Illegal Cheese

[Claymonkey]

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3445671

I'm all about public health as the next guy but there are limits. If you buy stuff from an open air or farmers market there is some difference. I've had unpasturized stuff before and it's darn tasty. I'm not saying this wasn't pasturized (no idea), but this leads into the same reason they pasturize in the first place.

[Dr Mordrid]

Makes having relatives who are dairy farmers very nice.

Every year we get our "care packages" encased in wax for storage and very tasty once removed

Dr. Mordrid

[Umfriend]

There is this cheese shop in one of the new EU states (slovenia?) who was foirbidden to sell their upasterized-milk cheese due to EU regulations. Family recipe, been selling it for decades, if not, over a century.

They now make COW food. Striking how many people actually appear to have cows they wish to feed cheese.....

[Dr Mordrid]

In the US laws are a bit convoluted.

While the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) disallows importation and interstate transportation of unpasteurized cheeses. Here the Feds have jurisdiction over interstate commerce as defined in the US Constitutions "commerce clause" (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3);

"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

Even so these cheeses are legal in many States as long as they are produced within that State. This so they don't run afowl of the Feds interstate commerce jurisdiction.

In some states they require unpasteurized cheeses to be aged 60 days so its natural acidity will self-pasteurze the cheese. In others not. In all States I'm aware of the cheese must be labeled as unpasteurized.

Ahhhhh......Federalism

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Damn Louis Pasteur for having removed the flavour from cheese. All the factory-made cheeses are just insipid. Fortunately, Switzerland still sells a lot of raw milk cheese. Some artisans' cheese in France, also.

Pasteurisation is no guarantee against listeria, as the cheese can become infected during maturation. However the risk is minimal with hard cheeses as the conditions do not favour bacterial growth and, in any case, the rind is not eaten. It is with soft cheeses, especially those with white powdery crusts, that the risk is highest and some health authorities recommend not eating the crust, as the inside will be safe, especially for the young and the elderly.

[Dr Mordrid]

But listeria isn't the only problem. Cases of M. bovis tuberculosis, Brucellosis (B. abortus = cattle; B. melitensis = goats), Salmonella, E. coli and other very nasties have been spreading fast among unpasteurized cheese eaters, particularly in the ethnic communities that illegally import them.

Enough cases have been discovered to raise red flags in about every State and the FDA, and unfortunately many of them have been pregnant women....a large percentage of which miscarried because of the infections.

Sad, but true.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

When I was a kid, cheeses of all types were never made from pasteurised milk nor from homogenised milk. They were made from milk that came out of cows. OK, there was an obligation that the herds were TT (tuberculin-tested), but that did not change the quality of the milk. No one, that I ever heard of, fell ill from eating cheese (or drinking milk). Why? Because, from childhood, our immune systems took care of endemic illnesses, such as you describe. Today, there are a number of factors that have changed the situation and have destroyed the functionality of the immune system. Firstly, we are obsessed with hygiene to the extent that kids are no longer exposed to the bacteria in sufficient quantity to allow immunity to develop naturally. This means that, for example, pasteurisation has a negative effect on the susceptibility of anyone being able to fight off anything to which they are exposed. Secondly, we eat a lot more ready-prepared factory-made junk food, frozen food, reconstituted food, all totally sterile, instead of home-prepared food under less sterile conditions. Thirdly, we are vaccinated/inoculated against many diseases, which overloads the immune system with ready-made recipes in hefty doses, rather than allowing it to build up gradually its own defences. Fourthly, and probably the most important, two important external factors have weakened the human immune system to the extent that it may no longer be able to cope: the increased exposure to UV light (sunbathing because of easier travel to sunnier climes, longer vacations, shorter working hours etc.) and some kinds of common pollution notably due to photochemical reactions between the increased levels of man-made NOx and HC pollutants, as well as some plasticisers and flame-retardants used in polymers etc.

Close to where I used to live in Scotland in my ill-spent youth, there is a farm which made a unique unpasteurised full-cream soft cheese (100% pure cholesterol, but, hell, who cares?). It was absolutely the best cheese ever, rich, unctuous and full of the flavour from contented Jersey cows that spent the year grazing in large fields. Every time we went to that region, we went to the farm to buy some of this ambrosial delight. On the last visit before my mother died, we went along, as usual, (this was about 10 years ago) and was told they had stopped making the cheese, because EU regulators insisted it be made from pasteurised milk. They tried it, but it did not have the same flavour so they made the decision not to compromise their reputation with a third-class product, so they sold their herd of prize Jerseys and have gone in for organic farming, instead. The farmer's wife was almost in tears when she told us this, as her artisanal cheese was famous throughout the Borders and had won many prizes. In reality, this is a part of Scottish heritage that has died away for ever. It is still mentioned on the 'Net at http://www.cheese.com/Description.asp?Name=Bonchester