While marijuana is being legalized all over the place, the day may come when certain cheeses will be outlawed. We could be see a black market in artisanal cheeses as we saw with the illegal drug trade.

Homosexuality is the new normal, and yet homosexuals have the highest incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. “Cases of the sexually transmitted disease [syphilis] , once almost eliminated in the United States, have more than doubled among gay and bisexual men since the year 2000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Have you ever heard of anyone getting sick or dying because they ate cheese that was aged on wooden boards? I haven’t. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needs to justify its 2015 budget of $4.7 billion, an increase of $358 million over 2014, by going after cheese makers who have been making cheeses the same way for hundreds of years with no ill effects.

“The latest foodmakers to face destruction from the Food and Drug Adminstration’s (FDA) need to regulate all the things: artisanal cheesemakers. As part of a new push to enforce certain aspects of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), passed in 2011, the agency announced that it will no longer allow cheesemakers to use wooden boards in the aging process.”

The problem is, the wooden boards are essential for this type of cheese making. Cheeses from around the world are cultured in the most unlikely places and with the most unusual bacteria.

“Folks often shy away from fancy cheese because it smells like feet. But what if the cheese was actually made from feet — or rather, the bacteria that makes your feet stink?

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“‘Many of the stinkiest cheeses are hosts to species of bacteria closely related to the bacteria responsible for the characteristic smells of human armpits or feet,’ write ‘artists’ Christina Agapakis and Sissel Tolaas on the Science Gallery website. ‘Can knowledge and tolerance of bacterial cultures in our food improve tolerance of the bacteria on our bodies?’”

Again, as far as I know, no one has been adversely affected by these cheeses.

It’s obvious that the folks at the FDA don’t know much about how cheese is made. Bacteria are essential. No bacteria, no cheese.

“The fact that wood’s porousness allows it to retain bacteria is actually one reason why cheesemakers use this method. Contra the 19th century, not all bacteria is bad. Cheese, yogurt, kombucha, tempeh, and other foods containing live active cultures can actually be incredibly beneficial for humans’ immune system and overall health. But what about the bad bacteria—is there any validity to the FDA’s claim that bad bacteria can’t be properly purged from wooden boards?”

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“Many of the most awarded and well-respected American cheeses are aged on wooden boards, according to Cheese Underground. ‘The very pillar that we built our niche business on is the ability to age our cheese on wood planks, an art that has been practiced in Europe for thousands of years,’” Wisconsin cheesemaker Chris Roelli told his blog readers.

For years we were told to dump the wooden cutting boards for plastic ones. Studies show that wooden cutting boards are actually better.

You may want to stock up on your favorite stinky cheeses before the FDA ruling goes into effect. You also may want to find an illegal “cheese dealer” who can get you the banned product.