If You Want To Eat Unpasteurized Cheese, It Should Be None Of The Govt's Business
If you and some buyer want to transact for it, why should the government be involved?

You know that the cheese you're buying from the farmer didn't have an FDA official standing over it or stamping it (which, of course, doesn't mean food that is so stamped is actually safe to eat).

Bayelin Linnekin writes at Reason that food freedom legislation is slowly advancing in a few states -- and passed in Wyoming. It was "the country's first formal food freedom law":

In Maine, a bill that would have allowed voters to amend the state's constitution--and which passed out of the state legislature but died in the state senate--was mostly great:

"All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to acquire, produce, process, prepare, preserve and consume the food of their own choosing, for their own nourishment and sustenance, by hunting, gathering, foraging, farming, fishing, gardening or saving and exchanging seeds, provided that no individual commits trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the acquisition of food; furthermore, all individuals have a right to barter, trade or purchase food from the sources of their own choosing, for their own bodily health and well-being and every individual is fully responsible for the exercise of these rights, which may not be infringed."

Colorado's bi-partisan SB 58 currently awaits the signature of John Hickenlooper (D). The bill, which passed the state senate unanimously, greatly expands permissible cottage food offerings and allows small farmers to sell their own chickens directly to consumers.

"Our goal with the Food Freedom bill was to reduce red tape on local farmers and producers, because Colorado places a high value on a thriving local economy--and healthy, farm fresh foods," said Colorado State Sen. Owen Hill (R), a bill sponsor, in an email to me this week. "SB58 makes it easier for farmers and producers to connect with consumers who are looking for local food options, and it opens the market for the first time in Colorado to allow small poultry producers to sell straight from their farms."

"Reducing barriers to help people grow their food and sell it locally is a win win for Colorado," said Colorado State Rep. KC Becker (D), another bill sponsor, also by email. "Locally grown foods and cottage foods are great for Colorado consumers, farmers, and communities. The interest in cottage and local foods is strong and growing in Colorado and I'm glad we could help that cause."

Here in California, in Venice, where I live, people joined a secret food coop -- selling raw food that farmers wanted to sell and they wanted to purchase, like unpasteurized milk and cheese. I've eaten unpasteurized cheese for eons in France, as have countless people, and I'm not dead -- and I've never gotten sick.

Well, armed government thugs came in -- like a SWAT raid on a drug den -- to raid them for the possession of...yes, raw dairy products. PJ Huffstetter writes in the LA Times from 2010:

With no warning one weekday morning, investigators entered an organic grocery with a search warrant and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed coconut cream and to step away from the nuts.

Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid's target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk.

"I still can't believe they took our yogurt," said Rawesome volunteer Sea J. Jones, a few days after the raid. "There's a medical marijuana shop a couple miles away, and they're raiding us because we're selling raw dairy products?"

People who want to buy those should have it be their business with the seller, and none of the government's.