Рецепт What is the best milk?
Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. ~Roy Goodman
Ever since I ended up in the milk business, I've been fielding all kinds of milk questions from friends - especially those with kids. So I'm writing them this letter:
Dear Friends,
Thanks for all your questions about milk! I know you want to feed you and your loved ones the best quality food, especially the little ones. So here's what I've learned over the past few months.
What is the best milk I can buy? A few factors go into the "best" milk. Milk is generally valued for nutrition since it provides nine essential nutrients: calcium, potassium, protein, phosphorus, Vitamins A, D, and B12, riboflavin and niacin. As a whole food, raw milk is full of "milky goodness." But most people don't drink raw milk, so if you're looking for th emost nutritions, here are the things to think about:
Pasteurization level. Milk needs to be well-handled so bad pathogens can grow in it. Pasteurization kills bad pathogens, but it also kills good nutrients (the milky goodness you're looking for). The lowest possible pasteurization level (vat) manages to kill the bad pathogens and the least amount of good nutrients. The higher the pasteurization temperature, the more good nutrients it kills until you are left with sterilized white water (blech, why bother?). It's better for retailers but not for you. Ultrapasteurization means milk lasts 2-3 months unopened. You can tell how much it's pasteurized by reading the label - it will say "Pasteurized" or "Unpasteurized."
Organic or not. There isn't any conclusive evidence that organic is healthier, yet one of the recommendations from the President's Cancer Panel in 2010 is to eat organic and avoid chemicals in food. Especially for children whose systems are not fully grown yet. Organic milk is chemical-free. No antibiotics or hormones. The feed that organic cows eat is also pesticide and chemical free, and they are required to have access to pasture. You can wait for studies to come out proving one is healthier than the other, or you can just follow common sense and avoid chemicals when you can. A recent British study suggests that organic milk contains less saturated fat and more good fatty acids.
Hormones. Hormones increase milk production in cows. Lots of milk is labeled as BGH or rBST free even when it isn't organic. Again, nothing has been proven about hormone use, but many people want to avoid them. Some people theorize that the hormones in milk and meat may lead to earlier onset puberty, but nothing has been proven.
Fat level. Doctors recommend that children under the age of 2 get enough fat to help brain development, which is why kids drink whole milk. Some people believe that the fats in whole milk are good for you as it is a whole food, but if you want lower fat levels, it's up to you.
Vitamin D. Vitamin D is a hot topic these days, and it needs to be added to all processed milk. One cup supplies 25% of an adult's RDA.
Which milk tastes the best? We think the cow's diet and the pasteurization level has the biggest impact to flavor. Cows are meant to eat grass, so we like dairies that graze their animals. The lowest level pasteurization produces the freshest milk since the milk hasn't been scalded. Fat levels also affect milk - whole milk is richer than skim.
Which milk is best for the environment? Organic milk is best for the environment - herd sizes tend to be smaller, and no fertilizer or chemicals or used on pasture or in feed. That means when the cow poops, no Round-Up, antibiotics, or other stuff is dumped back into the ground.
Which milk is best for cows? Most everyone agrees that the worst possible environment for animals is being crowded into a feedlot with no access to pasture and no room to move. Conventional, industrially farmed milk is the worst. Organic cows are supposed to have access to pasture, and the new National Organic Program rules will enforce that in June 2011. But for now, brands like Horizon and store private labels buy from organic feedlots. They will still buy from large 1000+ "farms" in the future, which isn't exactly the idyllic family farm we think of. There are smaller conventional farms that farm sustainably and with good animal practices. Some people think it's cruel that organic cows can't be treated with antibiotics when they are sick and truly need them. E-mail or ask the people that make your food!
Why is organic milk so expensive? It's more expensive to farm organically. Organic feed is more expensive than conventional feed. You are also required to have more land per cow, so the land base has to be bigger. Metrics like somatic cell count (white blood cells or pus) have to be lower, so cow management needs to be better. Organic farms are also often smaller, so labor is not as efficient. You're paying for higher quality in terms of nutritional, environmental and animal benefits.
What's the deal with packaging? I think about milk quality and environmental impact in terms of packaging. Most options are glass, plastic and cartons.
Milk Quality. Vitamins in milk degrade when light hits it (particularly Vitamin D), which is why a lot of plastic milk jugs and cartons are opaque. Plastic leach (as we are very cognizant of at MindfulEats). While there is a risk, HDPE (most milk jugs) are hard plastic which have not been shown to leach, and fresh pasteurized milk is coded for 18 days before it goes bad so you won't have it in the container that long.
Environmental Impact. The cost of energy used to create and recycle the packaging is what has the greatest impact. While glass is beautiful and reusable, there is a significant cost to collecting and cleaning the bottles. Cartons are recyclable, but the aftermarket for the cartons is very low quality and it takes more energy to make them to begin with. HDPE plastic (#2) is commonly recycled and takes less energy to create. Ideally, everyone would walk their own vat to the local dairy, but given the alternatives, they all have drawbacks. I might give the nod to opaque plastic.
What's homogenization do? When you look at a glass of milk, cream automatically floats to the surface. Homogenization blends the cream in so there isn't a "creamline." It does the same thing that shaking milk really hard does. There are no nutritional differences from homogenization - it is pure taste preference.
What kind of milk do you recommend? I recommend an organic, vat-pasteurized milk sourced from small family farms. If that is too expensive for your budget, I woud recommend a local, sustainably farmed, vat-pasteurized conventional milk. [Disclosure here - I am a part owner of NYFOODS, which produces an organic, vat-pasteurized milk sourced from small family farms. The reason that I'm even associated with NYFOODS is because that's the kind of food I want to make - high quality, clean food for you.]
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What I ate: vegetable juice, apple, tangerine, sliced dried mangos, dried kale, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's sauce + ground flaxseeds, Pepperidge Farm cheddar goldfish crackers, rice noodles + swiss chard + shiitake mushrooms + tofu, 40 oz. water
Exercise: Ran 4 miles, 15 min upper body weights