Posted on 06/11/2014 6:07:56 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Friday that it will not allow cheese makers use wooden boards to age their cheese - a ruling that would effectively wipe out artisanal cheeses.
The FDA's ruling came to light after several cheese makers in New York were cited - despite state laws that allow the use of wood boards.
"Reports showed that the porous structure of wood made it susceptible to the colonization of bacteria on the surface and inside the wood," Monica Metz, the branch chief for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition's Dairy and Egg Branch, wrote in her analysis to the New York Department of Agriculture & Markets' Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services.
There's only one problem: Metz's analysis didn't include the entire findings of the research, AP reports. Research conducted by The University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Dairy Research shows "that while some wood can hide some bad bacteria, it can be eliminated as long as a thorough cleaning procedure is followed."
This is a "potentially devastating development" for cheese makers, said Chris Roelli, a Wisconsin cheese maker. It would put America "at a global disadvantage because the flavor produced by aging on wood cannot be duplicated. This is a major game changer for the dairy industry in Wisconsin, and many other states.
"We do not have a viable option available to us that will do the same things that the wood does to the cheese," Roelli said in an interview with CNSNews.com. "The wood provides a way of controlling moisture, wood provides flavor, and the wood provides a stable environment for the beneficial microbes to grow that allow the cheese rind to develop.
"Wood has been used in cheese making in Europe for thousands of years, from day one of cheese," Roelli said, calling it the "pillar" of his "niche business. If [the ban] goes through, it would severely hamper what we are doing at this point. 85% of the product I manufacture is made to be aged on wood. We don't have a plan B. We would have to start from square one again and reinvent our business."
Wood boards have been used to make cheese for over a thousand years - since the very beginning of cheese making.
New York and Wisconsin's State Agricultural boards allow their cheese makers to use wood.
So how does the FDA have the authority to do this? The FDA is citing the Food Safety Modernization Act (FMSA) signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. FMSA shifts focus "from responding to contamination to preventing it," the Cheese Underground reports. "While most cheese makers have, perhaps, begrudgingly accepted ... increased federal regulations and inspections, no one expected this giant regulation behemoth to virtually put a stop to innovation in the American artisanal cheese movement."
It appears that the FDA is concerned about the spread of Listeria, a harmful bacteria that is a concern in the dairy industry. However, the latest research has concluded that the use of wood for aging cheese is safe, so long as proper cleaning procedures are followed. A study in France found no evidence of pathogens on the board surface or within the wood.
"Considering the beneficial effects of wood boards on cheese ripening and rind formation, the use of wood boards does not seem to present any danger of contamination by pathogenic bacteria as long as a thorough cleaning procedure is followed," a paper from the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research concluded.
The American Cheese Society (ACS) released a statement today saying that it “strongly encourages FDA to revise its interpretation …and continue to permit properly maintained, cleaned, and sanitized wood as an aging surface in cheesemaking as has been, and is currently, enforced by state and federal regulators and inspectors.”
ACS says, “Many of the finest and most renowned cheeses from around the world are at risk of disappearing from the U.S. market if regulatory and enforcement changes under FSMA eliminate traditional materials and methods.”
30 million pounds of cheese are aged on wood in Wisconsin alone per year, calculates John Umhoefer, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association. "So we are very concerned as an industry. This ban would have a big impact," he told CNSNews.com.
The Association wants to take the ban to the State legislatures and "make sure the issue is revisited with science, as opposed to just a memo from FDA," Umhoefer said.
There have been numerous "studies on wooden boards and their safety, and we're perplexed by the FDA's decision," he added. "We need to gather that science and put it before the FDA."
If they ban cheese made on wood, that will probably include imported as well..........................8^(
All Natural Artisinal PVC Aged Cheddar
‘”Wood has been used in cheese making in Europe for thousands of years, ...’
To think, mankind had to wait all this time for the Barry administration to save us...from cheese.
Ay caramba! This might hit home with wealthy liberals, although they’re probably already well acquainted with the black market. Laws are for the little people.
“I think my garden is going to get bigger.”
That’s a good idea considering how many stories I’ve seen in the last few months from leftist around the world trying to make the claim people around the world are hungry because “Western” countries waste too much food. Westerners are buying more food than they need.
Remember Obama’s favorite Rev Wright comment “White folks greed leaves the world in need”?
There is a plan to control the food supply and it’s being done step by step.
With these types of cheese, only “RICH people buy it so what difference does it make” is the response they want.
Yet no concern for the litany of IDENTIFIABLE diseases being ushered across the border by the same POS gov't.
I need my own power source, my own food/water supply, pray I don't need a doctor, have to home school, stock months/years worth of supplies to survive the fallout from the gov't's total and deliberate failure, plan my family's escape plan and pray I don't need healthcare. Now I gotta start making my own damn cheese! What do I need this government for again?
Judicial Relativism is the new practice of our gov't. The way I see it, there is no further moral or ethical obligation to remain beholden to any law we deem inconvenient for ourselves. Constituent see, constituent do.
Is this satire?
shut up and eat your govt cheese
no actual milk was harmed in the making of Velveeta.
So, it’s Kraft for everyone now!
NY and WI should just ignore the reg. At very least, cheese sold in-state should not be under the jurisdiction of the feds.
The ‘Chablis and Brie’ crowd won’t be pleased........................
Imagine the hilarity of a conservative president choosing a conservative head of the FDA. On his first day in office, he walks through the front door greeting everyone.
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
“Good morning, you’re fired.”
Repeat x 10,000
And at the same time, other cabinet heads are doing the same at the IRS, the HHS, the DHS, the Departments Of Education and Energy, the EPA, HUD, ATF&E, the Just Us Department, etc., etc., etc.
Next, they’ll ban bleu cheese becuase it has mold in it.
So just how many people have died from eating cheese aged on wooden boards during the last millennium? The FDA should bug off the cheese makers. This is ridiculous.
This should surprise no one.
Science and government regulation have been strangers for years.
For the EPA, FDA, DOE and all the rest of the alphabet soup of government science was replaced by politics and the religion of socialistic equality by forced conformance with do as we say.
My sister lives in Colorado so she is in a good place. I’m in E.TN and making it in summer here is out of the question. Not only do we have extreme heat, we also have off the chart humidity in summer. I grow blueberries, raspberries, and also have a small orchard but I see a larger garden in my future.
Fortunately, my mother taught all of her daughters to can and freeze so I’m good there. I also have a commercial size dehydrator that I use often.
I have a spare refrigerator that I run at about 54F. I use it for making cheese, sausages, and beer.
/johnny
I thought the item was parody. And on a political note, 0bamanauts who are customers of Whole Foods and the like will not be happy.
Abolish the FDA. Like all Progressive inventions, it's unnecessary, unconstitutional, and the impetus for its creation was a set of feverish lies. The FDA owes its nanny-state beginnings to the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906—which was inspired, no joke, by a novel—a work of fiction in every sense.
The author, Upton Sinclair, was a Communist writing about the plight of poor immigrants working in filthy conditions in the meat-packing industry. The conditions, like the characters, were invented for the purpose. The novel's title was The Jungle. (As so often happens with Communists, what is politically correct yesterday is treason next week. Surely today, the title would have to be The Rainforest.)
In the 1930s, Sinclair was a fan and supporter of Stalin's purges.
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