[Tech1] Supermarket milk

[John Nottage]

We've used green top milk for ever. Never missed the creamy bit. I only 
put a splash in coffee anyway. Apart from during Lockdown 1 when they 
disappeared for a time, we've always used 1 pint cartons: anything 
bigger is too hard to manage & goes off quicker. Until they went out of 
business, we always bought local Marybelle milk: they were only down the 
road - even greener! Now it's Co-op milk, bought every few days as 
needed. As to the cost, the BBC pension removed the need to worry about 
that.

Frozen milk? I remember well getting milk off the doorstep on bitter 
winter mornings when the bottle top was several inches in the air, 
lifted on a column of frozen milk. Why freeze it when it's so easy to 
nip round the corner & buy another pint.

Likewise, we stopped using much salt years ago. None goes into cooking. 
The wife likes a bit on chips. However, we always took a small pot of 
salt with us to very hot countries to compensate for extra sweating. The 
body does need some salt. I usually get mine from ready meals & the 
morning fix of Marmite!

John Nottage

On 11/11/2020 04:44, Keith Wicks via Tech1 wrote:
> Back to the original subject! Yes. For several months, our blue-top milk 
> has been going off before the best-before date. I expect that in 
> extremely hot weather, but not normally. I was suspecting that our 
> fridge might need adjusting, but have yet to measure the internal 
> temperature. Low-fat green-top milk lasts longer, but I find it wrecks 
> the flavour of coffee, so I never use it. In my opinion, high-fat Jersey 
> milk makes even better coffee, but it goes off extremely quickly, so I 
> avoid that too.
> 
> I hope Dave has more success with freezing milk than I did. I have tried 
> freezing unopened 4-pint cartons of milk and I have also poured half 
> into 2-pint cartons and frozen that. The main problem was that the milk 
> expanded on freezing, so frozen milk pushed off the caps and protruded 
> through the tops of the containers. On thawing before use, this milk was 
> lost or made a mess unless the carton was standng in a larger container. 
> Another problem was that thawing, even at room temperature, took a long 
> time, with a "milkburg" floating around for ages. I suppose that thawing 
> should be done in the fridge, but that takes longer still. I no longer 
> bother to freeze milk.
> 
> I know that current health advice is to use green-top milk instead of 
> blue-top. But I prefer to reduce my fat intake by drinking less milk. 
> That enables me to stick with blue-top and enjoy its superior flavour. 
> And anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if the health gurus eventually 
> advise that new research has revealed blue-top to be the more healthy 
> milk to drink. After all, I remember that, many years ago, when about to 
> visit a hot country, we were strongly advised by medics to take salt 
> tablets with us to compensate for the salt lost in sweat. But, more 
> recently, I've never seen any encouragement to take salt at any time, 
> except in recipes. Precisely the opposite, in fact. Do they still make 
> the tablets?
> 
> KW
> 
> 
> On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 20:50, dave.mdv via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk 
> <mailto:tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>> wrote:
> 
>     Is anyone else finding that their whole milk in the 4 pint container is
>     going 'off' before the 'best before' date? My sister-in-law in
>     Nottingham has also noticed this, this morning I had to pour away about
>     a third of the container as it poured out like custard! I have decided
>     to split the 4 pints into two and freeze one half. I did wonder if it
>     was being in plastic which caused it so I tried storing the milk in
>     glass for a while. My daughter in Somerset still has milk delivered in
>     bottles! How quaint is that!? I could of course buy two separate 2 pint
>     containers but that would cost 50p. more!  Cheers, Dave
> 
> 
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