Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund lawyer, Gary Cox.The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has filed a brief in a Missouri court challenging the state’s efforts to confiscate and destroy Morningland Dairy’s $250,000 worth of inventory.
The FTCLDF’s “motion for a more definite statement” from the Missouri Milk Board is at first glance a procedural response to the state agency’s filing late last month seeking a temporary injunction to force the destruction of Morningland’s cheese. It asks a judge to compel the state to be specific about when Morningland supposedly tried to sell tainted cheese, and to explain the exact timing and process whereby the company’s cheese is to be destroyed.
But the opening couple sentences of the FTCLDF brief indicate the case is about much more. “This case is about cheese,” begins the motion. “Plaintiff believes that Defendant’s cheese is not worthy of human consumption yet Defendant believes its cheese is one of the finest artisanal cheeses on the planet and that it is worthy of human consumption.”
FTCLDF lawyer Gary Cox indicated that he wants the state to explain why the cheese might be dangerous. He said he plans to argue in part that Morningland’s cheese isn’t in the least bit dangerous, “even though the government may have a listeria monocytogenes result here or there, because L. mono is so pervasive in the environment and in most cases you need to ingest over 1,000 units before you even remotely can become sick.”
In that respect, the case is similar to one the FTCLDF has filed in New York against the NY Department of Agriculture and Markets on behalf of raw dairy farmer Chuck Phippen. He’s been shut down at least seven times over the last four years for the presence of listeria monocytogenes, even though no one has become ill.
As in the Morningland case, Cox will be seeking such information as “how much l. mono was detected (was it above the infective dose?) and what type of l. mono was detected (i.e., was it a type that actually causes illness in humans)? Also, were the samples properly collected, transported, and analyzed?”
By entering the Morningland case, the FTCLDF is jumping feet first into what appears to be a new front in the FDA’s war on raw dairy. I doubted the agency would do to raw cheese what it’s attempted to do to other raw dairy–namely, eliminate its availability to eager consumers–since raw cheese is a much more mainstream product.
But the evidence is very convincing that the FDA has begun a rampage–its version of rape and pillage–as I describe in a new article at Grist.
The FDA scenario is to run people out of business via its harassment techniques. And maybe it will do so.
In the process, though, it will not only alienate lots of people, but it will further educate consumers about the benefits of raw dairy. In effect, the FDA’s campaign against raw milk has been something of a marketing coup for the category. The agency’s tough-guy stance has helped create a huge amount of media attention, and in the process educated increasing numbers of ordinary consumers about the benefits of raw milk.
Now, it seems about to do the same for raw cheese–help expand the category.
The Missouri and New York cases are significant as well for their leading-edge efforts to interject sanity into food safety enforcement–namely, by challenging the FDA’s zero-tolerance policy on listeria monocytogenes. The policy has been seriously questioned in the scientific community, but the FDA refuses to change it, presumably because zero tolerance allows the FDA to pursue a political agenda of putting small farms and food producers out of business and thereby serve the corporate interests. The FTCLDF is seeking to convince judges that the zero-tolerance listeria policy is without practical meaning.
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There is another legal case making its way through the courts–that of Max Kane, the Wisconsin raw milk advocate. He’s posted one of his appeal briefs, and it’s worth reading for a summary of one of the crazier state efforts to crack down on raw milk. He’s seeking financial support for his involved legal campaign at his web site.
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Finally, there’s a provocative discussion about the proposed federal food safety legislation going on at Grist, which I am participating in. The first part of a multi-part discussion concerns whether there is even a food-safety crisis in the U.S. Some interesting responses.
Right beofre it was set ot hit the store shelves, our Ag Head ordered the entire batch taken to the landfill under police escort, to be buried.
Why? Presence of Listeria.
We only just became legal for cow shares two years ago, and two days ago, laws were passed restricting the sale of cheese to Grade A facilities, thus ensuring that they will be coming after several producers before long.
Paula
http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-11-09-do-we-really-have-a-food-safety-crisis/P1
However, in a high-moisture high-pH dairy product like fluid raw milk, even a few cells of listeria will be very problematic. Listeria can grow in the cold (meaning it will multiply even at refrigerator temperatues, while lactic-acid producing bacteria are essentially dormant)
It can also be problematic in high-moisture cheeses, such a brie or munster. Listeria may not even be present in the milk, but if it comes into contact with the cheese post-production (such as in the curing room or in distribution chains) it may start out on the rind, but can swim to the center of a soft cheese.
With cheese it is always important to ask WHERE the listeria is found. Particularily with the low-moisture varieites, listeria on the oustide of the cheese is a very different affair than listeria on the inside. Outside listeria indicates post-production contamination. Inside listeria indicates milk contamination or contamination of the curd during production.
Basically, Listeria needs moisture to thrive. That is why you tend to find it in pools of standing water and floor drains in a dairy plant enviroment.
But as FTCLDF rightly points out, zero-tolerance is totally irrational, unscientific, and inconsistant with international food-safety standards.
Zero-tolerance creates a dis-incentive to test for listeria.
In fact, when I was trained in HACCP at the University of Wisconsin, I was specifically told by the dairy science professors (who have posters promoting Posilac on their office doors — the brand name for rBGH/rBST — and are completely hostile to raw milk and beholden to big agri-business interests) NOT to test food contact surfaces for listeria, because of the regulatory, liability, and reporting issues it would entail.
I guarentee you that listeria is present in EVERY food processing enviroment, particularily in floor drains and coolers with standing moisture.
If you look hard enough you can find listeria. Its usually a good idea to keep it out of your food, but a few cells in a hard aged cheese aren't going to hurt anyone.
All raw milk producers know this and capitalize on the natural behaviors of nature to assure that the forces at work are good eating bad. These are the forces of nature and sun powered sustainable systems.
The Raw Cheeses produced from PMO CAFO raw milk are subject to serious concern because the forces of natural systems are not engaged and in fact fought against. Anti-biotics, CAFO systems, Hormones and lots of grain are the enemies of safe raw anything.
I was interviewed by the Fresno Bee on this issue yesterday. They wanted to know what I thought of the Bravo Cheese recall. I said it was a perfect example of "Two Raw Milks in America". That CAFO PMO raw milk "intended for pasteurization" and its accompanying pathogenic bacteria is getting tougher and tougher and it appears that they will not die in 60 days like they used too.
When the FDA opens discussions about the raw milk cheese subject, it offers all of us the opportunity to bring forth better standards for raw milk…..ie.. Raw Milk for human consumption. Then we can talk about making good safe raw cheese out of clean raw milk. The current PMO rules allow the worst quality CAFO raw milk to be made into a raw product….sounds like a no brainer to me. Bacteria resist death and want to live.
Raw Cheese has been exploited for so long. You can sell raw cheeses that have been heated to 2 degrees below pasteurized "as raw". That is mislabeling and misbranding but Organic Valley, Alta Dena, Sonnet and many others do it for marketing purposes ( in Canada at least they are honest enough to call this Thermalized cheese ). This whole issue brings forth dirty CAFO's and milk purity issues.
Halla-lu-ya!!!! The more heat and attention the better. Thats the only way to get the FDA to listen to anything much less change anything.
As far as listeria is concerned….low levels are probably very good and protective of and for the immune system…when we get to zero listeria in our foods…then one listeria will begin to sicken and kill the average American.
The bacteria police have gone rogue!!!
Mark
The way the Europeans protect REAL raw milk cheese from the thermalized variety is AOC or PDO — protected designation of origin.
Traditional regional raw milk cheeses like Parmigianno-Reggiano, Comte, Beaufort, Brie de Meaux, Camembert de Normandie, Eppoise de Bourgogne, Chauruce, Ossau-Iraty, Crottin de Chavignol, Vacherin Mont D'or, Salers, etc… (to name but a few) ARE REQUIRED TO BE MADE WITH RAW MILK, in order to bear the name specific to their region and production technique.
If Americans can develop this concept of "terrior" (or the taste of place) in our cheese, and link it inextricably to the character of the raw milk from that region, then we can make a good case for protecting the meaning of raw milk from high-tech fakes, like ultra-filtration and thermalization.
Read this article about Salers cheese:
http://www.ethno-terroirs.cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/Salers_IFSA_2008.pdf
Salers is the farmstead version of Cantal. (Cantal is a more mass-produced relative of cheddar, made in South-Central France.)
All Salers must be made with REAL raw milk, and is curdled in a wooden vat. It is only made seasonally, when the cows are grazing on the high mountain pastures.
The most traditional producers of Salers use no starter culture at all — the culture lives in the wood and innoculates the milk each day when it is added to the wooden vat.
The traditional Salers breed of cow is a very interesting beast. She will not let down her milk unless the calf is near. The result is that the calf gets the last bit of milk (which is higher in fat) while the cheese maker gets the first flush of milk (which is higher in protein) during each milking. I'm sure there are other unique characteristics of both the milk and the pastures upon which the cows graze which give genuine Salers its unique character.
This cheese is an excellent example of how cheesemaking is the process of distilling the unique characteristics of a milk and the region from which it comes.
Keep on teachin….
It sounds like us humans are going to have to wake up and realize that the bacteria have "emerged" to inflict their resistant morphed vengence after 70 years of bacterial warfare being waged upon them…. They were the first life forms on earth and they will surely be the last.
It is time to make peace with them or face HUS, C-Diff, MRSA or worse. The .001 % that Purell and or Triclosan did not kill are really pissed and they are looking for you!!
Killing bacteria is a really stupid policy.
Mark
Absolutely.
I am reminded how many artisinal European cheese makers will make a point of using whey to rinse sanitizing chemicals off their moulds and hoops, before allowing the curd to come into contact with the moulds/hoops.
There is a fundamental contradiction between the use of chlorine, and the process of making cheese. The purpose of making cheese is to ferment the milk. The purpose of chlorine is to kill micro-organisms.
When confronted with the "poil de chat" ("cat's hair" mold, which produces undesirable bitter peptides) the solution is NOT to disinfect the dairy, as this would destroy the indigenous desirable air-borne yeasts and molds. Rather, the solution is to lower the moisture on the surface of the cheese by improving drainage of the curd and having a more thorough air-drying of the cheese prior to affinage (ripening).
The terrain is more important than the organism! No one knows this better than a artisinal raw milk cheese maker. It is the very basis of the notion of "terroir."