“I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered,” McAfee acknowledged before my visit. “But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer. And I’m going against the grain here. I’m climbing a mountain they say you can’t climb.”
…
“We catch these things and divert the milk immediately,” McAfee said of the pathogens.
I assumed that after diverting batches, the farm discarded them.
Later that day, I learned otherwise.
“We have a red-flag system here, where if there’s anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn’t go to anything but cheese,” McAfee told me. “Because, you know, cheese is resistant to pathogens.”
Research has shown that raw cheese is not, in fact, resistant to pathogens; while aging can mitigate some risk, harmful bacteria can still survive the usual 60-day maturation process.
Yes this guy is ruining it for everyone, but i guess the answer is to make sure people who sell raw milk aren’t selling bad raw milk. Maybe the customers just like the taste of it, who cares?
Even if it’s like alcohol, banning alcohol didn’t help anything, but making sure sellers follow safety regulations helps a lot.