Many people wonder about the health dangers of raw milk – and therefore cheeses of the same type – because they are populated with microbes and other bacteria. And yet: raw milk, far from being harmful, even plays a protective role!

 

The intestine, a culture broth

Our intestine is full of billions of microbes that transform our food, allowing us to assimilate it. They are essential for the proper functioning of our digestion. This is called intestinal flora. However, you should know that this flora is fragile and can be destroyed. This is particularly the case when, as part of a medical treatment, you take antibiotics. As their name suggests, they kill microbes and bacteria and very often cause intestinal problems.

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Today, many scientists are speaking out against the poor treatment of raw milk and raw milk cheeses. Several global studies show that raw milk has protective properties and recommend consuming it during antibiotic treatments to protect and re-develop the attacked intestinal flora. 

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Raw milk, an enemy of pregnant women?

The answer is no. Quite the contrary. In the same way, we now know that raw milk has a protective role for babies and children. In our environments where asthma and allergies are increasingly developing, the consumption of raw milk by the mother during pregnancy would protect the child against the risks of asthma, allergies and hay fever.

One piece of advice, however: consume hard cheese aged for more than 6 months, without risk of microbial contamination. On the other hand, avoid soft ones even if based on pasteurised milk. Their Aw, water activity, represents a more favourable environment if there were to be a proliferation of pathogens.

Therefore, there is no need to consume fortified dairy products, the result of well-thought-out marketing. Our cheese products, which are sometimes thousands of years old, are enough to naturally protect us against attacks.

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This advice to pregnant women is the same to any other members of the group at risk: the elderly, small children and anyone with a low immune system.

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Keep an eye on the cheese monger practices, watch out for cleanliness, regular hand washing, bad habits, it is often the handler who contaminates your food!!!

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Allergy sufferers: 

All our cheeses contain dairy admittedly, nuts may be part of the recipe of some of them. There is another allergen egg which you may find in your ingredient list. It is not egg as such but an enzyme extracted from eggs called Lysozyme. It is used as as an anti bacterial more often on the surface of some hard cheeses and rarely on soft ones. Whenever an allergen is present in your cheese as in any other products on this website, it shall be highlighted in bold.

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Sources: 

Dominique Vuitton, professor of clinical immunology at the University of Franche-Comté.

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Xavier Bertrand, pharmacist microbiologist in the hospital hygiene and molecular epidemiology department of Besançon University Hospital. His main research activities are focused on the epidemiology of bacterial resistance to antibiotics and the control of nosocomial infections.

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Doctor Dominique Angèle Vuitton, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Immunology, at the University of Franche-Comté. Investigator of the European program “PASTURE” (Protection against allergy: study in rural environments); Expert for the seventh Research Framework Program of the European Commission “Impact of exogenous factors in the development of allergy”