Tag Archives: Raw Milk Cheese

Does magic food make kids barf?

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"Raw milk is like a magic food for children."

So says Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

She adds.

"Without the green grass, you’re missing a lot of vitamins. Also, it’s much safer. When cows are eating green grass, you don’t find pathogens in their milk."

With such statements, public advocacy becomes public health risk.

The natural reservoirs for E. coli O157:H7 and other verotoxigenic E. coli is the intestines of all ruminants, including cattle — grass or grain-fed — sheep, goats, deer and the like. The final report of the fall 2006 spinach outbreak identifies nearby grass-fed beef cattle as the likely source of the E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 200 and killed 4.

A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf

Kids are often the ones that get sick.

Raw milk BS

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I got around to sending this to the Boston Globe:

The advertisement masquerading as a story about raw milk in the March 23, 2008 Boston Globe magazine (Got raw milk?) should have noted that the author is an advocate for raw milk, which may help explain the statistical cherry picking throughout the story – like comparing confirmed illnesses from raw dairy products to the overall estimated illnesses from food.

A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf

Yes, lots of foods make people sick. And people should be free to choose what they ingest.

The 19th century English utilitarian philosopher, John Stuart Mill, noted that choice has limits, stating, "if it [in this case the consumption of raw unpasteurized milk] only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself."

Excused from Mill’s libertarian principle are those people who are incapable of self-government – children.

Science can be used to enhance what nature provided. Further, society has a responsibility to the many — philosopher Mill also articulated how the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one — to use knowledge to minimize harm.

Adults, do whatever you think works to ensure a natural and healthy lifestyle, but please, don’t impose your dietary regimes on those incapable of protecting themselves: your kids.

Dr. Douglas Powell is scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University

‘Real Camembert’ wins war against pasteurized posers

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Small producers of France’s creamy raw milk Camembert cheese claimed victory Tuesday as they said a government-run institute is set to rule that Camembert made with pasteurised milk cannot carry the coveted Appelation d’Origine Controllee (AOC) label.

Two of France’s top lait cru Camembert producers, Lactalis and Isigny-Sainte-Mère, announced last year they were forgoing the status of “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée” and switching to cheese made exclusively with heat-treated micro-filtered milk (not quite pasteurized but still an affront to purists).

Lactilis’ spokesperson, Luc Morelon said that although they recognize the importance of Camembert traditions, they’re making the change,

“[b]ecause consumer safety is paramount, and we cannot guarantee it 100 per cent. We cannot accept the risk of seeing our historic brands disappearing because of an accident in production."

In response to his critics Morelon added,

“I don’t want to risk sending any more children to hospital. It’s as simple as that."

Lactalis and Isigny-Sainte-Mere had argued for dropping the requirement that raw milk be used in the production of Camember to qualify for the AOC label.

Child sickened by raw milk; Marler sues

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The North County Times reports that Tony Martin and his wife, Mary McGonigle-Martin, of Murrieta, California, have filed a civil lawsuit in Fresno County after their then seven-year-old son was sickened with E. coli O157:H7 and hospitalized for two months in 2006.

According to the lawsuit filed Feb. 6, Chris developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a common cause of kidney failure, due to E. coli infection.

Hospitalized from Sept. 7 to Nov. 2, 2006, Chris "suffered life-threatening injuries that have left him permanently injured," the suit states. The Martins have incurred more than $450,000 in medical bills.

The suit says the source of the E. coli was raw milk produced at Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno and sold by a Sprouts store in Temecula.

Sprouts store owner Linda Watson was quoted as saying,

"There is no information I know of that any E. coli in any raw milk was sold at our store, or anywhere else for that matter."

A table of raw-milk related outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf

Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno, said there is no proof that his company is at fault, as also alleged in the lawsuit, adding,

"When a person sues for a food-related illness, they must be able to show a connection between a product and the person. There isn’t a connection here. …  Because there isn’t any connection, we feel confident we have a very strong defense."

Seattle attorney Bill Marler who is representing the Martins in their lawsuit, said,

"Under California law, the whole distribution chain is strictly liable. We don’t have to prove the store did anything wrong or was negligent, just that it was in the product. Selling unpasteurized milk is a risk stores shouldn’t be willing to take. … The message here is, whether it is raw or pasteurized milk, you have to be willing to take the responsibility of making sure your product is safe for your consumers."

Tony Martin was further quoted as saying,

"We live in a society where people are not that concerned with getting a pathogen and they need to be," and that some proponents of raw milk are "zealots" in the ways they push the product.

Kansas consumers warned about homemade raw milk cheese

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The Kansas Department of Agriculture is warning consumers in the Garden City area not to eat soft white cheese sold in unmarked packages because it came from an unapproved source and may be contaminated with Salmonella.

Food safety inspectors found the cheese being sold last week at Panaderia Real, 107 North Jennie Barker Road, in Garden City.  The cheese was destroyed after testing confirmed that it was made from unpasteurized milk and that it was contaminated with Salmonella.

An investigation into the cheese’s origin revealed that it was being made in the home of Guadalupe Valadez, who is not licensed to manufacture food. To be licensed, Valadez would need to use a commercial kitchen to make the cheese and to undergo routine food safety inspections.

Valadez was selling the cheese to neighbors, to coworkers at Tyson Foods and to two stores, Panaderia Real on Jennie Barker Road and at Panaderia Alexis at 146 Stevens Avenue.  She reports she had been making and selling the cheese for about a month.

The illegal cheese was identified during a two-month pilot project to monitor the safety of imported and domestically produced foods offered for sale in Kansas.  It was launched by the Kansas Department of Agriculture late last month.  ‘

Inspectors are collecting up to 10 products from each facility they visit as part of the project.  Products are tested for Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli, the most common causes of foodborne illness.

Do happy cows make happy milk?

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Are humans safer when they’re happy? Are you?
Ok. Now follow this logic…
Are cows?

I’m willing to go along with the California Cow commercial that claims “Great cheese comes from happy cows” and maybe even the only happy cows in the world come from California. Why not – the weather is nice and the people are laid-back. But does that necessarily mean their milk is safer?

In a post today on http://wewantorganicfood.com/
author, Lynn Cameron says, “If there could be a master key to safe raw milk, I think it would be contented cows.” The author contends that today, some raw milk is unsafe because some cows spend their days indoors, “living on field corn and soybeans to the degradation of their milk and the degeneration of the nation’s health.” I guess this is something akin to the cubicle complex.

Call me a skeptic, but I really need some science to back up this happy feeling. It’s nice to think that happy cows frolicking on the hill cannot produce anything bad. The author of the article rightfully makes a call to our nostalgia – to a happier time before farming was industrialized. Nostalgia is nice, but it does not make food safer. While Cameron says, “It’s not complicated science to understand that quality of life as well as diet affects cows’ milk quality,” her inability to produce that uncomplicated science leaves me completely unconvinced. This kind of thinking, that cows “raised entirely outdoors on green grass and/or hay, their milk is proven time and again greatly reduced in pathogens (bad bacteria),” has really not been proven as explained by David Renter in September 2006. “Cattle raised on diets of ‘grass, hay and other fibrous forage’ do contain E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in their feces as do other animals including deer, sheep, goats, bison, opossum, raccoons, birds, and many others.”

I’m completely in favor of good conditions and happy cows – who wouldn’t be? But even in the best conditions, microbiological contamination can happen – just as it happens in very happy homes with very content cooks. “Confinement cows” or “happy cows,” the only scientifically proven measure to reduce the risk of dangerous pathogens in milk is pasteurization.

The Amazing Race: Who’s ready to work up a thirst?

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On the Amazing Race tonight, the teams traveled to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso where their challenge was to milk a camel and then drink a bowl full of raw camel milk. I was anxious to see if any of the teams would reject the challenge, as it can be a health risk. Yet, the only risks they were worried about were getting stepped on, the flies, the bugs, and the smell related to the warm milk. One of the contestants simply flipped out.

The first to finish, TK, said he had some trouble getting the milk down, “It was a little grainy. A little sweet and a little warm.”