Last night we purchased our first gallon of farm-fresh, local milk. I keep running across articles and blogs lately that promote non-homogenized milk, and I thought we should give it a try. Usually when I get an idea of this sort about some change we should make in our grocery shopping rituals, the Spouse rolls his eyes and prays that the phase will pass quickly. And, often it does… like the time when I decided we should switch to organic Oreos thinking the change-up would go unnoticed. Well, some things simply work better when they’re processed just a little bit. Take Oreos, for example.
Anyway… back to the farm-fresh milk. I was so excited to finally discover the gallon sitting on the shelf in the store that I could hardly wait to get it home and try it out for ourselves. We made a quick run through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru (because, after all, nothing is as organic as enjoying a hot-glazed, fried doughnut with a glass of non-homogenized milk), and headed home. The Spouse played along with my excitement about the milk and eagerly opened the jug as soon as we arrived at La Casa de Healthy Eating.
It was then when, to his horror, he discovered what he kept describing as “a huge glob of sludge” on top of our $7 milk. Being the farm girl that I am, I calmly explained to him that the milk was still a week away from expiration and was surely perfectly safe for consumption by him and the girls and anyone else who likes textured milk. Meanwhile, as his drama over the “sludge” escalated, I quickly called my mom (the daughter of a dairy farmer) to ask her if she remembers anything about non-homogenized milk looking strange. And, this is an excerpt from our conversation:
Mom: Did you shake it up?
Me: No. It didn’t say anything about shaking it up on the jug. (Shouldn’t important instructions like this be spelled out in bold print somewhere on the packaging?)
Mom: Well, it’s probably just the cream from the milk that’s risen to the top of the jug. Try shaking it up.
Me: Ok. Well, do you remember it tasting different?
Mom: Oh, I don’t know about that. We didn’t drink it.
Me: What do you mean you didn’t drink it?
Mom: We bought our milk at the store, and by then it had been homogenized.
Unbelievable. The dairy farmer’s family didn’t even drink their own farm-fresh milk.
While I had been on the phone with my pseudo-farm girl mother, the Spouse had been googling pictures of non-homogenized milk himself and had discovered that it was indeed normal for the cream to rise to the top. The great milk mystery was solved, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief knowing that our milk had not been tampered with or maliciously injected with “sludge.”
So, after wildly shaking the jug for a few minutes, we sat down to begin enjoying our new, creamier milk in peace.
And, that would be the sweet and happy ending to this story, if only it had been so blissful. The real truth is, though, that the creamy milk tastes different. And, while the Toddler likes it, and the Spouse and the Preschooler can deal with it,… I can’t bring myself to swallow it. Yet.
I would have never made it on the farm. Well, maybe on my mom’s version of a farm…
Too, too funny! I also come from a pseudo-farm girl mother, and while my grandmother helped do research on using soy in recipes for UT (way before my time) she said it tasted awful and ruined any recipe unless you BARELY used a tablespoon or so in your recipes. Eventually everyone she knew in the study decided soy might be healthy, but it wasn't worth the taste trade-off. Now I have friends who swear by soy-milk, but I can't stand the smell much less the taste!
So perhaps the "all natural" brouhaha is from people who never actually lived on farms or have any idea what farm living really translates too? Who knows… I just know that learning to cook from my grandmother is the reason I refuse to whole heartedly endorse any product just because it claims to be farm fresh. I can't help but wonder if all these products are truly better/fresher or if the label is just hoping to snare a bit of the "all natural" nutritional hype so popular these days.
I guess I'm an anti-"all natural" eater. I don't buy "light" or "low-fat" and I always buy unsalted butter, because Grandma taught me that she'd prefer to have the real deal rather than wonder what kind of processing was used to change the nutritional content. She lived to be almost a 100 years old, so there's got to be some proof in the pudding.
To me, a lot of it's like saying you are being healthy because you only drink Coke Zero… nice try, but soft drinks aren't healthy no matter what format you choose. I'd rather own up to the nutritional trade-offs and enjoy a real Coke now and then, than pretend I'm being healthier than I really am.
So if the $7 milk tastes great, go for it. But if you can't stand to swallow it, I'd think about reconsidering its value on the fridge shelf ;o)
MMM: so well said. We're far from "all natural," but I fall victim to the hype more often than I'd like to admit. I think it's the control freak in me surfacing. I feel such a weight of responsibility to make good food decisions for the girls while they're young, but I have to remind myself that balance and moderation are key. I tend to become obsessed with one thing at a time (most recently the milk), but I rarely stay on my own bandwagon for long. I'm all over the place… or at least, all over the grocery store 😉 I'm with you on the real Coke, too. Except my drink of choice is a Dr. Pepper!