Raw-milk cheese is risky, yet legal to make and market in
Canada.
It may be no riskier than many other foods, but it is, in
fact, risky.
That’s why Health Canada says on its website that “pregnant
women, children, older adults and people with a weakened immune system (should)
avoid eating cheese made from raw milk.”
I guess the person who died this summer after eating raw milk cheese
made on a farm in British Columbia, and contaminated with E. coli 1057:H7, didn’t
know about that advice from Health Canada.
Health Canada says people ought to check cheese labels to
know whether it’s been made from raw millk – i.e. never pasteurized to kill
bacteria.
Ron Doering, who used to be president of the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency and now works as a consultant and writes columns, says that’s
not very helpful advice because there is no law requiring cheese to be labeled
that it’s made from raw milk.
That, he says, is where regulations ought to begin.
He does not recommend banning raw milk cheeses, but does
note that Reg.B.08.002.2 (1) of the Food and Drug Regulations makes it illegal
to sell raw milk anywhere in Canada.
The number of people making raw milk cheese has been
increasing in Ontario as dairy farmers set up cheese-making facilities on their
farms.
A number of them are immigrants from the Netherlands and
Switzerland who apply recipes they learned in Europe, such as making Gouda
cheeses.
So far there have been no outbreaks of food-borne illnesses
in Ontario arising from these on-farm raw-milk cheese factories.
But, as Doering writes, there is always a risk that some
poop will get into the milk.
