Tag Archives: food safety policy

Demand or told they want it ($$$) Meat companies go antibiotics-free as more consumers demand it

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I have concerns about indiscriminate use of antibiotics as sub-therapeutics, but they also have a role in reducing disease.

potomac.two.step.jack.ryanAccording to the The Wall Street Journal, the Food and Drug Administration, responding to concerns about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, asked drug and meat companies late last year to end the practice of feeding antibiotics to livestock to speed growth.

It’s a standard argument regarding agricultural technologies for the few to speak on behalf of the many to promote an agenda, often more political than scientific, and say, we’re just doing what consumers want.

More like the Potomac two-step, that does little to actually make fewer people barf from the food they eat.

Raw milk cheeses face new 60-day scrutiny in US

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William Herkewitz of Science Liner writes that in the United States some raw-milk cheeses are as illegal to buy and sell as Cuban cigars or imported ivory. Their crime? They haven’t been shelved for long enough. By federal law, all cheeses aged less than 60 days — usually soft cheeses like mozzarella or brie — have to be pasteurized (heated for sterility) in order to be sold.

The idea is that at 60 days, the fermentation processes taking place within the cheese will have naturally eradicated any harmful bacteria. raw-milk-cheeseBut the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently reviewing its restrictions on unpasteurized, raw-milk cheeses, with the intent of elongating this time-period.

“Recent scientific literature has raised doubts about the efficacy of 60-day aging as an alternative to pasteurization,” says Marianna Naum, a policy analyst at the FDA.

Enacted in 1950, the 60-day rule was a compromise between cheese lovers and food safety experts, with the former concerned that pasteurization altered both the flavor and traditional methods of cheese making. But much has changed since 1950.

But recent multi-state fatal food-illness outbreaks of even older unpasteurized cheeses have convinced many food scientists that 60 days may simply not be long enough.