table talk / By Joseph Byrd

It’s Not The Cheese

Like French cheeses? Get ready for ‘freedom cheese’

(Jan. 3, 2008)  A pox on all your damned pasteurized cheeses!

There, I’ve said it! I am now the enemy of American cheesemakers, and you will doubtless hear from them in response to this column. Well, after all, they are colleagues and friends. But just as significantly, they profit from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s delusion that no cheese is fit for consumption unless the milk has been pasteurized or the cheese has aged for at least 60 days.

GALLERY >

Pasteurization is a process which facilitates the transportation and storage of dairy foods, and it is no coincidence that its adoption by the U.S. a century ago came at the same time that small farms began to be replaced by agribusiness.

On its face, regulation sounds pretty good — the FDA is, after all, looking out for our health, right? Here’s what their own website says:

Got Milk? Make Sure It’s Pasteurized!

Pasteurization, since its adoption in the early 1900s, has been credited with dramatically reducing illness and death caused by contaminated milk. But today, some people are passing up pasteurized milk for what they claim is tastier and healthier “raw milk.”

Public health officials couldn’t disagree more.

Drinking raw (untreated) milk or eating raw milk products is “like playing Russian roulette with your health,” says John Sheehan, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Dairy and Egg Safety. “We see a number of cases of foodborne illness every year related to the consumption of raw milk.”

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