When you think of trailblazers, you don’t often think of Wisconsin. I mean, you’d expect a state like California to have the first green building laws, but would you expect America’s dairy heartland to be the first in anything besides heart attacks from fried cheese curd? Well, shows what you know, because Wisconsin’s state legislature introduced a bill that, if passed, will make the state the first in the Union to have an official state microbe. That microbe is Lactococcus, which is the microbe that helps turn milk into cheese.
Come on, like you’d expect anything less from Wisconsin! The bill is Wisconsin Assembly Bill 556, if you’d like to read it. Warning, it is a PDF. As someone who hates cheese the way most people hate Brussels Sprouts, the very idea of honoring rancid, bacteria-infested, months-old milk turns my stomach. Yuck and a half.
Image: University of Wisconsin
Tags: Wisconsin, state microbe, first US state to have an official microbe, Lactococcus, cheese-making bacteria, Wisconsin Assembly Bill 556, microorganisms