Say Cheese

It seems as if the food supply is not safe anywhere, including Italy. A story in yesterday's paper reports that the buffalo mozzarella cheese produced from cows near Naples, reported to be the premier buffalo cows in the country, contains high levels of dioxin, a cancer causing poison.

It seems that these particular prized buffalo cows graze in a "region strewn with illegal mafia-controlled toxic trash that Italian governments have failed to clean up for more than a decade."

Delightful. Never mind that people have probably already been eating this cheese for ten years. The Italians are having a hard time admitting there is a problem even when the cheese coming from 83 of the regions 2,000 dairy farms contains higher-than-permitted levels of dioxin. Even "the European Union leadership demanded explanations and scolded Italian officials for failing to provide adequate information." In response Italian Agriculture Minister Paolo de Castro said, "The cases are few and they have been isolated."

In fact, to demonstrate the safety of their product, farmers brought Angela, a buffalo cow, to Rome to participate in a demonstration organized by mozzarella producers to prove the safety of their product.

I can't help but contrast this with the incredible speed with which the British authorities clamped down on the mad cow disease outbreak a few years ago. In fact, the last time I was in London, about two years ago, they were in the midst of handling another possible outbreak and they were shutting down farms for miles around the suspected area.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea immediately suspended imports of buffalo mozzarella and the European Commission threatened a Europe-wide trade ban on Italian mozzarella if more stringent measures were not undertaken to both disclose the nature of the problem and prevent it from continuing. Officials insist that none of the contaminated cheese was exported but sales of domestic mozzarella have decreased 30% since the scare began.

Buyer beware. Stick with domestic mozzarella for a while.