At the ACS conference last month we learned how animal welfare for dairy animals can be very troubling, and what is being done to correct bad practices on a local and national level. Many folks misstated that USDA Organic rules say nothing about animal welfare (yes, even Temple Grandin got it wrong when it comes to pasture requirements for organic dairy animals), leading many dairy farms to consider other certification choices specifically on that aspect of their husbandry. At the same time it’s always nice to read the positive side of dairy farming, the way we want to think about the farms who supply us with milk, which Nicolas Kristof provides in today’s NY Times.
Author Archives: Monroe Cheese Studio
The Birth of Blue
The village of Roquefort, France is located on the southern tip of the high Massif Central plateau about 100 miles from the Mediterranean Sea, and it is built into the cliffs containing the caves that “invented” blue cheese. Natural air currents vent these caves (called “fleurines“) and carry the naturally occurring Penicillium roqueforti spores through them, as well as keep the caves at a constant temperature and humidity. As part of the AOC definition of “Roquefort” cheese, all cheeses with that name must spend at least two weeks in these caves. This means that 24 hours a day trailer trucks full of young cheese are brought to the caves while each cheese that has already been two weeks in the caves are loaded back onto the same trailers and taken away to cold storage for final aging. Below are some pictures of the village, as well as of an antique cheese piercing machine that looks more like a medieval torture device (which is apt because long ago the Catholic Church purged non-believers from this region through a reign of torture and terror).
Continue reading
News About Raw Milk Oversight at Federal Level
In March 2012 the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) released the results of a study titled “Nonpasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws—United States, 1993–2006” which is now posted on their web site.
In response to this report, the American Cheese Society issued a “Statement on the Safety of Raw Milk Cheese” which put some of the findings of the CDC study into context, as well as made corrections to some of its statements (such as that it is illegal to sell raw milk cheese in the US). Among the assertions in the ACS statement are: “Raw milk cheese, when produced and sold under current FDA guidelines, can be consumed without unnecessary risk” when that cheese is produced under the following circumstances:
- producing cheese in licensed facilities that are routinely inspected on the local, regional, and
federal level - producing cheese under the oversight of licensed dairy handlers
- aging cheese for a minimum of 60 days before it is sold
According to the ACS’s latest newsletter: “In light of continued scrutiny, and with the goal of helping cheesemakers adhere to the highest standards of cheesemaking, ACS’s Regulatory & Academic Committee is at work compiling Best Practices for Cheesemakers. This document, as well as a related Best Practices for Retailers document, will serve as a resource for the industry to ensure awareness of current regulations and requirements, and to provide tools that can be implemented to meet those requirements.”