THE FDA GOES AFTER CHEESE MITES.
THE FDA GOES AFTER CHEESE MITES. I posted here about how Mary Jane’s mother and grandmother were fond of casa marzu (maggot cheese), which contains lots of maggots, and in this post I linked to a wikipedia article that says that casa marzu is considered toxic if the maggots are not alive. Now this article by Brady Dennis in the Washington Post reports that the Food and Drug Administration is blocking imports of mimolette cheese from France because it contains a lot of cheese mites. Mimolette cheese had been imported for decades without objection, and a Harvard microbiologist is quoted in the article: “…these cheeses have been consumed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years with no apparent link to disease from the mites.” (Louis XIV declared mimolette the national cheese of France.) The FDA’s decision has been heavily protested, but the protestors think that mimolette cheese will no longer be available in this country. Whole Foods has been buying up as much of it as it can before it disappears.
Meanwhile American “cheeses” that are more like slice-shaped petrochemical products are A-OK in the FDA’s book.