The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they are investigating a multistate outbreak of E. coli infections potentially linked to Sierra Nevada Graziers raw milk cheese.
Thirteen people in nine states have been sickened in the E. coli outbreak, including eight who were hospitalized and three who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a potentially serious complication of E. coli infection that presents with bloody diarrhea and fever, according to the CDC. No deaths have been reported, the FDA said.
States with E. coli cases linked to raw milk cheese include California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee and Utah.
Raw milk cheese isn’t illegal though?
It is(or was) in USA
No it wasn’t.
Raw milk cheese is perfectly fine. It just has to be aged for at least 60 days at or above 35 degrees F.
pasteurization is required and unpasteurized is banned, i haven’t kept up to date since Trump tho
No, pasteurization has never been a hard requirement. The requirement has been aged 60 days for a long time now.
That means that soft raw cheeses like Brie are effectively banned, because you can’t really age them like that. But there has always been plenty of aged cheeses made from raw milk.
Here’s a WSJ article about it from 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20150711000630/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304370304575151663770115120
Raw milk has been legal to sell in some form in 29 states going back to the early 00s as well. A few states like California have allowed raw milk to be sold at retailers, and plenty more have allowed it to be sold direct from the farmer.
Ah 29 states, I’m in the states where it wasn’t legal (but i see it in some stores now unfortunately)