoning

like http://foodpoisoning.pritzkerlaw.com/archives/e-coli-lawyer-wa-or-cheese-e-coli-outbreak-giving-sally-jackson-pause-to-shut-down.html

or

http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/2011/01/articles/foodborne-illness-outbreaks/bravo-farms-e-coli-outbreak-sets-stage-for-fda-investigation-cheese-seizure/

it's pretty clear that raw milk has little to do with the problem, compared to the filthy, unsanitary conditions these products were produced under. From the descriptions of both operations, it is clear that even if the milk had been pasteurized before they started making cheese out of it, they still would be contaminating the cheese with manure, rodent droppings, etc.

The 'logic' seems to be that, even though they are doing all these things wrong, if the cheese were aged 'properly' it would somehow kill all the bacteria and everything would be hunky-dory.

Blech.

[arikara]

36. Exactly.

I use raw goats milk but I know how the animals are milked and how the milk is handled. There are other places that are filthy and I wouldn't touch their milk even if it was pasteurized, or use cheese made from it even if it was aged a year.

I've been very ill from food poisoning from restaurants but never from my fresh milk. I don't see the government rushing out to stop commercial practices that are harmful.