Monday Moaning

Once upon a time we used to get milk from farms, those of us in the city had milk delivered to their gate by the milkman.

It was milk. Lovely milk with that layer of cream at the top of a glass bottle.

Bottle milk was pasteurised, but nothing other ‘ised’.

Then came homogenised milk, the layer of cream disappeared, although we were told it was still there.

Cream also came in the bottle, smaller with a different coloured top. It could be whipped into the most delicious whipped cream.

.

.

Then the milk companies took over, and it has been downhill ever since.

The rich cream attracted the birds, they would peck a hole in the foil tops to get it. Today you won’t see birds interested in milk, so what has happened?

Today, milk comes in boxes, the delightful tetrapak, and plastic bottles, gone is the cream, as we have ultraheat treated crap.

On the box they advertise ‘whole milk’ 3% butterfat – I say bullshit!

What happened to the other 0.5 – 1% butterfat? Without that it is not ‘whole’ milk. But the population today are so worried about obesity, that they think the milk companies are doing them a favour.

FAVOUR, my arse! They’re doing it to cheat you and make more profit!

The milk companies lobbied the governments and the laws became that you could only buy company milk. If you bought your milk from the farmer, the companies would make less profit, couldn’t have that now, could we? So buying milk from the source became illegal.

Many people didn’t like it, they wanted their whole fresh milk back. So some stores and farmers bucked the law.

Selfridges raw milk sales prompts FSA prosecution on food safety charges

The Food Standards Agency is to charge the retailer over its vending machines that sold unpasteurised milk

Untreated milk from dairy cows can contain E coli and salmonella bacteria. Photograph: Getty Images Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Selfridges is being taken to court for potentially putting public health at risk by selling raw milk at its flagship London store, the government’s food watchdog has announced.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) began an investigation last year after Selfridges installed vending machines selling unpasteurised milk supplied by Sussex farmer Stephen Hook in December 2011.

Unpasteurised milk may contain bacteria such as salmonella and E coli, which can cause food poisoning, and the FSA warned at the time that the move was in breach of food hygiene regulations designed to protect consumer health. Westminster City Council was also monitoring what was regarded as a highly unusual situation.

Today the FSA confirmed it would be prosecuting Selfridges and Hook for potentially putting public health at risk. It said in a statement: “Summons have been served to both parties and a hearing date has been set for 6 February at Westminster magistrates court.”

Raw milk dispensers are hugely popular on the continent, allowing customers to fill their own glass bottles. But in Britain the sale of raw milk is much more tightly regulated. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, unpasteurised cows’ milk can only be sold direct to consumers from farms or the farmer, including farmers’ markets; in Scotland its sale is banned outright.

Hook, of Longleys Farm, has been selling raw milk since 2007 and says his customers like the taste of the product as well as the perceived health benefits – he claims beneficial bacteria usually destroyed by pasteurisation can reduce childhood illnesses such as hay fever and eczema.

Read more

Opinion:

A threat to public health!!!

I was brought up on raw milk as a baby and a child, my kids were brought up on raw milk.

In 61+ years I have never seen a case of where a person got sick from drinking raw unpasteurised milk. There may have been, but not in my knowledge.

Is this a case of the companies scaremongering to make ONLY their product available to the people. Is the government being sucked in by the companies?

Stores like Selfridges should be applauded for giving the public what they want.

Real milk!

Not being prosecuted.

“food hygiene regulations designed to protect consumer health” should read… “food hygiene regulations designed to protect company wealth“.

People around the world should be giving their governments a clear message:

We want real milk!

And if you don’t take steps to give it to us, then get out of government!

Monday Moaning

Half Pint Cream Bottle

Milk, yuck!

When I was a kid millions of years ago (1950s) we used to get a cream bottle of milk 300ml or a half pint) every day. It was okay in the winter, but in the summer it was yucky and tepid, vomitingly tepid; some kids did actually chunder. Do you understand the concept of a chain reaction?

The milk was delivered to the school during the pre-dawn milk round, kids started school at 9am which meant the milk had like more than four hours without refrigeration because we used to get it about 10am playtime (recess).

The scheme was instigated in 1937 and ended in 1967.

I read this during the weekend on BBC News: “The government (British) has pledged to continue to provide free milk to all under-fives in the UK despite ordering a review of the scheme.”

The Brits still have it.

The milk we used to get was full cream milk, you had to shake the bottle to mix the layer of cream, yes, you could see it. Thick rich yellow cream on the top of the milk.

Cream Separator

But today’s processing removes a lot of the butterfat. The modern stuff (whole milk) boasts only 3% Fat; like they are doing you a favour. Milk with 3% Fat is not whole milk. Whole milk should contain 3.5% – 5.3% butterfat.

I remember milking time, most of the milk went in the milk churn, some of the milk went into the separator to recover the cream, what was left was skim milk and skim milk went to the pigs, it was pig food (it still does, but the fat rich ones who need to lose weight).

Once milk has been through the separator it only has about 0.05% butterfat left, making it next to useless, except for the pigs. If you didn’t have pigs it went down the drain.

But today the industry has ‘Low Fat’ milk, etc; with varying degrees of butterfat and the corporations sell it at the same price as whole milk. They are ripping you off wholesale. Because they get the profit from the cream or butter, and they double their profit by selling pig food to people.

This has long been a beef for me. One because I hate the taste (or lack of it) in low fat milk; and, two, I object to be being taken for a fool.

The milk we used to get was pasteurised, that is it was heated to 68 degrees to kill the bacteria and cooled again. Today the milk is homogenised which means the butterfat is broken down to remain evenly mixed with the milk.

Milk today is not milk

The milk we get today in plastic bottles and cartons is not milk, be it organic or not, it is a white tasteless liquid that defies the definition of milk.

It is so far removed from being milk that users of the product description ‘milk’ should be prosecuted for making a false claim. But, of course, we know that will never happen.

Three years ago I lived in a semi-rural area and used to send the kids up to the ‘corale‘ (milking shed) each day to get a 2lt (3+ pints) bottle of milk straight from the cow. It was wonderful, it was like being transported back to my childhood; it made coffee all the more wicked for drinking. And, you’ve (younger generation) have never had cornflakes that tasted so yummy.

In the US (and, I suspect, in many other parts of the world) it is illegal for the farmers to sell their milk directly to the public. Not because it’s ‘unhealthy’, but because you’ll realise that you are being cheated and stop buying their product in favour of the real McCoy.

But, nobody cares. Nobody bleats about the fact that you’re being lied to and ripped off. You all just accept what the corporations dish out to you. This is why I support Occupy Wall Street, because it’s all about the little things that are being forced on us as well as the major financial crunches.

It all makes me wonder why the Brits want to keep the tradition of school milk.