Organic or Genetically Modified?
Are you in the organic camp or genetically modified? It seems simple to say, of course, I am in the Organic camp.
Are you sure? Do you know where your Atlantic salmon comes from? At the price they sell it in most restaurants it certainly cannot be from the wild. Most salmon come from “farming” with a little genetic modification to help them to gain weight.
Our tomatoes are square in order to keep longer and transport easily. The price has never been so low and the taste too! Our beef is able to gain 30% of their weight in the last 30 days of their life. Did you know this is possible?
The dairy industry is no different.
The average “California farm” has 600 cows in production. Can we call this a farm with such industrial production numbers?
And most, if not all, of Friesen Cows are related or have some genetic connection to Starbuck, the beautiful male who is know for good milking descendants. Good at least for the milk yield but certainly not for the solid content we need to make good cheese.
A good breed of milk cows, “French Montbeliarde,” produces 7000 kg of milk and 12 kids in their production life.
A smaller animal, American Freisen, produce 30% more milk in their 4 production years.
Fortunately, more and more producers show the label “No hormones growth”. Those hormones have been illegal in Europe and Canada for many years and they are not any cheese offered by Artisanal.
Do you know how much hours of laboratory research has been used to develop a white Penicillium which can resist blue mold? How can you be organic and refuse natural moldy cheeses?
When the public did not want milk to form a skin on the top of their coffee, the milk industry answered with homogenization a process that breaks large fat molecule in thousands of small molecules. Homogenization allows the milk to disseminate into the coffee and no longer float to the surface. No more disgusting skin on the coffee but this process leads to much more fat retention in the body. More cells mean more chance to absorb those little balls of fat.
No more smoked cheese in USA. All are produce with artificial flavor added, even those rewarded at the annual American Cheese Society competition.
Most of the cheeses produce in North America are with“engineering” rennet to avoid usage of animal rennet (natural). Engineering means laboratory reproduction. Naturalist considers those as genetically modified products (GMO). Most good producers make cheese with animal rennet which has very bad press with vegetarian.
“Vegetarian” rennet from artichoke has to be recombined to get the proper power to be used in Dairy.
Are all genetically modified foods bad if we want to produce food for all?
Canola oil is a natural combination of plants.
It is worth it to produce cotton in Texas with government subsidies rather than recycle plastic bottles to get polyester cloth?
Each of us has to find an answer.
At Artisanal we will continue to discourage usage of additive and we will continue to accept some natural mold in our cheeses. As Patrick Rance says, “it’s a poor cheese that attracts no mold”.
As Dr. Davis (English scientist) says “The biggest problem of the food industry in the year 2000 may well be not quantity but monotony. Each country should fight to maintain the integrity of its indigenous cheese varieties.” Including those species of natural mold too!
Denis Cottin
Affineur
