Raw milk and a queso fresco recall

Food Safety News has posted another essay about the dangers of raw milk.  This piece comes from the International Food Information Council Foundation, a body which purports to be objective and unbiased, but which seems to speak for industry.  On the IFIC Blog, Food Insight, for example, are pieces in support of genetic engineering and approved herbicides and pesticides as solutions to weed and pest problems.  See In the Weeds -- – What’s a Minor Annoyance in Your Flower Beds is a Major Headache for Crop Farmers.

So it is no surprise that this was the source of a piece called Raw Milk: Clear Risks, No Benefits.  I do not promote any benefits of raw milk.  I am a vegan and do not use any dairy products myself. Humans do not need dairy products, and most of the world's population gets by just fine without them.  And while I think people should be free to consume whatever they please (and for the most part, this is true), I'm not sure adults should be free to feed children whatever they please.  But articles which deny all validity to the claims of raw milk proponents no longer seem credible to me. 

There are certainly risks. Milk can become contaminated, and it does.  Just this morning I received a notice of a queso fresco recall in New York state due to a positive test for Listeria monocytogenes.  Queso fresco is a soft cheese made from milk and aged not long at all (if at all). It can be made from pasteurized milk, but is often made from raw milk where that is permitted.  I have never tried it.

FSN: Red Meat Allergy Caused by Ticks

Sometimes it's just a matter of asking the right question.  From Food Safety News:

Red Meat Allergy Likely Caused by Tick Bites

by Gretchen Goetz | Jun 26, 2012

A few years ago, doctors in the southern United States started noticing an odd phenomenon: people were becoming allergic to red meat, seemingly out of the blue. What in the environment was causing this response? The answer, surprisingly, turned out to be ticks.  

. . . 

Then, in August of 2009, the answer quite literally came to Platts-Mills when his own IgE to alpha-gal levels suddenly spiked days after he was bitten repeatedly by ticks while on a hike in the woods.  

Out of curiosity, the researchers began asking patients if they had been bitten by ticks before their meat allergy developed.  

"Once we opened up that line of questioning, it just blew up on us," Commins told Food Safety News.

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