In yet another case of labeling tricks and deception where store bought food is concerned, many brands of raw cheese produced in the United States and sold at the healthfood store and specialty shops are anything but.
Organic Valley, the corporate behemoth that has gone to the Dark Side where raw, fresh, organic, healthgiving grassfed milk is concerned is not surprisingly the worst offender of this loophole in the USDA regulations.
According to Federal Law 7 (CFR 58.438):
“If the cheese is labeled as pasteurized, the milk shall be pasteurized by subjecting every particle of milk to a minimum temperature of 161 degrees Fahrenheit for not less than 15 [fifteen] seconds or by any other acceptable combination of temperature and time treatment approved by the Administrator.”
For FLUID PRODUCTS, “vat pasteurization” is defined as heating at 145 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30 minutes; heating at 161 degrees for at least 15 seconds is called “high temperature short time pasteurization” [7 CFR 58.101].
What does this mean in layman’s terms?
It means that any cheese where the milk is heated to a temperature under 161 degrees Fahrenheit or less than 15 seconds could be called “raw” and labeled as such according to this definition!
Organic Valley admits on its website that its raw cheese is “subpasteurized”, but fails to identify just how close subpasteurized is to the real thing. This is typical marketing deception and labeling games by a company which, many months ago, I stopped buying products from.
Subpasteurization still heats the milk to an obscenely high temperature which destroys nutrition and enzymes. Calling such a product “raw” is deceptive, misleading, if not downright insulting to the sensibilities and intelligence of its customers.
While Organic Valley is no doubt the worst offender of this regulatory loophole, any other cheese sold in stores, produced in the United States and labeled as “raw” is also likely heated to subpasteurization temperatures. Even “raw” goat cheese would fall under this loophole.
I called the company Tree of Life which also produces “raw” cheese sold in healthfood stores, but my questions about the true rawness of their cheeses were not answered and requests for a return call from someone who could provide me with answers were not returned.
On a positive note, a very small dairy near my metro area which sells raw goat cheese in stores around town was very upfront and forthright with their answers about how the cheese is produced. This dairy does truly produce raw cheese as the milk is only warmed to 98F which is well within the limits for enzyme and nutrient preservation.
Buy Local from a Trusted Small Farm
The lesson to be learned here is that the only way to be sure that the cheese you buy comes from truly raw milk is to buy from a preferably local, small dairy farm that specializes in cheesemaking and to talk to the cheesemaker yourself. To find a small farm near you, check out the Real Milk website or contact your local Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leaders from around the world for their list of locally produced goods.
If you don’t have a local dairy farm near you that makes cheese, contact the Weston A. Price Foundation and order the 2010 Shopping Guide for $3 plus shipping. This handy little brochure fits in your pocket or purse and lists many small farms across North America where you can mail order truly raw cheese.
And, whatever you do, don’t buy the fake “raw” cheese from Organic Valley!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Many thanks to Pete Kennedy, Esq. of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund for tracking down the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) references for this article.
Thanks for pointing this out! I just bought some of their cheese, but never again!
I have been buying raw milk cheese for many years as an alternative to raw milk which is not available in Alabama, so I know a lot of sources.
There is an excellent source of raw milk cheese nearby, Sweet Home Farm in Elberta, Alabama (Baldwin County) which makes a variety of cheeses from milk from their herd of pasture fed year Guernsey cows. They do not ship and it is a seventy mile round trip, so I usually buy at least 10 pounds and get most of it shrink wrapped.
When I don't feel like driving to Elberta, I order raw milk cheese from advertisers in the WAPF journal.
I have bought cheese from Next Generation Organic Dairy (Wisconsin) which claimed they raised the temperature of the milk to no more than 102 degrees F. which is the same temperature is comes from the cow. Unfortunately they recently went out of business.
Farmstead Fresh, Inc, (Pennsylvania) claims on their website to keep the temperature below 103 degrees F. Their prices average about $4.50 for eight ounces and they will ship free if you order over $90 in cheese, so it is quite reasonable. I plan to try their cheese soon.
I have bought cheese from a number of the farmers in Lancaster County, Pa, most recently from Miller's Organic Farm. The cost of 11 pounds of cheese plus shipping came out to about $8.50 a pound.
I have previously bought cheese from Dan Allgyer, but his phone has been disconnected since he was raided by the FDA agents, federal marshals and state troopers in April of the year.
I have given up trying to get raw milk because of the short shelf live and shipping costs, but consider raw milk cheese to be an excellent alternative which has some advantages. Cheese is much higher in vitamin K2 than milk and the troublesome A1 beta casomorphin peptide found in most cow milk is broken down during aging of cheese. Cheese has a longer shelf life and is cheaper to ship than milk.
I have never bought Organic Valley cheese, but used to buy their butter until they began prohibiting their suppliers from selling raw milk.
Jack C.
If anyone finds out if Trader's Joe's Raw Milk Cheddar really isn't raw, please let me know. Both son and myself were found to be allergic to pasteurized and I've been VERY diligent to avoid it at all costs. Frustrated if what I thought was safe, really wasn't =(
Hi Emily, there is no justification for calling a cheese "raw" when it is most clearly not raw. Why doesn't OV just put on the label "subpasteurized" so as not to deliberately confuse the consumer?? I understand that OV is a co-op of farms but the headquarters is most definitely organized as a too big for its britches corporation. OV is a company that has lost its way and become a slave to profits and stealth marketing much like Big Food.
As an Organic Valley producer, I just need to stop and comment to air out some misconceptions. First OV is owned by farmer owners. We are not a corporation, we are a COOPERATIVE, of small farm families. All decisions made by the cooperative are made by the farmers.
In response to the raw cheese, the 2 reasons OV "subpasturizes" some of their cheese: 1) some states have strict "raw" cheese definitions and since we farmers are from all over the United States and want a uniform product no matter where you live, we have the same standard everywhere. 2) Organic products do not move off the selves very fast. By sub-pasteurizing the cheese, the shelf life is a little longer and us farmers can sell our products in places that don't have high turn around. This is same reason there is UTH pastured milk. Now that organic dairy is more popular, you are able to find just regular pasteurized milk in most markets. Just ask your store's dairy manager.
Organic Valley is a wonderful cooperative of family farms like ours. We sell our products regionally and always put us farmers first. I hope that you take some time to talk to an actual OV farmer, before you make an opinion about us. Thank you to those who support our efforts to small, sustainable, family farms.
Emily,
I’m sure you’re perfectly nice people just trying to make a living. And we are perfectly nice people who want access to quality food that your cooperative of perfectly nice people is striving to deny us.
That is why we are uninterested in your over-processed products and wish you would go away so that there would be less lobbying and room for decent food on our grocery shelves.
Exactly! We want REAL raw cheese! Quite frankly, I can’t see trusting them about anything if they’re this deceptive about their “raw” cheese. I used to buy 15 blocks of OV ‘raw’ cheese, but no more. To Woodstock Farms I go!
So you’re admitting that your “raw” cheese is heated, thus cancelling the “raw” claim. Enough said. I don’t care if you’re the Dali Llama, I don’t want to buy cheese that has been heated. Period.
Emily, you won’t find any sympathy from the people who have been foolded by your businesse’s deceptive practice! If you want respect or sympathy, try empathizing with US, admitting that what your business is doing is wrong, and come up with a plan to change this practice and implementing this to humbly regain the trust of your former customers…if possible.
I have good friends who are part of the co-op so I wont knock you so rude as some here, but the point does still stand that raw is RAW and should not say otherwise unless it truely is. Please help us all work for change. My friends went thru 5 years of change to their land to make it organic so why not start now and work for raw freedom.
Really?!It freaks me out! We're fun of raw milk OMG!err
We've been getting a variety 'unpasteurized' cheeses from Whole Foods. Some we have really liked, some too stinky. Some European, some domestic. I know that the double cremes have never been raw state side.
Since 'unpasteurized' doesn't necessarily mean raw, who knows what we are really getting.
I am new (a month or so) to this side of things. I am making one change at a time to my family's diet. We had been drinking ultra-pasturized milk for years and thought it was great for us. We are now drinking raw milk. I regular store bought cheese just as bad for us as the milk? Can you refer me to some info on why raw cheese is important? Thank you!
Hi Sarah – this whole issue gets me into such a bunch, I can't even tell you. We stopped buying OV products at least 6 months ago when the whole thing about their company not allowing their farmers to produce and sell raw milk came out. So now I have been buying Woodstock Farms "raw" cheese because there is literally nothing else available locally in my area. The farm where we buy our raw milk does not produce and sell raw cheese, and I can't afford to buy raw cheese from places like USWM or other WAPF approved sources, it's just too much for shipping. I used to buy a package of food once or twice a year from USWM, but since we started our solar business last year, our budget has been TIGHT TIGHT, so we are watching every penny. I'm absolutely certain Woodstock Farms cheese falls under the same category as the OV and it's actually pasteurized, but I don't have any other sources for it…so I'm stuck. I have tried contacting the company and have had no luck. There is nothing about their raw cheeses on their web site either, which should tell you something. But it's good to know this information. Thanks for posting this!
I would not buy a single thing from Organic Valley. Ultra-pasteurization, banning raw milk, and now this – they surely have gone over to the other side.
I thought raw cheese meant "raw". I should have known better, as the government structures its rules to help businesses cheat consumers.
On the bright side, I think the raw cheese we get from Trader Joe's is actually raw, as it spoils very quickly, showing there is some life in that cheese.