skinny on skim milk
yesterday morning on my walk to work, i did something i never do – i stopped and picked up a muffin (multi-berry, toasted with lots of butter).
since my office is one of those nice places that provides a variety of beverages free for its employees – coffee, teas, sodas, water, and milks -- i thought it better to wait until i got to work to eat my butter drenched muffin where i would be able to wash it down with a nice glass of milk.
but of all the beverage choices there is no soy option -- which is kind of understandable. soy is still a bit of a luxury item and many folks at my job do not like it. (a few months back we happened upon a large supply of silk soy milk and it just sat in the fridge for quite some time. i think i drank most of it.) without soy milk, i figured skim was the next best thing for me to drink since there was enough fat in my muffin to satisfy my recommended daily allowance.
a few blocks away from my building it dawned on me that i didn’t really know what skim milk was. it looks like white water. it tastes kind of funny. and how do they make it skim? i mean, i grew up around dairy farms, hell i’ve been in a milk holding vat (one which i was closed and locked into as a prank – traumatic!), and just could not imagine how they get that deliciously thick and creamy white liquid to be that supposedly fat free whishy white fluid.
according to about.com the usda changed the milk labeling laws about three years ago. anyone notice? because i didn’t. and apparently they did away with “skim milk” and replaced it with more descriptive “fat free milk” – which it turns out may not even be fat free.
these milk experts also say that skim milk is cheaper to buy than whole milk. but a quick visit to freshdirect.com revealed that not only are skim and whole milk the same price, but that milk producers are using “skim” and “fat free” labels. who knew the dairy farmers of america were such rabble-rousers.
since my office is one of those nice places that provides a variety of beverages free for its employees – coffee, teas, sodas, water, and milks -- i thought it better to wait until i got to work to eat my butter drenched muffin where i would be able to wash it down with a nice glass of milk.
but of all the beverage choices there is no soy option -- which is kind of understandable. soy is still a bit of a luxury item and many folks at my job do not like it. (a few months back we happened upon a large supply of silk soy milk and it just sat in the fridge for quite some time. i think i drank most of it.) without soy milk, i figured skim was the next best thing for me to drink since there was enough fat in my muffin to satisfy my recommended daily allowance.
a few blocks away from my building it dawned on me that i didn’t really know what skim milk was. it looks like white water. it tastes kind of funny. and how do they make it skim? i mean, i grew up around dairy farms, hell i’ve been in a milk holding vat (one which i was closed and locked into as a prank – traumatic!), and just could not imagine how they get that deliciously thick and creamy white liquid to be that supposedly fat free whishy white fluid.
according to about.com the usda changed the milk labeling laws about three years ago. anyone notice? because i didn’t. and apparently they did away with “skim milk” and replaced it with more descriptive “fat free milk” – which it turns out may not even be fat free.
these milk experts also say that skim milk is cheaper to buy than whole milk. but a quick visit to freshdirect.com revealed that not only are skim and whole milk the same price, but that milk producers are using “skim” and “fat free” labels. who knew the dairy farmers of america were such rabble-rousers.
posted by clovis at 8:58 AM
3 Comments:
silk is yucky
i call it silt
however
i love zen soy chocolate
yup
Skim milk is called skim milk because non-homogenized milk - that's milk that's coming right out of the cow's teat - naturally separates into milk (on the bottom) and cream (on the top).
It's called "skim" because they skim off the top layer of cream, leaving only the fat-free (or mostly fat-free, apparently) skimmed milk - or "skim" for short - underneath it. [Then they sell the cream separately, which is why (in theory) skim milk should be cheaper.]
Milk you buy in a store has been "homogenized," which does not, as you might expect, have anything to do with Star Jones' husband, but instead means that the milk has been shaken mechanically until the cream is so thoroughly mixed in that it no longer separates into two parts, which is why you can't take whole milk you've bought in the store and let it sit for awhile and get cream. Also it means that people nowadays no longer realize that milk would naturally separate, and then they start musing on their blogs about why skim milk is called skim milk, and then we've come full circle, haven't we?
That is all.
Davis McDavis
www.davismcdavis.com
milk makes my tummy hurt! :-(
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