Posted by DAVID N. DUNKLE, The Patriot-News July 15, 2008 15:25PM
Categories: Food
Christine Baker, The Patriot-NewsPennsylvania law currently allows the use of raw milk only in hard cheeses aged more than 60 days.
Pennsylvania's more than 100 cheesemakers could stand to benefit if proposed legislation expanding the legal uses of raw milk is approved.
Currently unpasteurized milk, whether from cows, goats or sheep, can only be used in cheeses that are aged more than 60 days. That includes hard cheeses such as cheddar, romano and colby, but excludes most soft cheeses such as chevre and ricotta.
"If Pennsylvania would go through with this change, there would be the most incredible explosion of cheesemaking in the entire state," predicted Sandra Miller, a Newburg resident and spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Farmstead and Artisan Cheese Coalition, a non-profit group that promotes mainly family-run cheese operations.
Two state legislators from Lancaster County, Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-100th, and Sen. Mike Brubaker, R-36th, have introduced identical legislation in their respective houses that would allow Pennsylvania's nearly 9,000 dairy farms to make and sell more raw milk products, which would also include yogurt, cottage cheese and butter.
Cutler said the state's Milk Sanitation Act has been essentially unchanged for 70 years. "The main question is this: Is the science that made the law 70 years ago still good science?"
Cutler said he believes current dairy practices allow for the safe production of unpasteurized products, and that testing and monitoring would continue. He said there is a clear consumer demand for raw milk products, which proponents say contain beneficial bacteria and proteins that pasteurization destroys.
State health officials have a different view, contending that public safety demands continued use of pasteurized milk, which has been exposed to high heat that kills potentially harmful bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and listeria.
Cutler said the battle over raw milk probably won't be fought legislatively until next year, as state lawmakers have few remaining session days this year.
Meanwhile, you can meet some of the central Pennsylvania's talented cheese makers Wednesday in the Living section of The Patriot-News.
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News and views on raw milk, natural, organic and local healthy foods, with an occasional exploration of raw food diets and other ways of eating healthy.
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Why is Raw Milk Underground?
Milk the way all mammals drink it from their mothers, the way people have been drinking it for thousands of years, the way much of the world still drinks it is fast becoming an illegal product, an illicit substance - as I recently discovered when I began to look for an economical way to feed my family's gallon a day habit.
Pasteurization, once developed to kill pathogens in wine and later found to increase the shelf life of factory produced dairy product has become the new milk "religion". Despite purported health benefits, and the simple right of consumers to purchase food directly from their producers; and despite the fact that more people died from raw tomatoes recently than get even sickened from raw milk, laws are being passed and agencies are enforcing the ban in trade of illegal milk.
Pasteurization, once developed to kill pathogens in wine and later found to increase the shelf life of factory produced dairy product has become the new milk "religion". Despite purported health benefits, and the simple right of consumers to purchase food directly from their producers; and despite the fact that more people died from raw tomatoes recently than get even sickened from raw milk, laws are being passed and agencies are enforcing the ban in trade of illegal milk.
