I’ve always been a cheese fanatic. It started when I was a kid with sharp cheddar cheese from Wisconsin and the massive blocks of baby Swiss my father used to receive from one of his patients during the holidays. I would gleefully trim off ever-so-thin slices, curl each one into a roll and start nibbling while thoughtfully eyeing where to cut off the next piece.

As many cheese lovers, my taste continues to mature, and now I’m more likely to reach for say, aged Gruyere and goat Gouda. In one of my recent grocery shopping experiences, while I carefully selected organic yogurt and organic milk, I realized that when it came to cheese, I wasn’t so sure of what I was buying. With gourmet cheeses, such as specialty goat cheese or cheese from sheep’s milk of the Basque region, I wasn’t so worried, but what about cow’s milk cheese from the U.S.? Is there a chance that it has come from cows treated with growth hormones?

I was having these thoughts when I came across this article from Grist about the recent decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an Ohio law regarding the labeling of food produced without growth hormones.

“Earlier this week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the state of Ohio’s ban on labels that identify milk as rBST- or rBGH-free, meaning produced without the use of artificial bovine growth hormone. Consumer and organic food groups were jubilant at the Ohio news, which may have far-reaching repercussions not only for all milk, but for genetically engineered foods.”

Later, the article goes on to say:

Thanks to consumer pressure, approximately 60 percent of milk in the U.S. is rBST-free at this point, labeled or not, according to the Center for Food Safety. However, that leaves an enormous amount of milk still being produced with these hormones, and by extension cheese and most brands of ice cream, except for Ben & Jerry’s.

The bit about ice cream got my attention. Not only do I love cheese, but I also adore ice cream. (You mean, I can’t eat Haagen-Dazs?) It seems that as I’ve been selectively buying organic milk, I may have been eating cheese and ice cream made from non-organic sources. Yikes. (Yet another reason to go D.I.Y. in the kitchen.)

I suppose I should have thought of this earlier, but I guess my love of cheese and ice cream blinded me. If anything, however, it is yet another reminder that companies should not only be allowed to label their food, but should be required to label it. Consumers need to know and have the right to know what they’re eating. I look forward to and am hopeful for the time when the FDA does the right thing in this regard. I just hope it isn’t another decade before we get there.

In the meantime, I’ll be more consciously buying cheese from such locales as the Cowgirl Creamery, certified organic. And ice cream? Looks like I’ll be making it at home.

Image: Jeffrey Coolidge

The post What’s in the Cheese? appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. We are now keenly aware of what’s lurking in our food – from pesticides to antibiotics to hormones – and it isn’t pretty. Dairy ads of yesteryear boasted bold, yet innocuous words like “creamy” and “delicious,” so when I recently drove past Tillamook‘s giant billboard shown above, shouting the words: “No Artificial Growth Hormones: We love our cows the way they are,” I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Tastefully triumphant or utterly depressing? This certainly isn’t your mother’s yogurt, thank goodness. But now we’re being marketed toxin-free food they way it always should have been made to begin with and we’re being charged extra for it!

Tillamook’s stance on the use of artificial bovine growth hormone is as follows: “From research, we determined that using milk produced without artificial growth hormone supplementation better meets our consumers’ expectations about our brand – a brand associated with premium quality, consistent and best tasting products.” The “farmer owned since 1909 county creamery,” based in Tillamook, Oregon is certainly keeping up with the times. This latest ad campaign is preying on widespread consumer fears about the toxins that exist in food. But should ads like this be applauded or met with dismay?

Before I move on, let’s take a look at what artificial bovine growth hormone actually is. We all know to avoid it and we’re familiar with the now thankfully widespread “NO rBGH” label on dairy products, but here’s what we’re really glad it isn’t in our dairy products.

Developed and brought to the table by agricultural giant Monsanto in 1993, rBGH – short for recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone and also known as rBST recombinant Bovine Somatotropin – is a synthetic growth hormone which is injected into cows to make them grow faster and artificially produce 10 to 15 percent more milk. In addition to the harmful effects this hormone has on cows, from deformities in calves to staggering increases in mastitis of cows’ udders, stress and malnourishment, rBGH is also cited by the Cancer Prevention Coalition as increasing cancer risks in humans.

Bottom line? I’m feeling both triumphant and depressed over Tillamook’s towering ad statement. Triumphant that indeed more and more companies are taking a stand against using growth hormones in the cows that produce their products, but depressed that this destructive hormone was ever brought to the market in the first place. It’s like going to a dinner party and having the host expect you to thank them for not poisoning your food. And we have to wonder, are we just scratching the surface here? What also still lies in our food and what’s to come?

Image: Tillamook“>Tillamook

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