Off Topic - Poor Milk Taste

[Anonymous-0]

I did some searching on the net this morning b/c I didn't want to post such an off-topic question, but I couldn't find anything. Thought I'd check with the farm community.
In the past few years (around here at least) certain milks have developed a bad taste (whang as I would call it). Believe it or not, it's the good brands. A few years ago it was one brand, now it's several. The only thing that's tolerable is Kroger brand and it's pretty good.
My wife is pregnant and is drinking organic. I had a taste of it the other day and it was really good, but it's too expensive as much as I drink.
Anybody have an idea what's in the milk I'm tasting? (I always buy 2%)

 

[Walt Davies]

Its not what's in it but what is not in it Cream. Try to find a dairy that has Jersey or Guernsey cows they have more butter fat in the milk. These Holsteins just make milk not much butter fat. Also look for 3% milk that will help some.
Walt

 

[john in la]

While my family has been out of the dairy business for years your question has caught my attention. I can not comment on new drugs intelligently but just wanted to throw out this idea.


It could be you are tasting the effects of BST (bovine somatotropin). This is a growth hormone that has been given to cows. It also increases milk production. This drug is approved for use in the USA but has been banned in Canada and UK.

From the way I hear it many farmers here in the US were passing on the drug even though it increased production because it also made the cows sick (mainly mastitis) requiring increased doses of antibiotics to be given. A lot are now caving in and starting to use the drug to stay competitive.

It will be interesting to see comments from some one still in the dairy business.

 

[Anonymous-0]

A study just came out that said milk that is stored in shelves in stores with flourescent lighting develops a bad taste. Apparently the milk does not loose nutritional value, just taste's bad. It said to try and by your milk that is in the back where the light does not hit it. Apparently this they feel is one of the factors that have caused people to develop the dislike for the taste of milk, when they have been milk drinkers all their life.

 

[Anonymous-0]

How come about 5 yrs. ago the expiration date on jug was 8 days now it is about 3 wks? What ever they did to extend shelf life might be making it taste rank. I also noticed the change in taste.

 

[Anonymous-0]

When I was in the business (back when they made dirt) poor taste was associated with diet changes, going from barn to grass or to silage. I doubt there are many turning cows out to pasture now adays and the cows are probably getting a more controlled diet.

Got a jug of putrid milk at the store one day, yowser, complained and got my $ back. It only takes a little caught in the line someplace to spoil a lot.

 

[phillip d]

milk tastes delisious here in Canada

 

[Anonymous-0]

If that's true about the 3 weeks, it could explain it. I don't buy regular milk anymore so I don't look at the expiration dates...

I'm mildly lactose intolerant, so one concession I've had to make so I can still enjoy cheese in my sandwiches and pizza occasionally is to by lactose free milk. It's usually good 4 to 6 weeks when I buy it -- because they use heat which both ultra pastuerizes it and breaks down the lactose.

It definitely changes the taste to "odd" -- lactose is a sugar, and you don't think of milk as being sweet until you taste it without the natural sugars in it. In coffee or cereal, I don't notice the difference, just a glass of milk it's weird but I'm used to it now.

I definitely wouldn't put it past the dairies to just be ultra pasteurizing the milk just to increase it's shelf life.

I want to try some raw milk one day -- haven't had that in 25+ years since an Uncle kept a dairy cow around for his family -- since they say it has enzymes in it to help digest the lactose.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I am old enough to remember when milk that was kept in a real icebox,would be off taste in three days. Now the cow could be dead for three weeks and the milk would still be on the store shelf.I place my faith in a good single malt Scotch!! W4

 

[Anonymous-0]

I doubt its BST. Cows milk contains the hormone in low levels whether the cows are treated or not. I dont use it, dont see how it could pay. Costs about 50 cents per cow per day just for the shot, then add feed cost and possible side effects to the cow. My cows do go on pasture and I have mostly Jerseys. I feel the real culprit is processors extending shelf time and extending the time from farm pickup to actually bottling it. I know it tastes good when it leaves here.

 

[Allan in NE]

Whadda talkin' about? 2% always tastes like bilgewater. :>)

Allan

 

[Don-Wi]

We always buy milk made by the local companies, but once we bought some that was made down in iowa or something, think it was Swiss Valley- milk tasted horrible, never gonna buy their milk again. We buy Kemps, Lamers, Morning Glory, or the store brand from the Piggly Wiggly. All taste good to me.

Donovan from Wisconsin

 

[george md]

2% is bad tasting , but 1% and skim are worse
I don't think 1% and skim even get the glass
dirty. They also taste like chauk water. I grew
up on raw milk and none of the store bought is
as good .I had a dairy herd untill 1974 and the
butterfat test was always 4.1 or 4.2 from a
herd that was all black and white with 3 off
color to make it look like a mixed herd.We
shipped to wash DC which then was about the
toughest inspection of any market.

george

 

[Anonymous-0]

Most of the farmers around here feed stillage that is full of copper. Ever wonder why they give it to the farmers? because they would have to pay to have it hauled to a facility for disposal. (the local sewage treatment plants will not take it because of the copper high content - way, way above EPA limits).

 

[Anonymous-0]

I worked on a guernsey dairy years (decades) ago and the farmer was a stickler about good tasting milk since he was selling a boutique milk product. He claimed pumping milk made it tase funny. He used a Zero pipeling system that only uses vacume to move milk. Something about the churning and spinning of the impellers in the pumps damages the milkfat and give the milk a slightly off taste. He was also fussy about cleaning the old milk from the system and then cleaning out all the cleaning chemicals from the system. I doubt todays mega sized dairies are as fussy.

 

[buickanddeere]

As for taste from % butterfat, a person can get used to just about anything after a few days.
Going from raw farm milk to 3.25% was a jolt in flavor and "richness". Then 2% tasted like water compared to 3.25%. Now I'm used to 1% and 3.25 tastes like a dose of cream.
In hot weather we like the lighter 1%, in winter 2%.
Worst milk problem here is a blond wife and three blond children. At any time of day or night,milk and food can be found on the counter or table instead of in the fridge. Wife gets mad at me, why ??? because I sniff everything when opening the container.
I recall one time as a kid the cows leap the fence, found and devoured fresh leeks from the swamp. Could have made garlic butter and garlic/herbed cheese without adding anything extra to the milk.
Stinky milk, try goats milk. P-UUUUUUU.

 

[Anonymous-0]

a good friend of mine milked brown swiss when he dairyed. he told me once you tell if milk came from holstein if you dropped quarter in a bucket of milk and could see the quarter if it was registered holstien you could read in god we trust.
the only differacne between holstein and aryshire is aryshire is meaner.

 

[Anonymous-0]

First off let me tell you what I know about milk. Makes your ceral better. The University of MO released a study a few weeks back that showed milk that is exposed to flouresent lights tends to get a bad taste. They said as little as a few min.s would start to change the taste. Now think how all stores display their milk in lighted cases. They recomended always to get your milk from the back of the case.

 

[perry in mi]

all miejer dairy products are awfull. i stick with kroger.

 

[Walt Davies]

I use Dairy ease or the samething at Wally world two a day and no more problems with milk or ice cream.
Walt

 

[Anonymous-0]

Much obliged to you all for your comments. Someone commented that they sniff everything before they eat it. I do the same and I still get a laugh from the wife and relatives - I feel your pain.

 

[RodinNS]

It's most likely dietary. Cows on grass, turnips, silage, hay and who knows what eles will give the milk a different flavor. It's more common than most people think, or admit. Perhaps a shift towards a lot more distillers byproducts in dairy rations is showing up on a wider basis....

Rod

 

[Anonymous-0]

Hi , how can anyone over the age of 30 drink " whole " milk and not get fat ( other than just having a sip a couple times a week ) ? I used to buy milk straight from some amish families right from the cow because I liked to make my own butter and because there's NOTHING quite as good as fresh cold milk - shaken , not stirred But aside from the laws changing to keep me from doing that now , I put on a lot of weight even though I worked just as hard as before I started to buy it from them . I just assumed it was all the butterfat in the milk . Now I drink the wallyworld 2% . Or whatever is cheapest at whatever store I happen to be in when I buy milk . I don't like the big brand name milk because they do taste " off " . Even kwiktrip milk tastes funny now for the last year or so . I drink about half a gallon a day now that I'm 50 . I cut down a lot in the last ten years or so . I used to drink over a gallon a day since I was a teen . My periodontist couldn't get over the amount of bone regeneration I had in my jaw after a root planing a few years ago and no cavities for the last 34 years . Milk does a body good HA-HA ! ...Randy

 

[Anonymous-0]

Dairy Ease didn't do anything for me, tried it when I was first diagnosed.

Since then though I've developed back to tolerating small amounts of dairy w/o getting my guts in a knot...maybe should try it again now that I'm not as sensitive.

Knowing full well what would happen, stopped a few weeks back and got a real ice cream cone (in a hot-of-the-grille waffle cone) from a local farm dairy stand. First time in 2 years I indulged in their ice cream...took 2 weeks before my gut was running right again

 

[barnrat]

As a dairy farmer I thought Id add my 2 cents. Most off flavor that occurs in milk from the store come from being over pasturized(burnt taste). Studies were done years ago that proved that milk stored in none opaque plastic bottles will react with light and break down the plastic, causing an off flavor. Buy your milk in wax cartons or glass bottles. Do some research, there are still a lot of local family owned creameries that keep higher standards of milk quality(helps flavor) of the raw milk they buy then some of the large milk wholesalers whos product ends up on the cheap side in wally world. Lastly, stop suffering drinking that 2%/skim milk crap. "Whole" Milk is only 3.5% Fat, that's 96.5% fat free. I don't think there is a case out there where milk consumption has been the sole contributer to someone being obese.

 

[Anonymous-0]

We milk 35 guernseys and ALWAYS ship quality milk.My guess would be refrigeration somewhere along the line wasnt cold enough.59000 somatic 1000 raw 1000 P.I.4.5 bf 3.5 protein. Always on our pasture.

 

[Anonymous-0]

BST is a naturally occurring hormone in milk in all dairy cows. Cows that are injected with BST do not produce milk with a higher level of BST. Advertising milk as 'BST free" is BS.

 

[buickanddeere]

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=119407&fr=

 

[shawnspeed3]

The off taste is probably coming from the "Ultra Pasturisation" they started doing a few years back, that extended shelf life to 3 wks. personnally I will not drink milk fro the store.people that are "Lactose intolerant" that can eat yogut are probably not lactose intolerent , but allergic to the pasturization process and homoginizing that modifies the fats in the milk that makes it hard to digest. The pasturization process also kills the bacteria in the milk that helps you digest it. Personally I only drink raw,strait from the cow moo-juice , that the cream rises to the top,and makes your bran flakes worth eating.If you would like to read up on milk , try Realmilk.com,or thedoctorwithin.com, they both have some eye opening information .