Raw Milk Cheeses - safe or not?

The recent article in the NY Times entitled 'Raw Milk Cheesemakers Fret Over Possible New Rules' raises this ongoing battle between raw versus pasteurized milk products. once again. Raw milk cheeses have been around since the beginnings of time so what are the real reasons they are in danger of being outlawed? Enough with all the hyperbole, big industry influences and misleading claims, it is high time some real science and impartial research be done on raw milk cheeses!

Modern societies create their own environments and constraints, which in turn create their own need for specialized regulation for large populations. A one-size fits all rule, such as the 60 day aging rule in the US (fallacious from the start) is patently not appropriate. Pasturization not only does not eliminate the problem. In fact, pasturized cheeses have a pretty bad track record in this arena, both in the US and in France. The needs of an industrial cheese producer or any edible product for that matter, versus a small farm producer are different. What is not different is hygiene, both from the milk source, during the making, while being transported, stored and ultimately handled. At each point, there is the potential risk of contamination. and each present their own specific issues and varying levels of potential. Therefore, each point of weakness must be measured for its possibility to contaminate; considered fairly. 

One must also take into account the effects of the current anti-germ culture, such as the one in the US, where it seems all germs are bad and must be eradicated.  Is this practice of sanitizing everything, not in fact exacerbating the problem by distorting nature’s ability to balance good versus bad? One must accept that risk is inherent in life. To that end, each of us is responsible for determining how much exposure we are prepared to take, as well as what role our governments should take to mitigate risks for its people. But where is the balance between risk and profit? Where is rational, nonbiased research and debate about this issue? Now more than ever, we have the capability to do the science and debate the debate. It is time, in my opinion to do so.

Note Bene:  There is a recent video entitled `Cheese and Microbes` over on the Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheeses site worth taking a look at on the subject at hand.

Ah, America! Raw Milk - The Fight Heats Up

In his recent article, Who Took My Raw Milk Cheese?, David Gumpert discussed the politics and reasons behind the FDA raids on respected cheese makers in several states.  As a journalist, he is the author of The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights (Chelsea Green, 2009) and his blog documents the on-going battle over raw milk. 

From where I sit here in France, this is a pretty sorry story for the naissant US artisanal cheese business. France as the mother of all raw milk cheeses has it's problems too!  As recently as two years ago, big agro tried to get the EU to ban raw milk Camembert using the listeria argument. Historically however, in France these listeriosis alerts have been traced back to contamination at the source of production and in almost all cases, were from cheeses produced in industrial factories using pasturised milk.   

But here, all raw milk cheeses must comply with the health standards of European regulations concerning micro-organisms and hygiene.  According to statistics, the health risks associated with consumption of raw milk products are very limited if you compare the small number of listeriosis alerts that have occurred when compared with an annual production that exceeds more than 170,000 tonnes in France according to the researchers at the INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (France) otherwise known as the National Institute for Agricultural Research) in Clermont-Ferrand-Theix.

In an article by Pete Kennedy from the Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund, FDA's Ace in the Hole, in the last thirty-eight years, there have been no reports of illness caused by the consumption of raw milk that was attributed to Listeria monocytogenes (L-mono).  One must ask why then is the FDA all of a sudden targeting small farm producers?  Reminds me of the UK in the 1970's, and the E-coli 0157 scare.  James Aldridge's wonderful artisanal cheese Tornegus was targeted by the then public health minister Tessa Jowell because of a suspected illness and his triving business was promplty destroyed.

As in the case of James Aldridge, the American farmers are being required to destroy their cheese, thus their livelihood.  The most disturbing bit here is that the FDA is only using a test to discover the presence listeria bacteria (which by the way is on your hands at this very moment) and not the one that drills down to find the specific form and quantity. I read that in the case of the Morningland Diary, 100 swabs at the dairy found no indication of presence the bacteria; however, the FDA is not publishing their results. It is like being condemned of a crime without actual proof.

  

If you are interested in the subject of biopolitics, I highly recommend you read the research paper by Heather Paxton at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - POST-PASTEURIAN CULTURES: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the United States, published in CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 23, 2008.  And further reading on the raw milk issue, you might try the Research report : Food Fears and Raw-milk Cheese by Harry G. West for the Food Studies Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, 2008.

But by all means, please judge for yourself. I have been eating raw milk cheeses here in France every day for 20 years and am still alive and kicking!  Buy your cheese, raw milk or otherwise, from a quality fromagerie who source the best quality cheeses from the best producers; keep the properly and enjoy them safely.

An update : For those of you who what to keep posted on the latest developements on this story.  Two articles in the International Herald Tribune, November 19 & 20 2010...A matter of taste versus safety and As Cheesemaking Blooms, So Can Listeria both by William Neuman and there is an interesting video on the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese.

Update 30 November 2010 : Senate Passes Overhaul of Food Safety Regulations

Fighting that Fat! Cheese on the front line?

The other day I was surfing the web regarding weight  because in my role as a fromologue, people constantly insist that cheese is fattening and bad for you. Since I eat a vast quantity of the stuff and other dairy products, don't do that much exercise except if you consider walking to the métro in Paris, have pretty low cholesteral and am not considered even vaguely fat, I am always looking for scientific evidence to fortify my argruments as well as my personal evidence to the contrary. 

 

So imagine my glee when I stumbled across this article regarding a study from 2004 which indicates that honest to goodness real, unadulterated diary products should not be considered necessarily fattening and, to the contrary, possess a lot of benefits especially for those who are obese. According to the articles I read following the subject, "getting enough calcium in your diet seems to stimulates the body to burn more fat and reduces the amount of new fat the body makes" per Dr. Michael Zemel, a professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a pioneer in this emerging area of research on the relationship between calcium and weight management.

Whoa! Gotta love that, but what is going on here? Apparently, researchers found overweight people who consumed 3 servings a day of calcium-rich dairy lost more belly fat than those who followed a similar diet with less of the dairy servings. To further emphasize the point, they found that calcium supplements didn't work as well the real deal! According to the good doctor, a diet low in calcium appears to stimulate the production of fat-producing enzymes and decreases the activity of enzymes that break down fat. "The moral of the calcium story is to not dump dairy when you're dieting...as it can help make your weight lost efforts easier," Zemel said.  

A note of caution however as this does not give people the license to go wild and over-indulge in dairy products hoping to generate weight loss. Helas! As we have always known, there is no gain (or loss in this case!) without some pain. In otherwords, you still have to burn more calories than you take in; eating properly and doing some exercise on top of that doesn't do any harm either. Still it's nice to know that eating all those diary products, in my case my cheese addiction, isn't killing me and could actually be helping keep those love handles under control!  Here's a link to one of the articles. 

A country of cheese eaters

Only the Greeks surpass the French in the consumption of cheese according to an article at l’Alsace.fr. The French eat on average 24.6 kilos of cheese while the Greeks eat around 27.4 kg a year and mostly feta! The diversity of production in France is enough to seduce both the knowledgeable connoisseur and the amateur. In a survey conducted at the beginning of the year, 96% of the French questioned said they eat cheese regularly. 

With over a thousand types of cheese available to eat in France, it’s Emmental at the head of the list, with Comté not far behind and cheese made from cow’s milk largely dominates the list. With 80% of French cheeses having an AOC or AOP label,according to the article sales of these cheeses represented about 2.9 billion euros in sales last year, even with a drop of about 1.7% in export! That’s a lot of cheese...

Anthropologist Heather Paxson studies American artisanal cheese | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2010

Anthropologist Heather Paxson studies American artisanal cheese | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2010