Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Raw Cheese, Please.

I didn’t like milk at all as a child. We drank only watery, flavorless, fat free milk, and that probably had a lot to do with my distaste. Cheese on the other hand, that delicious and creamy milk product, has always been a favorite. I would always head to the ‘specialty cheese’ section at the grocery store (a kid with a taste for…Mozzarella, Brie and Camembert), but my life really changed when I discovered farmstead cheese…straight from the source.

These cheeses are fantastic not only for their taste, but for what they represent: the all out struggle to survive as a farmer. That may sound like an outlandish statement, but it’s true. Many dairymen and women (of cows, sheep and goats) have turned to making artisan, farmstead cheese when selling plain ol’ milk no longer pays the bills. And really these days, selling plain ol’ milk rarely pays the bills for small-scale, pasture based dairy farms. So farmers turn to cheese, a historic method of milk preservation, to increase the value of the milk they produce and in return the income on the farm. It's a delicious win-win.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows raw milk to be used in cheese production for any cheese aged over 60 days. Raw milk, milk that has not been pasteurized or heated to kill pathogens, is highly regulated (if not banned) in its liquid form in most states due to 'health hazards'. It is a contentious issue across the United States, but we’ll save the whole debate for another day. For now, suffice it to say that the allowance of raw milk for aged cheese is a lucky loophole for small cheese producers, based on the idea that aging cheese for that duration will minimize pathogen risk. Lucky on two fronts: small farmers don’t have to invest in infrastructure to pasteurize the milk produced from their own herd before making cheese AND the final cheese product is of a much richer and distinct taste.

Many of these small farmers who make farmstead cheese rely solely on old-world techniques, the fresh, raw milk from their herd and small equipment to produce the award winning cheeses that support their farm. But what if the rules of the game changed?

That just may be the case as the FDA is reconsidering the rules for use of raw milk in cheese making after multiple food safety scares and recalls in the past year. The results aren’t in yet, but new regulations may require raw milk cheeses to be aged for at least ninety days all the way to banning the use of raw milk in cheese all together. The New York Times outlines the argument well, but neglect to address the economic effects the ban may have on farmers. Yet again, regulators are faced with the delicate balance of public health versus the absolute deliciousness of this cheese with the economic impact on small farmers if these regulations change.

In this case, small farmers have enough on their plate in running a sanitary, efficient and delicious small dairy and don’t need another regulation limiting their ability to be financially viable. And consumers, us adult supporters of raw milk cheeses…we don’t have enough options on our plate. So please FDA, please don’t take away our raw milk cheese.

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