Miller Farms fined

[Josh]

I can honestly understand getting fresh raw milk produced locally that day or the day before. That is what we have in the stores around here. Very fresh product.

But raw milk shipped across the country by FedEx or UPS so that you get it days later after it has been sitting in various warehouses and on various trucks? Eeesh. That's just going to be a bacteria culture.

What Miller is making is butter and cheese.

Note that the entirety of Europe makes cheese out of raw milk to no ill effect. America is the oddball outlier on that front.

[Ken]

I can honestly understand getting fresh raw milk produced locally that day or the day before. That is what we have in the stores around here. Very fresh product.

But raw milk shipped across the country by FedEx or UPS so that you get it days later after it has been sitting in various warehouses and on various trucks? Eeesh. That's just going to be a bacteria culture.

What Miller is making is butter and cheese.

Note that the entirety of Europe makes cheese out of raw milk to no ill effect. America is the oddball outlier on that front.

Cheese made from raw milk is legal in the US. It just has to be aged at least 60 days. After 60 days the acids and salts in raw cheese prevent infectious bacteria like listeria and salmonella from growing. The parmigiano reggiano in my fridge from Costco is made from raw unpasteurized milk.

[Josh]

I can honestly understand getting fresh raw milk produced locally that day or the day before. That is what we have in the stores around here. Very fresh product.

But raw milk shipped across the country by FedEx or UPS so that you get it days later after it has been sitting in various warehouses and on various trucks? Eeesh. That's just going to be a bacteria culture.

What Miller is making is butter and cheese.

Note that the entirety of Europe makes cheese out of raw milk to no ill effect. America is the oddball outlier on that front.

Cheese made from raw milk is legal in the US. It just has to be aged at least 60 days. After 60 days the acids and salts in raw cheese prevent infectious bacteria like listeria and salmonella from growing. The parmigiano reggiano in my fridge from Costco is made from raw unpasteurized milk.

And Europe doesn’t bother with those rules, and allows soft cheeses too. The EU generally has better food safety laws… and they aren’t suffering from death & disease due to tolerating raw milk cheese.

All I ask is that American federal laws get in sync with EU food safety laws.

[Ken]

What Miller is making is butter and cheese.

Note that the entirety of Europe makes cheese out of raw milk to no ill effect. America is the oddball outlier on that front.

Cheese made from raw milk is legal in the US. It just has to be aged at least 60 days. After 60 days the acids and salts in raw cheese prevent infectious bacteria like listeria and salmonella from growing. The parmigiano reggiano in my fridge from Costco is made from raw unpasteurized milk.

And Europe doesn’t bother with those rules, and allows soft cheeses too. The EU generally has better food safety laws… and they aren’t suffering from death & disease due to tolerating raw milk cheese.

All I ask is that American federal laws get in sync with EU food safety laws.

Cheeses sold in the US do not actually need to be made from pasteurized milk unless they are fresh cheeses. The reason that most cheese producers use pasteurized milk when producing cheese in the US is not because of the law. But because they don't want to sicken their customers. As, for example, happened a few years back when Costco caused an E-coli outbreak by selling unpasteurized Gouda cheese from California. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/e-coli/costc ... i-outbreak

But you can go to any cheese shop that sells artisanal cheeses and find unpasteurized cheeses made in both Europe and the US if that is what you want.

[Josh]

Simply put, you’re wrong.

https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/w ... ilk-cheese

[Ken]

Simply put, you’re wrong.

https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/w ... ilk-cheese

That article is talking about fresh cheeses like Brie. Which is exactly what I wrote. It says right there in the article you linked to that unpasteurized cheeses only need to be aged 60 days to be legally sold in the US. So unpasteurized aged cheeses are perfectly legal to sell.

[Josh]

Simply put, you’re wrong.

https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/w ... ilk-cheese

That article is talking about fresh cheeses like Brie. Which is exactly what I wrote. It says right there in the article you linked to that unpasteurized cheeses only need to be aged 60 days to be legally sold in the US. So unpasteurized aged cheeses are perfectly legal to sell.

And lots of cheeses are not aged hard cheeses, like brie. Which they consume in complete safety in Europe, yet are banned here.

[Ken]

Simply put, you’re wrong.

https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/w ... ilk-cheese

That article is talking about fresh cheeses like Brie. Which is exactly what I wrote. It says right there in the article you linked to that unpasteurized cheeses only need to be aged 60 days to be legally sold in the US. So unpasteurized aged cheeses are perfectly legal to sell.

And lots of cheeses are not aged hard cheeses, like brie. Which they consume in complete safety in Europe, yet are banned here.

Actually, Europe experiences thousands of cases of listeria per year, many of them severe causing hospitalization or death.

Instead of the US regulating food safety, do you want to hand the job off to some international agency that will do it for the whole world? So that there are never differences between the US and EU when it comes to food safety regulation?

[ohio jones]

But you can go to any cheese shop that sells artisanal cheeses and find unpasteurized cheeses made in both Europe and the US if that is what you want.

That was not the experience of John Cheese ... er, Cleese. And we are still unenlightened about whether Venezuelan Beaver Cheese is pasteurized or unpasteurized.

[MaxPC]

But you can go to any cheese shop that sells artisanal cheeses and find unpasteurized cheeses made in both Europe and the US if that is what you want.

That was not the experience of John Cheese ... er, Cleese. And we are still unenlightened about whether Venezuelan Beaver Cheese is pasteurized or unpasteurized.

Is this a cheesy cheeky conversation then?