Posted by Emily Koh, June 30, 2008 at 8:00 PM
The gallon milk container has a new look at Wal-Mart and Costco—one that's designed to cut shipping costs, be more environmentally friendly, and keep milk fresher. It also costs less, at $2.18 at one Sam's Club, down from $2.58.
There's been some crying, though: Some customers complain that the boxy and spoutless shape makes them "feel like novices at the simple task of pouring a glass of milk."
In fact, the jugs have caused so many gripes that Sam's Club now holds in-store demonstrations with milk and cookies to teach customers how to pour milk:
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Posted by Robyn Lee, May 26, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Flat-screen TVs and waterbeds are two of the comforts enjoyed by Kirk Christie's dairy cows on his farm in Iowa. The idea behind the frills is that cows will make more milk if they feel more comfortable—"Christie estimates his cows' milk production has increased 10 percent since he installed the waterbeds." Watching TV helps the cows get used to different kinds of voices, which prevents them from getting as nervous when they have to hear the different voice of people who visit the barn. Christie isn't the only farmer using this method to increase his milk production—the idea to use waterbeds on dairy farms originated in Europe more than a decade ago.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, May 16, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Photograph taken by Jason Santa Maria
It can be hard to find a good source of milk juice these days, but head over to Bridge Apothecary in Brooklyn and you can get all the milk juice you could ever want! I mean, just look at how authoritative that sign is. To me it doesn't just say, "WE NOW SELL MILK JUICE"—it screams, "YOU WANT TO BUY OUR MILK JUICE!"
Posted by Erin Zimmer, April 3, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Milk got cool when that guy, his mouth stuffed with peanut butter, answered a muffled “Aaron Burr” to the radio's Alexander Hamilton trivia question. (He lost because he didn’t gots milk). Then the string of celebs tattooed with milk ‘staches filled the pages of major national magazines, everyone from Batman to the Olsen twins were drinking it. Now the brains behind milk advertising are at it again, with a spoof band called White Gold, already with 3,000 MySpace friends.
Everything about the page looks real, sounds real, and the band logged in today, just like any other MySpace band. The long-haired, wannabe Cobain frontman even blogs and wants you to buy his band's vintage-looking tees. Only difference is this group is backed by the California Milk Processor Board, not a bunch of dudes living in their parents' basements.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, January 18, 2008 at 12:00 PM
If you don't think milk can be adorable, you probably haven't seen Blur's music video for "Coffee and TV" which follows a doe-eyed anthropomorphic milk carton as he searches for his missing person. What craziness will our dairy-filled friend encounter?
Find out after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 8, 2007 at 5:47 AM
The New York Times weighs in on the raw milk controversy more than six months after our coverage began. In January of this year on Serious Eats Nathalie Jordi linked to a fascinating story in Salon that dramatically depicts the starkly different positions of raw milk advocates and opponents. Raw milk proponents claim that not only is it safe to drink, it can cure and reduce the effects of debilitating diseases like eczema, arthritis, and asthma. The subject of the Times story, Nina Planck, is a passionate raw milk advocate. The Centers for Disease Control is equally emphatic about the potential hazards of drinking raw milk, citing evidence that in recent years, children and adults have contracted E. coli and salmonella after drinking raw milk.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 20, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Many dairy farmers are switching to organic methods to beat new federal regulations, according to the New York Times. That's all well and good, but when Jeffrey Steingarten and I did a blind milk taste test on our tv show a few years ago, the organic milks we sampled did not fare well at all.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 17, 2007 at 10:30 AM
From Ask MetaFilter: Why is there no more milk delivery in the US? It used to be common, now it's extremely rare. Why is that? The short(ish) answer: First, larger dairies meant cheaper milk, making it harder for milkmen to make a living, especially since they had to wash and reuse the glass bottles. Second, the advent of both supermarkets and cars meant housewives could buy supplies on their own schedules. Perfectly valid reasons, but man, plastic jugs and cartons are so dull.
(Ronnybrook Dairy's milk is fatty and delicious, but I will cop to buying it at least partly because it comes in glass bottles.)
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 20, 2007 at 1:03 PM
Time Magazine's Wendy Cole, on how law enforcement is cracking down on raw milk suppliers:
Richard Hebron, 41, was driving along an anonymous stretch of highway near Ann Arbor, Mich., last October when state cops pulled him over, ordered him to put his hands on the hood of his mud-splattered truck and seized its contents: 453 gal. of milk.
Yes, milk. Raw, unpasteurized milk. To supply a small but growing market among health-conscious city and suburban dwellers for milk taken straight from the udder, Hebron was dealing the stuff on behalf of a farming cooperative he runs in southwestern Michigan. An undercover agricultural investigator had infiltrated the co-op as part of a sting operation that resulted in the seizure of $7,000 worth of fresh-food items, including 35 lbs. of raw butter, 29 qt. of cream and all those gallons of the suspicious white liquid. Although Hebron's home office was searched and his computer seized, no charges have been filed. "When they tested the milk, they couldn't find any problems with it," says Hebron. "It seems like they're just looking for some way to shut us down."
Why no love for raw milk? The FDA banned transportation of raw milk between states, and each state has different laws governing the sale of raw milk for human consumption—you can buy it in California stores, drive up to a farm in Illinois, but other states won't let you have it at all. Why do fans of raw milk go to all the trouble? They say that "along with the bad pathogens, heat-treating milk destroys beneficial bacteria, proteins and enzymes that aid in digestion. Some people with a history of digestive-tract problems, such as Crohn's disease, swear by the curative powers of unpasteurized milk. Others praise its nutritional value and its ability to strengthen the immune system."
Time's coverage comes somewhat late, as USA Today, The Washington Post and even Business Week all filed stories on the raw milk crackdown last year. If you're interested in trying raw milk, USA Today made a chart of raw milk availability and legality per state and realmilk.com has directories of raw milk providers by state and by country.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 23, 2007 at 10:38 AM
The NYT's Mark Bittman makes a pudding promise: " You can make not only a credible but elegant and delicious chocolate or vanilla pudding in 20 minutes flat, not counting the time it takes to chill. That’s not much longer than it takes to start with a box of powdered mix, add milk and heat it." I have to admit that for some reason I've just always assumed pudding was fairly complicated to make and so had never so much as looked at a recipe for it before; Bittman is also sure to make the point that starting with quality ingredients (like with natural milk, not ultrapasteurized, and maybe purchased from a farm or farmer's market) is the best path to good pudding. He also demonstrates the art of pudding making in a short video, which is a nice touch and something I'd love to see more of in the online food sections of newspapers.
Maki Itoh's Righteous tofu pudding in under 5 minutes should do the trick for you quite nicely, if you're lactose intolerant or vegan. She says, "Now I do not pretend to you that this tastes like a proper pudding or mousse made with cream and such, and if anyone tries to convince you that a tofu based dish like this is ‘just as good/rich as the real thing’ they are either lying or have no taste buds. It’s different, but still good. It’s a lightly sweet, cool and creamy dish that will quiet a sudden urge for Something Sweet."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 1, 2007 at 4:27 PM
Abishiri Brewery in Japan's Hokkaido prefecture has started manufacturing a low-malt beer with milk in it named "Bilk", after learning local dairy farms were just throwing out their surplus milk. "After they put beer yeast and hops into the drink and began the fermentation process, the beverage looked and smelled like tea with milk. However, when fermentation was complete and the drink cooled down, it had the same color as beer." Bilk is supposed to have a fruity taste to it, I wonder if it's like Yakult?
[via designboom]
Posted by Nathalie Jordi, January 23, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Remember our post on Starbucks getting rid of milk from cows treated with rBGH in half its stores?
Apparently, rBGH does not show up in milk--the fluid itself is rBGH free. However, cows given rBGH are at a much higher risk of mastitis, an udder infection usually treated with antibiotics, which do come through the milk.
See the NRN Food Service Blog for a fleshing out of the semantics.
