Grazing with Mom (photo by Emily Roesly, courtesy of morgueFile.com)

“Burrowing out of the recession, hungry consumers will be exploring more exotic territory in the quest for unique flavors and nourishing foods in 2011.” So writes the Center for Culinary Development (CCD), which will be profiling food and beverage trends it expects to be buzz-generating in its 2011 issues of the bi-monthly Culinary Trend Mapping Report.

CCD employs a signature 5-stage Trend Mapping® technique -- where Stage 1 trends are emerging from independent restaurants and Stage 5's have landed in the mainstream. We couldn’t help but notice that among the spotted trends, Grass-fed Dairy was designated Stage 3, indicating to us that huge numbers of consumers are well ahead of government regulators on the health and flavor benefits of products made from raw milk, free of artificial hormones and containing higher levels of healthful fatty acids.

According to CCD, “…products made from grass-fed dairy appeal to both health-focused consumers and those seeking more natural, traditional and authentic foodstuffs.” That observation is certainly in line with the enthusiastic response we have seen to America’s artisanal cheeses crafted from raw milk produced by grass-fed cows.

Thistle Hill's John & Janine Putnam (©photo courtesy of Thistle Hill Farm)

A previous post on American Feast's Sustainable Food Blog explained further about what is at stake:

Family-scale dairy farms feeding free-roaming cows on healthy grass face tough competition from concentrated animal feeding operations. The densely penned cows at CAFOs are sickened from being fed the abundance of corn grown with massive government subsidies, posing a very real threat to human health. Cow droppings make good fertilizer on small farms, but at CAFOs the immense amount of waste is a toxic threat to the health of people and the environment.

Of course, people around the globe have been safely consuming raw milk and cheeses for thousands of years.

Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese

To view a selection of fine American cheeses go to: Artisanal & Crafted Cheeses

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