Buongiorno.
Milk is something we purchase on a weekly basis, whether to dilute the
much-needed morning caffeine that allow us to face the day, or to turn
an otherwise average pan sauce into the creamy wonder our meats and
palate covet. When I arrived from Italy I thought purchasing milk would be an easy undertaking. Milk is milk, after all. Right? No. Not these days. There are a lot of
options that have turned this simple choice into a bit of a maze.
Like many of you, I have been trying to do the right thing and buy food that is not filled with antibiotics, hormones and pesticides and still retains most of its nutrients. At the same time I would like my purchase to benefit the people and community that grow it, not pollute the environment (excessively) and ensure that the animals it comes from are treated in a humane manner.
These days that is quite the tall order.
But fear not: Here's some information I gathered for you, in the hope it will help you as it has helped me. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll examine the offerings and claims of readily available milk in Bay Area supermarkets.
Types of Milk
Whole milk:
1 CUP: Calories 149, Fat 7.7 grams, Calcium 291 mg
This is the milk to use for sauces and baking that has the most fat (aside from cream). In most recipes, where milk is called for, the fat is one of the reasons for its use. If you decide to use reduced fat or skim milk, your baked good may turn slightly dry and your pan sauce less creamy—so you may have to compensate with other ingredients. I say use the full fat and eat less of it. We only live once.
2% Milk:
1 CUP: Calories 121, Fat 4.4 grams, Calcium 296 mg
This milk works well for coffee drinks and it's fine for most baked goods. Try it and adjust the recipe as needed. For pan sauces it works also pretty well. Add a little flour (1tsp scant) to the pan to make your sauce thicker. I use it for baking muffins and reductions all the time. Go for it.
1% Milk:
1 CUP: Calories 104, Fat 2.2 grams, Calcium 312 mg
This has too little fat to bake or cook with. Use it for drinks or cereal, or wherever else calls for milk straight out of the carton, uncooked.
Nonfat Milk:
1 CUP: Calories 90, Fat 0.5 grams, Calcium 316 mg
Yikes! This is milk-flavored water.
Raw Milk:
This is milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized. It has a deeper, stronger flavor.
There is a lot of controversy at the moment as not pasteurizing the milk can be unsafe due to the fact that salmonella and other harmful bacteria may not have been eliminated from it. Proponents of raw milk correctly assert that its flavor and nutritional values are superior. It's currently illegal in some states, but not in California. It's available at select groceries in San Francisco; Rainbow carries it. Go to Real Milk for more information. Note that the USDA discourages the consumption of raw milk.
(Nutritional information changes from producer to
producer, as the various breeds of cows produce quite different milk.
These are average quantities; read the Nutritional Label on your milk
for specific information.)
Labeling
Pasteurized
Pasteurization is the process of heating up the milk in order to eliminate a large amount of the bacteria living in it. Unfortunately the process also eliminates part of the flavors, nutrients and vitamins. Hence the proponents of raw milk.
There are the two main methods of pasteurization:
HTST (high temperature, short time) is the most common. The milk is heated for at least 15 seconds at a temperature of 161.5°F. Most milk available in U.S. supermarkets uses this one.
UHT (ultra high temperature) The milk is heated for at least 2 seconds at a temperature of 280°F. This is used for milk that needs to be stored for a much longer period of time (it has a refrigerated life of 2 to 3 months). It tastes like old sneakers. Fortunately it is not very common, except in survival kits and in those single-serving containers they have in diners.
Homogenized
If you leave milk sitting around for a while, its cream will rise to the top and its fat will create a nice layer at the top, leaving an almost skim solution at the bottom. All you have to do is give it a good shake before serving. However, most consumers don't want to see this separation, so the dairy industry "homogenizes" the milk by passing the milk through a high pressure system; the fat droplets are broken into much smaller droplets and their surfaces become coated with protein more easily making it much more stable.
Vitamin D added
Vitamin D is actually not quite a vitamin but more similar to a hormone (see the definition). It aids the absorption of calcium. Milk is fortified with it so that people can actually absorb one of its most known nutrients.
Labeling the milk "Hormone-free" when Vitamin D is added is incorrect.
Vitamin A added
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble, antioxidant vitamin important in bone growth.
rBST
Bovine growth hormone re-engineered by Monsanto. This is a controversial hormone that regulates the production of milk in cattle. It can increase milk production from 10% to 40%. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not require special labels for products produced from cows given rbST. When producers decide to label that their milk does not contain it, they must also state that by USDA standards there is no difference. However, hormone-free organic milk can be labeled as "hormone-free."
"Monsanto fought this labeling, and sued a small dairy called Oakhurst in an attempt to block organic dairies from labeling their milk hormone-free; they lost.
Demand for hormone-free organic milk in the US has increased 500% since Monsanto introduced their rbST product, and is the fastest growing sector of the organic food market." —Wikipedia
Organic
This is the USDA definition of organic: "Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation."
"Before a product can be labeled 'organic,' a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too."
Sadly there is no mention of access to pasture, humanely raised or grass-fed. There is an ongoing effort to change these standards and how they are applied to livestock, specifically their access to pasture and a diet that is compatible with their digestive tract and therefore humane: Cattle do very poorly on an all-grain diet (I will resume this topic at a later date, meanwhile see Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and Eatwild.com).
So many choices, and in the case of organic, a bit of exploiting our best intentions to sell us something that falls quite short of what we imagine we are buying. But more of that in the next installment. Some producers make a superior organic milk. Some do not. The problem always comes back to the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. Oh, and profits.
A presto,
Marco Flavio