SLOW Food in Australia today launched a public campaign to give Australian artisan cheesemakers the right to produce – and consumers to eat – Australian raw milk cheese.

Slow Food Australia is part of the international not-for-profit organisation founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, people’s dwindling interest the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes, and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

Raw Milk Cheese project co-ordinator Michael Croft said milk had been fundamental to human nutrition and health for millennia. ‘The domestication of cattle, sheep, goats and other mammals has given us a unique partnership,’ Croft said.

‘We draw sustenance from it every day. We drink fresh milk and cream. We eat butter and cheese. Milk is at the very heart of human life. When skilfully made, ripening and maturing at its own pace, and developing flavours and textures of complexity and length, cheese retains the inherent qualities of the milk used in its making. It expresses diversity through seasonal and local characteristics, and the art of its maker, like no other food.

‘The Australian cheese we eat today is pasteurised, sanitised and uniform. For more than a generation, technology and science have been used to limit our choice of cheese. We cannot make and market Australian raw milk cheese. We cannot taste it. We are denied the experience of the unique characteristics of this primary food.’

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