Pasta, crepes, mountains, and beaches. What am I doing in Winnipeg?
My wife and I recently returned from our 6 week honeymoon vacation in Europe. We spent three weeks in France, one week in Spain, and two weeks in Bella Italia. The scenery was breathtaking, the architecture unimaginable, the stench from unpasteurized cheese- priceless. My sister in law, who was also travelling with us in France, was quite taken away with a few of the unpasteurized cheeses offered. She later experienced severe cramps, headaches, nausea, bloody diarrhea, and ended up barfing away-exorcism style. After the second day of bed rest, she decided to visit the local hospital as the symptoms seem to have been worsening. The attending physician simply indicated that she had food poisoning. No samples were submitted, no food history, no information regarding foods she should be avoiding, nothing. Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock would have probably have given better advice. If the attending physician decided not to submit samples for analysis or obtain a food history, perhaps some food safety tips would have been appropriate like avoid unpasteurized cheeses.
Mobile cheese-making operations fall through the cracks; 2 dozen people feel it
The Ottawa Citizen reports that two dozen people in Eastern Ontario became ill after eating unpasteurized cheese that a farmer was not legally allowed to distribute.According to the story, the cheese was made by a "mobile cheese maker," hired by the dairy farmer to visit the farm with his factory on wheels.
In early June, the farmer, in St. Pascal-Baylon, 30 kilometres east of Ottawa, hired one of five travelling cheese makers who operate in Eastern Ontario. This product was later distributed - and sold - to neighbours, friends, relatives and classmates of a child of the farmer.
The unpasteurized cheese caused several cases of bacterial infection. Symptoms included diarrhea, stomach cramps, fevers and headaches.
While the Eastern Ontario Health Unit strongly recommends the consumption of only pasteurized milk products, in Ontario, people who make unpasteurized cheese on their farms can possess and eat what they make. However, selling or distributing such cheese - which includes even giving it away - is illegal under provincial legislation.
The story notes that unlike raw milk itself, which has been illegal to distribute in Canada since 1991, cheese made from raw milk - as far as Health Canada is concerned - is "allowed for sale and considered safe because the manufacturing process for cheese helps to eliminate many pathogens found in raw milk."
The tricky part about the case of the St. Pascal-Baylon farmer is that while the farmer himself broke the law, the mobile cheese maker did not.
While the Eastern Ontario Health Unit has identified five mobile cheese-making operations, it can't do much more than educate them about the risks and their responsibilities. Caroline Kuate, food safety program co-ordinator at the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, was quoted as saying, "These operators are not within our jurisdiction. They are under no one's jurisdiction. This is a case where they fall in the cracks."
