Supply Lines      11/18/2008  

Everything You Think you Know About Cheese Is Wrong

The Feedbag brought sad news that New Yorkers must turn to the black market to get their raw milk cheese fix. Lest you law abiding citizens are scandalized, Cheese Master Max McCalman, the man behind Picholine’s famed cheese program and the author of Cheese: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Best, wants to appease your (unfounded) cheese fears.

Cheese Safety Laws Make Any Sense At All:

The pasteurization laws-that cheese must be aged for sixty days, or pasteurized, or both-were written in the 1940’s. There were no refrigerated trucks back then!

Pasteurization makes cheese safer:

Besides compromising the cheese’s deliciousness, blasting the milk with heat also impairs its safety. All the good bacteria die along with the villainous bacteria. This leaves the cheese naked and defenseless against scary pathogenic contamination. Still worried? Raw vegetables have been responsible for far more food bore illness outbreaks than raw milk cheeses, and no one’s fighting to ban carrots.

Pasteurization makes cheese healthier:

Bacteria are our friends. We have more bacteria in our gut then we do cells in our body. People are getting into Kombucha and probiotic yogurt. How much would you rather eat gooey, tangy camembert smeared on a crusty baguette? Nutrients are heat sensitive, just like bacteria. For example, phostphatase helps your body absorb calcium. To make sure cheese has been adequately pasteurized, authorities make sure all the phostphatase is gone. So you might be eating something full of wholesome calcium, but it’s passing right through your system.

Pregnant ladies, stay away from raw milk cheese!:

Max says that although he’s no doctor, he advises soon-to-be moms stay away from runny cheese, not raw cheese. Fear-mongerers claim there might be listeria lurking in unpasteurized chesse, but the bacteria needs lots of moisture to survive. Aged raw milk gouda filled with caramelly, crystalline goodness? You’re safe.

– Hannah Howard

Comments

2 Responses to “Everything You Think you Know About Cheese Is Wrong”

  1. Wilfrid on November 19th, 2008 9:56 am

    Also, is there anywhere else in the world where people eat cheese seriously which has similar laws? Certainly the populations of France, Italy and the U.K. have yet to be decimated by raw milk cheese plagues.

  2. steve shapson on January 9th, 2009 12:31 am

    I happened upon your website after doing a search for Black Label hamburgers and saw the article on cheese. I totally agree that we are wrongly led to believe pasturized milk and pasturized cheese is healthier. The US food industry has done a great job of instilling fear about milk products. There is a strong movement toward raw food and raw milk cheese products. With proper handling, raw milk products offer a healthier alternative. I make raw milk camembert using milk from a local dairy farm. My friends can’t get enough of it.

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