The Daily Parker

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You make the baby cheeses cry

The Chicagoist reports that new FDA regulations may curdle the raw-cheese market:

...due to the FDA’s decision to change the allowance for non-toxigenic Escherichia coli (E. coli) in dairy products. Non-toxigenic E. coli is a typically harmless bacterium found in the human gastrointestinal tracts as well as in raw milk cheeses. Recently, the FDA changed their allowance for this bacteria from a Most Probable Number (MPN) of 100 per gram, a fairly average amount in raw cheese, to 10 MPN per gram. Because of this drastic decrease, Roquefort and other cheeses such as raw milk versions of Morbier and Tommes de Savoie are now on Import Alert. The cheeses are held on Detention without Physical Examination, the FDA's infamous "red list."

The FDA is detaining the raw milk cheeses in order to take at least 1,600 samples. Their goal is to determine how often certain foods, specifically raw milk cheeses, are liable to become contaminated under the new definition. ... The FDA wrote this letter to the American Cheese Society, outlining their objectives in this study.

Fortunately, the U.K. still exists allows raw cheeses to be sold. Unfortunately, the U.K. still has a bit of BSE floating around....

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