"Julia Altshuler" wrote in message
news:5Hmhb.724239$uu5.120502@sccrnsc04...
Akilesh Ayyar wrote:
Never liked artichokes much.


This might be an area to explore, though. When you first asked the
question, I couldn't think of anything that would affect the taste of
the milk except its going bad. I was interested in the answers. When I
saw the artichoke suggestion, I thought that might be it. Milk is one
of those things that tastes very different depending on what you've had
just before it. Toothpaste, juice, salt, all make a difference in how
milk tastes.

Also, milk seems to absorb flavors from refrigeration and its
surroundings more than many other foods. I can't explain the sweet
taste, but I do wonder if maybe the organic farm exposes the milk to
more barnyard smells than the big factory dairy.


The difference in the taste comes from what kind of hay/ grass the cows have
been eating. They eat something bitter, the milk can be bitter. They eat a
sweeter grass, the milk will be sweeter.

Also, no matter what the dairy situation, the milk isn't going to be exposed
to "smells". in the United States, only grade A dairies can sell fluid milk
for human consumption. Whatever the operation, to be a grade A dairy, the
milk has to be handled in very specfiic ways. The cows are milked
(painlessly, for you fanatical peta types) with mechanical milkers. The
milkers are all hooked into a central pipe system, pipes are stainless
steel. Milk is transferred to the stainless steel milk tank, where it's
picked up at least every other day and taken to the processing plant where
it's bottled. There isn't a chance, no matter what the operation, for the
milk to acquire a barn yard taste. The regulations are too tight and
strict. Organic dairies may feed their cows different, but they're going to
have to play by the same rules and regulations when it comes to getting the
milk out of the cow and to market. These are very strict, complete with
suprise inspections. Every bulk tank a farmer sends to market--whther
organic or not--is tested for antibiotics, etc. Get caught with
antibiotics... pay hefty fines... Dairy not clean enough? You get
downgraded to grade "B", and only grade A dairies can sell fluid milk.

Also, as a point of barnyard smell, the smaller dairies--organic or not, not
all small dairies are organic and there are some huge dairies that are
organic...Organic does not equal small operation--are most likely going to
smell a whole hellluva lot better. My families dairy is small, but not
organic, and it pretty much doesn't smell. Now, those commercial dairies..
..yick... nasty... smelly. 50 cows in one place vs. 10,000 cows in one
place... you decided which is going to smell better....

DRB--The daughter of a dairy farmer

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
om...

"Akilesh Ayyar" wrote in message
m...
I bought some organic skim milk recently, supposed to expire November
7. I sampled a little bit and it tasted funny.

I can't describe it any better than to say it had a kind of
"high-pitched sweetness," the kind of sickly sweetness medicine might
have to make it go down better. Not good at all. But then the milk
didn't seem lumpy or terribly sour or in any other way bad.

I'm not sure what "organic" means to milk. It may have been from cows
eating some weird stuff that gives an odd flavor. Most milks are doctored
up with all sorts of crud from vitamins to fish oil. Perhaps as long as
it
is organic, it may have been added to yours as well.


fish oil? that's one I haven't heard of... and I've been around the dairy
industry... Of course, my end is helping take care of the cows, and my
research now. Can't say I've spent much time in the processing plant. I
knew the vitamens were added? But fish oil?

For organic milk, the cows have to be fed organic feedstuffs (ie. crops that
were grown without pesticides), and no bst.

Cows though, will eat a lot of stuff... I've never seen any growing plant
that they wouldn't eat... We--I say we as if I still live at home..--have
to be really careful on what kind of shrubery (sp) that is used in the
landscaping. Certain plants, one being some sort of japanese something or
another--can be deadly toxic. One tiny little needle could kill a full
grown cow.

The cows have a tendency to break out from time to time.. .or more likely,
the kid who works for my dad forgets to shut the gate with great regularity.
Once, they ate a good chunk of mom's (non-toxic) shrubs... They once foraged
on a sapling that had just been planted in the back yard. We weren't sure
if the tree would make it, but amazingly it did...

At least they're not as bad as goats or toddler humans...

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:29:48 GMT, "DRB" wrote:


"Akilesh Ayyar" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 21:34:16 GMT, "DRB" wrote:


The organic milk always seems to have a much longer expiration date
than the normal kind. Usually seems like 3 weeks or more... And it
really does seem to last that long in my experience.

Hmm. To me, it doesn't seem to make much sense. I have the whole farm
background, undergrad degree in biology, and now I'm working on my Ph.D...
The majority of my Ph.D research is on the properties of milk, particularly
the antimicrobial properties. Organic milk still comes from cows... The only
difference is that the cows are fed organic food stuffs and do not receive
bst. Those two factors are going to have no effect in extending shelf life.
Also, IIRC, fresh milk is all going to have to be dated the same. Also, I
had to get some milk tonight. I don't get the organic stuff, but I looked
at the dates on it. None of it was dates any further out than the regular
milk.

Are you sure this wasn't the UHT (ultra high temp pasteruized) milk? UHT
milk has a much longer shelf life, and also a tendency to be off in flavor
sometimes.

Ahh, yup. You caught it. It is indeed ultra-pasteurized. Why does that
affect the taste? Is the taste difference I experienced the kind of
difference UHT usually produces?


DRB

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:03:14 GMT, Julia Altshuler
wrote:

Akilesh Ayyar wrote:
Never liked artichokes much.


This might be an area to explore, though. When you first asked the
question, I couldn't think of anything that would affect the taste of
the milk except its going bad. I was interested in the answers. When I
saw the artichoke suggestion, I thought that might be it. Milk is one
of those things that tastes very different depending on what you've had
just before it. Toothpaste, juice, salt, all make a difference in how
milk tastes.

Can't *think* of anything special I had eaten before it... hrm.

Also, milk seems to absorb flavors from refrigeration and its
surroundings more than many other foods. I can't explain the sweet
taste, but I do wonder if maybe the organic farm exposes the milk to
more barnyard smells than the big factory dairy.

What caught me off-guard was that this had never happened before. I
had never tasted anything odd about the milk previously, so I don't
think its exposure on an organic farm would normally cause
problems...Plus, I had tasted this once before with normal milk in a
restaurant somewhere.

--Lia

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:35:55 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:


"Akilesh Ayyar" wrote in message
om...
I bought some organic skim milk recently, supposed to expire November
7. I sampled a little bit and it tasted funny.

I can't describe it any better than to say it had a kind of
"high-pitched sweetness," the kind of sickly sweetness medicine might
have to make it go down better. Not good at all. But then the milk
didn't seem lumpy or terribly sour or in any other way bad.

I'm not sure what "organic" means to milk. It may have been from cows
eating some weird stuff that gives an odd flavor. Most milks are doctored
up with all sorts of crud from vitamins to fish oil. Perhaps as long as it
is organic, it may have been added to yours as well.

Fish oil!? I hope they list that on the ingredients somewhere

I enjoy many dairy products, butter cheese, ice cream etc. but I despise
drinking a glass of mild. Been that way for the past 50+ years.
Ed

http://pages.cthome.net/edhome

On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 20:14:45 -0400, levelwave
wrote:

Akilesh Ayyar wrote:

I remember this unpleasant flavor once or twice before in milk at
various places. Any idea what causes it?


because milk is an ingredient... not a beverage...

Like an ingredient in "cookies and milk"?

~john!

"Akilesh Ayyar" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:29:48 GMT, "DRB" wrote:


Ahh, yup. You caught it. It is indeed ultra-pasteurized. Why does that
affect the taste? Is the taste difference I experienced the kind of
difference UHT usually produces?

I'm not sure exactly why the high temp affects taste--i'm more into
antimicrobial and production qualities, not how the milk is
packaged/handled. Milk has sugar (lactose) and many proteins (caseins,
etc.). My guess is that these proteins are denatured by the high temp.

Typically, when it comes to UHT milk, most people complain of it tasting
cooked.

Your milk tasted, sweet, correct? Was this a newly opened package, or had
it been open for awhile? If it had been open for awhile, you could have
picked up odors from the fridge, or maybe it was overpopulated with
bacteria. While UHT kills all bacteria at packaging, once that carton is
open, it's just as susceptible to bacterial contamination as non UHT milk.

My other thought is if it's new, it picked up an off taste from the
packaging. Maybe the manufacturer's cartons were changed...

Hopping in here as a newbie.... With Ultra High Temperature
pasturization, the milk is closer to being "cooked". Since you probably
haven't had milk that's been boiled as an unflavored beverage, or canned
evaporated milk, for that matter.... you didn't recognize the taste.

I recall as a kid in the=== um=== 1950s, that our local small dairy
operation would have a few days in the spring almost every year when the
milk tasted of the wild onions the cows had been munching on. Now That
was Gross!

Human milk will also pick up food flavors. Back in the early 1960s when
breast feeding was just coming back a bit, we were to counsel newly
breast feeding moms that their babies might reject nursing for a day
after they ate asparagus! And I've known young moms who would take a
glass of wine before nursing the babe right before dinner to assure a
quiet, uninterupted meal.... Not that I'd recommend that....

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia

"Steve Wertz" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 14:45:52 -0700, TwoTon
wrote:

As an old farm raised boy it is my recollection that the taste of milk
is directly related to the last time the bull paid a visit. One of the
erasons I no longer drink milk.

Nowdays they keep the girl cows away from the boy cows. Heck, I'm not
even sure they have fully functioning milk cows anymore. I figgered
they have some sort of milk factory with justt utters growing out of
large test tubes.

Scarry thought, eh?

-sw

Science is no where near that point... They still have real cows. Real
cows... that like to break out in the middle of the night... that have to be
fed..when you want to go the ball game or hang out with your friends.
Calves that want to be fed when you want to sleep in... Milk barns that
have to be washed after the nightly milking, when you'd rather watch a
movie... *launches into memories, sweet memories*

For the most part, most cows are bred with AI. Much better control over the
genetics. Farmers are able to make much better breeding decisiions, and the
cows keep getting better and better. When I look back at the Guernsey
breeders journal from even just 10-15 years ago, and compare to what the
cows look like now... I'm blown away. They're so much more correct
(unimportant to most of you, but they're "pertier" to look at).

Also, bulls are dangerous. Most people would not want one around, unless
they could help it. We have a bull from our best cow ever, and he's a
handful. He's "syndicated" which means he's in the testing stage. They
sample, the uh, goods, and people bred up the first batch. When those
animals are born, the daughters traits are looked at--milk productions,
body, etc. Even "calving ease"--the offspring of some bulls tends to be
smaller than others. This makes it ideal for younger animals. Then, the
bull is ranked... Then, they do this on another round of daughters. Then
the bull has his "official" rankings, I suppose you'd say...

The last I time I was home, the bull had just destroyed a decently strong
wooden fence.. we're talking like he took out 30 yards of fence in one "at
bat".... mom and dad said they just kind of watched in amazement.

Also, you always here about the horror stories--being charged by the bull,
etc. People do get hurt--sometimes very badly. From the people point of
view, it's much safer.

at Thu, 09 Oct 2003 20:53:12 GMT in de56271e.0310091253.a8aef61
@posting.google.com, (Akilesh Ayyar) wrote :

I bought some organic skim milk recently, supposed to expire November
7. I sampled a little bit and it tasted funny.

I can't describe it any better than to say it had a kind of
"high-pitched sweetness,"...

November 7 = Ultra-Pasteurized. This is one of the most insidious trends in
milk in recent years that seems to have been passed right under consumers'
noses. A very great majority of milk these days is ultra-pasteurized,
mostly because it means the milk won't spoil for *much* longer.

But "spoiled" is a distinctly relative term. Ultra-pasteurizing is a
technique that exposes the milk to very high temperatures, well in excess
of 200F, for a supposedly short period of time. However, in the process, it
alters the flavour of the milk, essentially by cooking some of the proteins
and (possibly) caramelizing sugars as well. A lot of ultra-pasteurized milk
tastes sweet in the weird way you describe, very unnatural as opposed to
the sweetness of good, fresh milk. As far as I'm concerned, ultra-
pasteurized milk is "pre-spoiled for your convenience".

I find it bordering on unethical that dairies adopted these practices
without informing the consumers. I also find it distressing that so few
consumers appear to notice, much less care. There seems to be an assumption
that sets in that "milk is milk" - a commodifying attitude that lets the
producers get away with a maximum of quality reduction in the name of
improving profitability through increased shelf life, more rugged transport
characteristics, ability to divert high-profit milkfat into more profitable
products, etc. In Kentucky, I was astonished to discover that what was
passing for "whole" milk back there had a milkfat content of 3.2% ! That's
not even close to whole milk in my book. Given that it was ultra-
pasteurized as well, why not just add white dye to water and sell it as
milk?

Worse, because of the trends, a generation is growing up with no concept of
what quality milk can and should taste like. I suspect many kids imagine
that milk is nothing more than a bland, insipid white liquid. A good,
unhomogenized, raw, whole (5% milkfat) milk is a sensuous thing - smooth,
rich, with an almost candy-like sweetness (no, not an artificial/chemical
flavour), and nuances of the fields the cows grazed in. In fairness perhaps
to demand truly raw milk is putting unrealistic restrictions on milk
producers, but could they not at least use LTLT (low-temperature, long-
time) pasteurization? In this technique, the milk is only subjected to
relatively mild heating (140-160F) for a rather longer time. The gentler
process minimizes the change in flavour.

As you can tell, you've stumbled upon one of my pet peeves...


--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

DRB wrote:
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
"Akilesh Ayyar" wrote in message
m...
I can't describe it any better than to say it had a kind of
"high-pitched sweetness," the kind of sickly sweetness medicine might
have to make it go down better. Not good at all. But then the milk
didn't seem lumpy or terribly sour or in any other way bad.

Someone else has already mentioned that the milk may now be UHT treated
milk (any milk that's UHT rather than pasteurised must be labelled as
such in Australia). That could account for it.

I'm not sure what "organic" means to milk. It may have been from cows
eating some weird stuff that gives an odd flavor. Most milks are doctored
up with all sorts of crud from vitamins to fish oil. Perhaps as long as
it is organic, it may have been added to yours as well.

One of the insidious practices in one local brand of milk though is the
addition of soy and lecithin to replace some of the milk's natural cream
content. The result is an initially smoother and slightly sweeter tasting
milk but with a sort of slightly grainy aftertaste. At least ingredients
lists are fairly comprehensive here though.

One of the bizarre side-effects of the proliferation of modified brands
though has been that the switch I made from fresh milk to powdered milk
(a 100% powdered full cream milk brand with no crappy soy filler) was a
lot less troublesome than I was expecting :-).

fish oil? that's one I haven't heard of... and I've been around the dairy
industry... Of course, my end is helping take care of the cows, and my
research now. Can't say I've spent much time in the processing plant. I
knew the vitamens were added? But fish oil?

There are an increasing number of products being sold in Australia being
sold with Canola Oil as an ingredient; primarily as a marketing gimmick
so they can state that there's more Omega 3 and so it's allegedly better
for the heart. Products contaminated this way are generally well
labelled though :-).

In article , "Edwin
Pawlowski" wrote:


I enjoy many dairy products, butter cheese, ice cream etc. but I despise
drinking a glass of mild. Been that way for the past 50+ years.


Same with me. Once I reached adulthood I've always preferred the strong.


:-)


Seriously, for me, and many others, a glass of milk causes digestive
difficulties, whereas other dairy products do not.

--
Dan Abel
Sonoma State University
AIS

In article , "DRB"
wrote:


other poster was talking about. My other thought was that since the milk of
all the cows in the herd is pooled in the farmer's bulk tank, that if one
cow's milk was off due to being in heat, that it would be diluted out.


I know that humans are different than other animals, but I was surprised
to read the above. Humans generally are not fertile while lactating. My
wife went for five years without having a normal monthly cycle, due to a
combination of lactation and pregnancy.

--
Dan Abel
Sonoma State University
AIS

(Dan Abel) wrote in message ...
In article , "DRB"
wrote:


other poster was talking about. My other thought was that since the milk of
all the cows in the herd is pooled in the farmer's bulk tank, that if one
cow's milk was off due to being in heat, that it would be diluted out.


I know that humans are different than other animals, but I was surprised
to read the above. Humans generally are not fertile while lactating. My
wife went for five years without having a normal monthly cycle, due to a
combination of lactation and pregnancy.

You really didn't know that? I guess coming from a farm background,
it's sometimes easy to forget what the "civilian" knowledge is. Cows
cycle while lactating, even while lactating at pretty high amounts. A
cows gestation period is within a couple of days of the human one.
The cows milk up until about 2 months before they calve. Sometimes
though, my dad will dry a cow off earlier than that though, if she's
just not milking good anymore.

OTOH, my Ph.D research is with goats. They have to be dried off
completely before they can be bred again.

DRB

P.S. I'm posting from my google account, and I can't remember what I
have in my name field. So, I have no idea what name is going to show
up...

Dan Abel wrote:

I know that humans are different than other animals, but I was surprised
to read the above. Humans generally are not fertile while lactating. My
wife went for five years without having a normal monthly cycle, due to a
combination of lactation and pregnancy.

There is a name for babies born because people think a nursing mother
can't get pregnant. Sorry, I forget what the name is, but I sure
wouldn't rely on nursing as birth control.

nancy