Here’s an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a recent decision by the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of wooden racks for aging cheese. It was brought on by a cheese maker in New York State that was repeatedly cited for bacterial contamination.
The FDA says that wood, because it is porous, can act as a breeding ground for bacteria. Many cheese makers use wood because of its porosity, which helps to prevent unwanted mold from growing. The same property that the FDA objects to is the one that cheese makers find useful.
If this decision stands it’s going to have a big effect on the cheese industry. Cheese makers will have to figure out how to age cheese on non-porous materials while avoiding spoilage. Some of the smaller cheese makers might not be able to afford the transition.
I am not an anti-regulation ideologue. I am happy that the FDA exists, and I wish they had the resources to do their job more thoroughly. In this case, though, I suspect the FDA is guilty of overreach. There are hundreds of cheese makers that use wood, and bacterial contamination is rare. I’d rather the FDA figure out what was different about that one cheese maker’s practices that led to contamination. It seems unlikely to me that the problem is just the wood.
Incidentally, what is your cite for that? (Or was your point just to snark about liberals?) According to Slate, as of June 10th the FDA has pulled back slightly, but their current position seems well short of cancelling the order:
For what it’s worth - and I know this is kinda apples and oranges - but the good people at America’s Test Kitchen did a test of bacterial contamination between wood and plastic cutting boards and found vertually no difference in the number of bacteria.