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FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

arstechnica.com

81–90 of 109 posts

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#81
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local small grocery chain started stocking raw milk (with many warnings) and I decided to risk consuming it to see for myself. I couldn't tell the difference between it and ordinary full fat milk. I wondered if it was a fraud (commercial milk falsely advertised as Local Forbidden Delicacy Milk), but maybe there's not much difference. Or maybe I am not a subtle taster. I also can't taste the superiority of an $80 bo…

I can taste the difference between a $100 wine and $400 wine, but it's maybe 20% better, if it's possible to flatten extra layers of flavour into a linear scale. It's easier to appreciate for different levels of quality from the same producer. My example is drawn from Casanova di Neri Tenuta Nuova vs Cerretalto. They're basically the same style, the Cerretalto just has extra. Across different grapes and regions and i…

(I mean, not every day, but every 2-3 days... I'm more of a St nectaire guy myself)

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#82
post #24

"Raw Farm has been associated with over a dozen other outbreaks and many recalls in the last 20 years, according to Bill Marler, a personal injury lawyer specializing in food poisoning outbreaks who has kept a record of the company’s outbreaks. Those outbreaks have been caused by a range of pathogenic bacteria known to be risks in unpasteurized dairy products, including E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Listeri…

At what point do they just get shut down?

Given that RFK is deep in the raw milk psychosis… maybe never.

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#83
post #23

"Raw Farm has been associated with over a dozen other outbreaks and many recalls in the last 20 years, according to Bill Marler, a personal injury lawyer specializing in food poisoning outbreaks who has kept a record of the company’s outbreaks. Those outbreaks have been caused by a range of pathogenic bacteria known to be risks in unpasteurized dairy products, including E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Listeri…

One thing to be aware of, pasteurization adds costs to dairy products. So it is being done for a real reason, not just "because". Companies will never pay to do anything unless not doing it will open them up to a law suit. So, raw milk does have some risks just based upon the the fact it costs to pasteurize milk.

Currently the law requires substantially more testing (and lost product) for raw milk sales. It is hard for be to believe that pasteurization is a significant cost such that the choice is based on cost rather than a product goal.

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#84
post #3

"The FDA has highlighted studies finding that pasteurization does not negatively affect the nutritional value of milk. Still, advocates of raw milk continue to claim, without evidence, that raw dairy has benefits." Well, perhaps it has taste benefits?

Raw milk advocates claim is does shit like fix allergies and cure diseases.

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#85
post #35

I make cheese (ricotta and paneer) from raw milk all of the time at home. Raw milk is easy to buy here in Switzerland. I get a noticeably better result with raw milk than pasteurized, and terrible terrible results from ultra-pasteurized milk. By 'better' I mean quantity per liter but also the size of the curds. The thing that I find amusing is that I think people in the USA actually just chug raw milk like it's regul…

Heating milk to destroy pathogens has a name. It was named after the guy who originally discovered the process, Louis Pasteur.

The well known process of Louisurising milk.

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#86
post #68
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing to be aware of, pasteurization adds costs to dairy products. So it is being done for a real reason, not just "because". I expect this strongly depends on the dairy product in question. For cheese made at the farm, sure. But for plain milk sold in a supermarket, I expect the improvement in logistics far more than makes up for the cost in pasteurization. People don’t UHT-pasteurize their milk for fun — UHT…

Pasteurized != UHT Pasteurization is heating to 70C and cooling it down quickly to kill pathogens. The milk needs to be refrigerated afterwards and used within 2 weeks. UHT is heating it to 140C for 2s a cooling it to kill pathogens and their spores. It significantly changes flavor, destroys 90% of vitamins and changes some of the proteins structure. Lasts a year afterwards

> destroys 90% of vitamins

Gonna make you cough up a reliable citation on that one.

The kombucha folks don't seem to have a problem with vitamins of aseptic purees after processing and generally seem to have converged to aseptic as being superior in terms of nutritional content than any other mechanism including freezing and preservatives. And Vitamin C is notoriously fragile to heat. Generally, Vitamin C is far more fragile than anything in milk (standard pasteurization knocks down Vitamin C by about 50%!).

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#87
post #68
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing to be aware of, pasteurization adds costs to dairy products. So it is being done for a real reason, not just "because". I expect this strongly depends on the dairy product in question. For cheese made at the farm, sure. But for plain milk sold in a supermarket, I expect the improvement in logistics far more than makes up for the cost in pasteurization. People don’t UHT-pasteurize their milk for fun — UHT…

Pasteurized != UHT Pasteurization is heating to 70C and cooling it down quickly to kill pathogens. The milk needs to be refrigerated afterwards and used within 2 weeks. UHT is heating it to 140C for 2s a cooling it to kill pathogens and their spores. It significantly changes flavor, destroys 90% of vitamins and changes some of the proteins structure. Lasts a year afterwards

[deleted]

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#88

"Raw Farm has been associated with over a dozen other outbreaks and many recalls in the last 20 years, according to Bill Marler, a personal injury lawyer specializing in food poisoning outbreaks who has kept a record of the company’s outbreaks. Those outbreaks have been caused by a range of pathogenic bacteria known to be risks in unpasteurized dairy products, including E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Listeri…

The whole of France is eating quite a lot of unpasteurized cheese. If done correctly, it can be quite safe. Although of course contamination does happen if a significant proportion of your cheese production nationwide is unpasteurized, that's just a numbers game. So yes, it is par for the course, but probably not at this level where the same producer shows up over and over again. I guess this producer must be extreme…

> The whole of France is eating quite a lot of unpasteurized cheese. If done correctly, it can be quite safe.

"If done correctly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The "classic" processes are generally done for exactly the reasons of maintaining safety. They create conditions where, even if bad bacteria exist, the growth is minimized in various ways--temperature, acidity, competing good bacterial growth, etc.

The problem occurs when you try to industrialize these processes. These kinds of artisanal processes are generally expensive, almost never scale, and people in the field recognize this.

Unfortunately, in the US, the overlap between "raw milk consumers" and "nitwit to be fleeced" is quite high. This attracts charlatans like these "Raw Farm" con artists, and you wind up with outbreaks like these.

And, yes, I am quite salty that these Raw Farm dingleberries somehow manage to distribute a bunch of dangerous raw milk products to multiple states while I can't even get a gallon of double cream (pasteurized or otherwise) in order to make butter.

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or he's just a traditionalist as he's stated many times, and for a Western European cow (and all derivative products like milk, cheese, beef) are up there with wheat. Bread and butter is a common phrase. Or there is some big conspiracy and he's trying to get rich at the detriment to his own health, or he's trying to get rich and his entire persona and diet is fake?

what does traditionalist mean? He's antivax. He should pasteurize either. I hope he doesn't take flu shots or even go to the hospital because that is just unnatural. Who need medicine when he can just eat tomato leaves.

In this case, it's just being a bit more risk-adverse on new things. He's not trying to prevent all people from getting vaccines, he just doesn't want them mandated until they've passed FDA approval afaik. He's against things like petroleum-based food colorings, preferring colorings that have existed in food and deemed safe over a long time. He's anti-heavily processed foods, and believes that the "food science" that has gone into making some unhealthy foods literally addictive do more bad than good, and that we as a society should spend more time banning and regulating those things for the betterment of our people.

There are absolutely lobbies he'll align with, just don't pretend that if he had different views there wouldn't be others jumping at the chance.

Re: FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

#90
I don't know what their QA looks like but I don't think it's too big a stretch to think they retain samples of every batch and culture for such pathogens. Just to have the ammo to fight back.

It is entirely possible mishandling could cause this. Like the many times I've gotten home from Trader Joe's to find the 'associate' unpacking the box sliced the product package open with their box cutter.

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