Who Knows about Milk?

[lazygood4nothinbum]

bob the milkman used to deliver our milk when i was a kid. we would run over to the milkman's truck in summer and he'd pick off chunks of ice for us. in the winter he'd deliver milk into boxes outside our front doors. they'd freeze a little and all the cream would rise to the top of the bottles.

now i only drink skim milk. huge difference between skim and even 1%.

in one cup, 2% gets 43 of 122 calories from fat and has 20 mg of cholesterol. 1% gets 21 of 102 calories from fat and has 12 mg of cholesterol while skim milk has no taste, no texture but also only 5 of 89 calories from fat and zero grams of cholesterol.

no idea about the taste difference. but if i would ever notice a difference i'm pretty sure i'd just spill that jug down the drain. even if it was just something the cow ate, i'd rather it not be something i ate.

[Rustic23]

I go with processing, storage, handling, preparations and so on. At least for the big brand names. My guess is the milk comes from a large number of herds across an area, is mixed and blended then packaged for retail. So what a few cows eat here and there would not change the taste. For the smaller dairy that bottles there own milk then it may be the cows diet.

[bright eyed]

i had heard in some cultures that sour milk is regularly served...here's another idea...Cooks.com - Technique - Using Leftover Sour Milk and Cream

[twaddle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum in one cup, 2% gets 43 of 122 calories from fat and has 20 mg of cholesterol.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

BBC News | Health | Milk fat knocks out sex diseases

[Fireup2020]

My mother thought it would be a kick to drink the milk from our cows sometimes. Uggg! Nothing like grassy tasting milk. Some days would not be as strong, so I think it has to do with their diet (aka which field they were in - although on 250 acres, I would not imagine a great variation) - but maybe more hay and feed in winter tempered the grassy flavor. I only use milk for the random bowl of cereal or as an ingredient - so I buy cheapest, longest lasting skim milk. (my mind thinks all milk still tastes grassy!) Actually milking the cow is better than actually drinking fresh milk!

[ladelfina]

There's a brand of milk they sell here that comes in a high-tech container. It's light-proof, and you actually have to break into a plastic seal that is continuous with the pkg. There's no way for even a molecule of air or anything else to get into it; it's like milk in a pod. I noticed it lasts almost 2x as long once opened as the regularly packaged milk. Costs the same.

Here is the TetraPak container seal (top views):
Tetra Pak Italia - Impianto confezionamento alimentare, sistema di apertura
This soft plastic also forms the screw-on base for the outer lid, and the shoulder of the "bottle".. then somehow it merges into a series of paper, plastic and film layers.




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A good way to use up milk that may not as 'pure'-tasting as you'd like, but is not sour or rotten (there's a difference), is to make a kind of "ricotta" cheese with it:

-Heat milk til scalding.
-Take it off the heat and add white/cider vinegar or lemon juice and stir until it curdles. About 2-3 tbsp./ half-gallon. If the liquid isn't clear you may need a little more acid.
-Cover and let cool.
-Strain through cheesecloth. Really squeeze out the liquid (whey).
-Add salt to taste.

This tastes WAY better than industrial ricotta, although I have only tried it with whole milk.

A fun experiment, better than pouring it down the drain!

[Rustic23]

I wonder if milk would last longer if they sold it the the same type of container as boxed wine. No air would ever get in. I'm sure someone on this board knows.

[W2R]

One advantage to becoming used to skim milk, is that (amazingly) nonfat dry milk does not seem too bad, mixed with water.

When my fresh milk runs out, I just make milk from dry milk, by the glass.

[Webzter]

> nonfat dry milk does not seem too bad, mixed with water.

Can't do it.. too many memories as a kid with goverment cheese, peanut butter and dry milk. We'd trade away the imitation velveeta block for more peanut butter, but still. More power to you, though. That dry milk really is awesome stuff... Keeps forever!

Honestly though, I almost never touch milk now. My wife can't have much milk fat, but she can handle yogurt fine. So, I use yogurt a lot, even substituting it for milk with my cereal. I also use rice milk when needed (frosting mainly).

[Rustic23]

We mix 1/2 dry milk with 2%. Taste like milk. Saves on cash.

[greg]

I've gradually reduced my use of regular store bought cheese. I don't want all the salt and chemicals. I recently found out about panir. It's a fresh cheese made on the stove: boil up two quarts of milk, add juice from abut one or two lemons, and stir until the fresh cheese separates from the whey. I use it in stir fries and soups. It's very good with spinach.

Paneer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I also read a story recently about milk in clear or opaque plastic containers and reactions under floro lights. Supposedly, not good.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by twaddle You say that like it's a bad thing. BBC News | Health | Milk fat knocks out sex diseases

so there really are benefits of incorporating food into sexuality.

(and they talk about me hijacking threads)

[dumpster56]

You guys still drink milk? Calcium from better sources.

[d]

milk is good food! not that i have anything to really add to the conversation, but that's never stopped me before. i drink a fair amount of milk for an adult (1.5 gal/wk), and have use skim only for more than 30 years -- it does take some gettin' used to, but once i became accustomed, it became and remains a clear preference. similarly, before i was able to get fresh skim i used dry non-fat -- that really took a while to get used to, but as long as it was cold, it was fine.

on the other end of the stick, i spent some time in Venezuala where the milk was fresh daily (in the cow that AM), and the milk-fat was not reduced to the standard 4%(?) as in the US ... it was wonderful! (but comming from skim, it took some gettin' used to as well)

[73ss454]

I as d drink about 1 1/2 gallons on milk a week. Also skim only for as long as I can remember. Gotta have milk to wash down the cake, no?

[thefed]

man, all this talk makes me want a glass! BUT, im lactose intolerant. So it's soy or nothing for me. Forget those pills....they dont work with straight milk, sometimes they work okay for a little cheese, a smallish cone, or something along those lines. sometimes lactaid doesnt even sit right



i figure my body is rejecting it ... so i don't need to be putting that in my body. some people argue that fact saying it's 'just' me lacking an enzyme so with the enzyme, it's okay to drink. Well, regardless of the science behind it, my body cant digest it without artificial assistance...so no thanks

[Khan]

I grew up on and around small farms. In the spring, the cows just loved grazing on green onions. Most people didn't want onion milk. There were some folks of Latvian background who would buy it to make onion butter (a traditional favorite).

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Most milk taste changes are a result of feed changes or ingredient component swap out. I notice it in the spring and fall when the cows are flipped from grass feeding to hay. Theres a sudden small taste change and then I get used to it.

All y'all paying extra for organic milk might want to take a closer look at the ingredients and do a google search on the brand. Many organic milk products are made from powdered milk produced in other countries where the word "organic" has a different meaning. For example some countries that are major milk suppliers allow the use of hormones and antibiotics if the animal requires it and the definition of "requires" is pretty dang open.

The problems with organic is that due to the big boom in demand, the small US based sleepy hippy farms that used to produce actual organic before the new millennium cant keep up with the huge demand, so a lot of the production is being outsourced.

I really *wanted* to buy organic milk for Gabe, but it seemed that a lot of the options I had available to me were powdered maybe organics, which I decided just werent going to be worth the price vs fresh whole milk from cows I see grazing around town locally. IIRC finding stuff that has the "USDA Organic" label on it assures at least some decent level of true organic-ness. Stuff simply stamped "organic" without the USDA stamp is a big question mark.

You also have to pay attention to categories where organic isnt even defined. For example, there is no standard or definition for seafood or make-up, so I could condense sewage sludge and raise seafood in it or put a paste of it into a lipstick tube and call it organic.

I've also noticed that the "cheaper" milks have lots of ingredients. Milk, nonfat milk, powdered milk, milk solids. Seems they're creating a milk from a variety of sources, probably the cheapest available. Changes in these "mixes" probably creates some taste changes from one batch to another. IMO it also opens up the door for bad things to creep into the milk or quality to be reduced. So I only allow milk with two ingredients now. Milk, and vitamin D. Milk with 5-6 ingredients goes back on the shelf.

I've found that I can buy the brand name "expensive", two ingredient milk at costco for the same price as the "cheap" 6 ingredient milk at the supermarket.

[TromboneAl]

Thanks for the info, guys. I'll check out Costco today -- maybe they'll have some free milk samples.

I wonder where the milk I buy comes from originally -- that is, are the cows somewhat local? Can you ship it around the country fast enough?

In the past, if I've bought something organic, it's not because of the organicness, but because I figured the company took more care with the product. Now, "organic" has been appropriated by the huge corporations, and doesn't mean much anymore.

I will hereby coin the term "mega-organic." You heard it here first.

[bright eyed]

gosh darnit cfb where would we be without you? all the retired folks should take on the task of thoroughly researching our food products/options so us workin folks can take a breather!

so now i opened my fridge and looked at the milk jug i have there now...1 gallon trader joe's whole milk organic...ingredients "organic grade" milk and vitamin d3...

it says organic assured by QAI... which is apparently a for profit set up QAI, World's Largest Organic Certifier, Still in Bed with Horizon & Aurora Certifying Factory Farm Practices as 'Organic'

i just want to eat some good food that won't make me or my kids sick or start their menstruation before they hit the age of 12, make them hyper or obese...is that too much to ask!