CCD: Raw Milk Cheese

K

Kay Bixler

Kay Bixler
Does anyone else ever get gastrointestinitis from eating raw milk cheese? There are some really great cheese makers nearby but sometimes a little too much and it's all over for me. And it is totally random.

Have you ever been in a position where you had to politely turn down a piece of experimental blue cheese for fear of certain death? I have and let me just say it is awkward.

Please share your raw milk cheese experiences here, in this thread.

Kay
 
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
CCD: Raw Milk CheeseDoes anyone else ever get gastrointestinitis from eating raw milk cheese? There are some really great cheese makers nearby but sometimes a little too much and it's all over for me. And it is totally random.

Have you ever been in a position where you had to politely turn down a piece of experimental blue cheese for fear of certain death? I have and let me just say it is awkward.

Please share your raw milk cheese experiences here, in this thread.

Kay
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We had a 4 hour cheese "ceremony" with Bernard Antony in Vieux Ferette in Alsace...I believe all of the cheeses were unpasturized...and totally wonderful...the wine list rocked and we had '90 Beaucastel and several older Zind-Humbrecht wines...no GI upset for the 4 of us...one of the best experiences in my life (thus far)...

Mr. Antony supplies the cheese to 18 3 star French restaurants...what a great guy...
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
hard or soft cheese? any other info?
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Hard, I would say and more often with cow's milk. The local chevre I'm usually fine with. The local blue and farmhouse cheeses are more risky for my sensitive system. It is sad because I love the stuff.
 
I would so not expect a large proportion of your cheeses to have a pathogen population worth worrying about. Unless your cheese handler has bad hygiene. Listeria, Brucellosis, and so on--you can get 'em, but if they were in a majority of your cheeses, the CDC vans would have shown up a long time ago.

I would look for a noninfectious cause as a first guess.
 
Oh it most certainly has more to do with me than the cheese. Doctor is not too worried, says I'm not producing an enzyme (or something like that), asked me to eat Activa yogurt and otherwise I'm exceptionally healthy.

I'm just a little cheese shy anymore.
 
Nope.

But, can you share the nearby producers you admire? I wonder if we are talking about some of the same 'local' here, since we are fairly close by.
 
Never (yet; like the proverbial bad oyster, I suppose it's only a matter of time), but my sympathies.
 
Mark, Sherman Hill and Tonjes are my favorites. And again, it's not the cheese, it's me. And I still eat them anyway because they are good.
 
Have you checked for lactose intolerance? I understand that cheeses need to age for 4-6 months before the lactose has transformed? I used to suffer horribly after eating cheeses until I got checked for LI; since then I have been careful - not all hard cheeses are aged long enough for the lactose to transform.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Have you checked for lactose intolerance? I understand that cheeses need to age for 4-6 months before the lactose has transformed? I used to suffer horribly after eating cheeses until I got checked for LI; since then I have been careful - not all hard cheeses are aged long enough for the lactose to transform.
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That was my thought, also, Otto. Since most domestic "hard" cheeses are actually semi-soft by European standards, I think that there's a good chance that many have some amount of lactose remaining.

Mark Lipton
 
Otto and Mark, you may be onto something. The cheese that last did me in was quite young--less than the minimum 60 days required by the US gov. for raw milk cheese. I'll bring this up with my doctor next time but for now will avoid all suspect cheese.

I'm gonna lay off the coffee too, that stuff just makes me crazy!
 
I bought cheese at the little dairy in Chavignol. It was a set of three cheeses, one young, one moelleux, and one firm. I should check my notes but I think we ate the soft and moelleux ones. I was barely able to walk for two days; I certainly wasn't going to eat anything. Bleh.
 
Kay, here's a little experiment for you to conduct on yourself to pinpoint whether it is lactose intolerance. Eat absolutely no dairy products (and if you eat processed food, scan the labels for lactose and avoid it) for 3 days. On the fourth morning drink a couple of glasses of milk (any fat content you like) - or if you can't stand milk, a big bowl of cottage cheese or a pint at least of ice cream. See if half an hour later you "suffer" - if so, LI it is.

Dr. Nelson
 
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