ultra pasteurized milk

I'm finding it harder to buy "regular" milk lately. Not impossible, but less convenient. Up until recently, I bought Farmland milk (which comes from New Jersey - one state away) and pledges not to use hormones in their cows. My supermarket discontinued selling Farmland milk. The brand they sell now instead is not rbST free. (I now buy milk at the drug store which still sells a brand that is rbST free.)

This happened months ago. I recently checked in the supermarket to see if this is still the case. It is. But not they have a fairly substantial organic milk section. I was thinking about whether to try one and noticed the expiration date was over a month away. That seemed odd so I read the label and saw it was "ultra pasteurized milk." From the little I've read on that, it sounds like they heat it more/faster and then "change" something to make it taste "normal" again.

I was somewhat taken aback by this because I thought organic food was "plainer" (and spoiled faster.) It seems like we are going to get to a trade off between rbST and ultra pasteurization.

I read that this type of milk is popular in Europe. Anybody have any experiences?

(I posted this originally at CodeRanch then realized I'm more likely to get opinions here)

If you're talking about Parmalat, I keep some on hand for emergencies because it's good for 6 months and it doesn't need to be refrigerated. A friend from Belgium bought regular milk & put it in the basement for a few weeks and got a nasty surprise. That's how common it is in Europe.

The best milk is from the health food store in glass bottles (assuming you can't get raw milk from a farmer).

I don't buy UHT milk like Parmalat or the ultra pasteurized milk sold in the refrigerated cases at the grocery store because I think it's become junk food. Anything that gets processed to the point of needing to be fortified with vitamins is just not real food! I'm lucky enough to be able to easily get raw milk straight from farmers, but I would look for hormone free, merely pasteurized milk if needed. The glass bottled milk Cj mentioned is a good bet if you have health food stores.

Cj: No, not talking about Parmalat. I only bought that once - after a power outage. It didn't taste like milk and I decided I'd rather have dry cereal for a while.

I saw milk like "Organic Valley" and what Ghislaine describes as what inspired the question. Milk is perishable. It doesn't feel right that it can sit on the shelf for a month.

The local Safeway where I get my half & half once in awhile has a brand that comes in pints, quarts, and half gallons.
The smaller packages are pasteurized, while the half gallons are ultra-pasteurized.

Perhaps they are worried that a half gallon will sit in the fridge longer, therefore, they give it the extra whammy.
Or, as I suspect, it may be 'iffy' milk that may have traveled further, or they don't trust the dairy as much, and take the extra precaution.

I won't buy it.


I usually get my half & half from a source that I trust more than the giant supermarkets...
...they know their product, and don't feel the need to destroy it for their safety's sake.

I am suspicious of anything that gets more than minimal processing.

UHT milk isn't common over here and I've never seen it organic-
mind you, Wellington has only one large organic milk brand.

Off topic, but a rumour I'd heard has been confirmed by my dairyman,
but without being able to find out anything official, it remains a rumour to me.
the milk 'co-operative' (really a monopoly) who sell nearly all NZ's milk
are apparently selling reconstituted milk powder as 'milk' without labelling after the drought last year stuffed up milk supplies.
I imagine UHT and milk powder could have similar nutritional issues.


If it is happening here, I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't happening most places.

UHT milk is common here in France but then so is raw milk you pays your money and takes your chance .
As a kid I used to drink puro as we called it locally in the North East . My mother used to keep a bottle for emerancies .
I prefer green top ( untreated ) or even goat milk these days.

David

I recently read an explanation of the differences between pasteurized/ultra-pasteurized.
It is mostly a temperature/time difference.

The article also mentioned that what is sold in the EU as 'pasteurized' milk would need to be sold in the U.S. as 'raw milk'.
It is pasteurized at a lower temperature, and thus does not meet USDA's standards of 'pasteurized'.

Hi John
So in effect it might be our UHT is your pasturised and your UHT is our ..... er ... prosessed cheese?
Dont forget where the word comes from I suspect Louis Pasture drank more milk 'cru' than not

David

John: Interesting that the words might not even mean the same thing.

David: Yogurt maybe?

So in effect it might be our UHT is your pasturised...

UHT is UHT everywhere I believe.
Awful stuff unless you live where refrigeration is not available, or you need to store a long supply.

So, I guess that if we were create a scale, it would go something like this:

* Raw
* EU Pasteurized
* US Pasteurized
* Ultra Pasteurized
* UHT

The further you get from raw, the longer that it will remain 'safe' at non-refrigerated temperatures, but also the further it gets from being a natural product.

From my research, it appears that homogenizing might be a bigger problem than Pasteurization.
The homogenizing breaks the fat tissues into such fine particles that they cannot rejoin. This has been shown to cause these particles to directly enter your blood stream. A suspicious candidate for many blood related illnesses - clots, strokes, clogged arteries, etc.

John Polk wrote:UHT is UHT everywhere I believe

Now I'm really confused! organic valley says they're the same thing.

The UHT milks I have seen from Europe, Africa, and South America can sit on the shelf, at room temperature for 6-12 months.
Perhaps it is special packaging that helps its shelf life.

A cheese making site that I used to follow stated that Ultra Pasteurized milk could be used for making cheese, but not UHT milk.

I gave up and started using powdered organic milk. We mostly use it for oatmeal where the taste is obscured. When I spend 2 gallons of gas to get 1 gallon of milk and that was the only real "need" in the pantry every 10 days, it just wasn't worth the drive. At our county grocery, Organic Valley milk works out to ~$10 gallon, which is more than we pay for raw. And I'd naturally spend even more money for stuff I don't need. And half the time the milk would go bad before I used it all. I keep some pints of half & half and half pints of cream to cook with-they are all ultra-pasteurized and have a month or more shelf life. Powdered milk means I don't have to make that odious drive until we are lacking some essential from the lumber yard or feed store and I can gang up my trips.

DH does bring raw milk from the big city yuppie health food store for cheese-making, but not often enough to count as regular supply. We certainly wouldn't use it up fast enough for daily consumption. The nutritional aspects of dry milk may be suspect, but it's the best we can do right now.

John Polk wrote:The UHT milks I have seen from Europe, Africa, and South America can sit on the shelf, at room temperature for 6-12 months.
Perhaps it is special packaging that helps its shelf life.

The OP was asking about Ultra Pasteurized - not UHT like Parmalat (which is available in USA). We established that early on in the thread.

Cj Verde wrote:The OP was asking about Ultra Pasteurized - not UHT like Parmalat (which is available in USA). We established that early on in the thread.

CJ, you must have missed this part of the conversation:

Leila Rich wrote:

John Polk wrote:UHT is UHT everywhere I believe

Now I'm really confused! organic valley says they're the same thing.

It appears that rightly or wrongly, some American producers use 'UHT' and 'ultrapasteurized' interchangeably.

Cj Verde wrote:The OP was asking about Ultra Pasteurized - not UHT like Parmalat (which is available in USA). We established that early on in the thread.

That's ok. The change in direction of the topic is interesting too.