7 ms·

I can't stand "normal" milk from the US... the stuff you buy in the plastic cartons. It taste horrid. Milk from Germany? I love it. Milk from Darigold in th

I can't stand "normal" milk from the US... the stuff you buy in the plastic cartons. It taste horrid. Milk from Germany? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the paper cartons? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the plastic? Tastes like garbage. Organic milk in a paper carton? Some is good, some taste like garbage. I didn't realize how different milk tastes until I spent some time in Germany. Prior to that I just thought I didn't like milk. Once I realized I like German milk, upon returning to the US I started trying different brands to see if I could find one that I liked. I finally found Darigold's paper carton milk. For what it's worth, I have no affiliation with Darigold aside from being a customer. I'm sure there are other good brands too.

MrDresden 5y ago
The taste is also highly effected by what the animal is fed. Cows fed on fresh gras will produce the most wonderful flavors in the resulting butters and milk vs those fed with dried gras or feed.
chucknthem 5y ago
My family has been getting milk from a brand called Straus family creamery which is available in glass bottles in northern California. Best tasting I've found around here.
- fosk 5y ago
  $7, but yeah it’s good.
- dieselgate 5y ago
  Grew up on the same street as a Straus dairy. Kinda interesting how the dairies for different milk labels in that area (Straus, Clover, Lucerne) all basically have the same land and cows - but the milk will taste quite different across the labels. I’ve always preferred plastic jug to paper carton myself. Wish Straus came in bigger bottles..
jasonkester 5y ago
Even milk from the same dairy tastes radically different in plastic than paper. I always hated plastic milk as a kid. Nobody else seemed to notice the difference though. I sometimes wonder if there’s only a small subset of the population that can notice it.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  Some pthalates seem to be detectable to some subset of the population. Same chemicals that are estrogen-alike.
  - stephen_g 5y ago
    Why would milk containers have phthalates in them? All ours here in Australia are made with HDPE which doesn't need plasticisers. Although I have read that apparently a fair proportion of milk in the US is made with equipment that uses PVC piping that leeches phthalates before it's even packaged...
    - kurthr 5y ago
      It's similar in the US. I'd note that even the crystal clear (highly recyclable) plastic you see does not contain the phthalates you're looking for. There was a fad in the early 00s for using polycarbonate water bottles that probably contained BPA, but those were then (rightfully) banned. You can't even use BPA or ortho-phthalates in children's toys since they very likely put them in their tiny mouths. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367856/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367856/
      - R0b0t1 5y ago
        Plastics still need a plasticizer, so those BPA-free plastics simply use a chemical like BPA but not studied.
        kurthr 5y ago
        I don't know about PolyCarobonate, but for LDPE and HDPE (and PET) that sounds incorrect. Certainly, chemists are worried about much smaller amounts of contamination (ppb) than humans and they would definitely know (and measure) how much plasticizer was leaching from their bottles. It appears to be almost none: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/lab-plasticware-supplies/plastic-material-selection/low-density-polyethylene-ldpe-labware.html https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/lab-pla...
jotm 5y ago
Most German milk is either "long life" or UHT, both of which taste better to me than "normal" pasteurized milk, which is the most common in England, for example. The three different pasteurization techniques result in different tasting milk. I do notice a difference between foil lined carton, plastic jug and carton milk, the latter usually tastes the worst probably because the carton is more permeable? But I do love fresh raw milk whenever I can get it.
- sandos 5y ago
  Yeah the UHT milk tastes sweeter apparently. I dont drink milk any more due to lactose intolerance, but only one time I noticed a real difference in milk taste, and that was when the milk very super-clearly to me tasted of almonds.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    > I dont drink milk any more due to lactose intolerance Do they sell lactose-free milk where you are? it's quite standard in France, you can get full/semi/skim in lactose-free variants
  - namibj 5y ago
    Here it has a variant (of shelf-stable milk) that was treated with lactase, both 3.5% and 1.5% fat.
  - rando14775 5y ago
    UHT to my taste also adds slightly bitter flavor. I grew up drinking fresh milk but my parents at some point switched to UHT and so did most people I know. I'm not sure if the middle ground longer-shelf-life type is actually more popular than UHT in Germany as someone here claims. UHT tasted bad to me (slightly off) back then, but now being used to it I have the opposite reaction and think something's wrong when I drink fresh milk. The difference in taste seems negligible when used as a cooking ingredient. UHT (and longer-shelf life) milk became pretty popular in Germany during the late 90s I think. I'd speculate it's because it's much more convenient due to smaller fridges, as well as discounters (which are very popular) selling it for very cheap. I will also agree with the other commenter that the type of heat treatment is the most obvious factor in how milk tastes, and that I've heard people from abroad comment on this. Though I've never had US milk so IDK.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jml7c5 5y ago
Just a note: the taste difference you're picking up on is not due to the simple presence or absence of plastic. Paper cartons are lined with LDPE film and milk jugs are usually composed of HDPE. Both options are, in effect, polyethylene plastic containers.
- stephen_g 5y ago
  Yeah, I was going to comment the same thing. There should be little difference between the taste from LDPE lining in paper cartons vs. HDPE plastic containers.
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    Plastic jugs let in lots of light, while paper cartons are opaque, which could have an effect. FWIW, I do have a preference, I think milk is best drunk straight from a paper carton (in single servings, milk from the plastic "milk chugs" has always tasted worse to me).
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      True, but stores generally don't get any natural light in their fridge sections. Over here (NL), most milk is only on shelves for a day, they cart in new batches daily. We err, go through a lot of milk.
      - da768 5y ago
        Some store fluorescent bulbs produce enough UV, 24/7, to make printed boxes fade away, and turn plastics brittle and yellow. It's not as strong as full sunlight, but it's still there nonetheless.
      - jrootabega 5y ago
        Even visible wavelengths, especially from fluorescent/LED lighting, can skunk beer. So it's not impossible that this could happen to milk, for whatever that's worth.
      - 5y ago
CamperBob2 5y ago
The secret to the Darigold plastic/paper dichotomy may be in the expiration dates. At least for the 1% product, the half-gallon cardboard cartons tend to expire at least one month, sometimes two, later than the plastic jugs sitting next to them. Not hard to imagine how milk that's been sitting around in a plastic jug for an extra month or two will taste worse.
- seb314 5y ago
  Milk with a multi-month shelf live can't be fresh, I believe. The fresh (mildly processed) milk I know turns bad within about a week, the "extended shelf life" stuff that was introduced a couple of years ago (in Germany) lasts for a few weeks. There is also "H Milch" which tastes very differend and can be stored at room temperature for several months.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Well, it can be fresh if you buy it soon after production, obviously. I assume the cow-to-cereal bowl pipeline is just a lot shorter for the cardboard cartons for whatever reason. Makes no sense, but the date discrepancy has existed for years.
postexitus 5y ago
Impact of modern packaging on the taste itself has been proven to be neglible in double blind studies. However, the taste of milk varies wildly based on the animal (food, location, roaming, season etc.) and also of course the process applied to sterilize the milk (pasteurization/UHT, skimming, filtering). Same milk from from same cow will taste very different when raw vs UHT. I am very much a UHT person, but for some weird reason my country (UK) considers UHT second grade so it's not always easy to find them - or they are shunned to "baking" aisles.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  > modern packaging But the packaging itself matters, eg soda in a Al can and a glass bottle is perceived quite differently. If the milk came in a plastic bottle I have no problem drinking directly from the bottle, if it came in TetraPak... If I bothered to cut it with scissors I would probably be fine drinking milk directly, but if I just ripped the corner by the perforation then I would definitely drink from the mug, because I hate the feeling of the paper fibers on my lips. Also there is a thing with Americans, they just buy milk. I can't buy "just" milk. I can buy 1%, 1.5%, 3.5% and (my preferred) ~3.5-4% fat milk. I don't like 1%, it is just a water with a bit of milk taste for me. Even reading Wikipedia article on skimmed milk makes me wonder how it even can be called a milk. I read many stories of Americans who didn't like milk since their childhood, only to discover in their adult life what what they drunk back then wasn't even a milk per se and sometimes their parents not only gave them skimmed milk but further diluted it with water. Urgh!
  - martyvis 5y ago
    Just an FYI, but aluminium cans are lined with a plastic lacquer - so what you are tasting isn't from metal.
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      I know, hence "perceived". Still, my lips are on the can and if I fill the glass from the said can it tastes more "glassy" than "metallic". As a sibling comment says - it's all in our heads *shrug_emoji*
VoodooJuJu 5y ago
There are a lot of factors that go into milk and its taste. There's: pasteurized (most American milk), homogenized, ultra-pasteurized or UHT (which most German milk probably is), raw milk, how quickly it was cooled-down, cream content, and then there's the variance between dairies based on things such as breed, feed, time of year, quality of life, etc. We can't accurately make blanket statements about one country's milk one way or the other. There are two dairies near me that I purchase from, but the characteristics of each's milk varies quite noticeably. Dairy A tastes just okay and goes bad after about 5 days. Dairy B tastes excellent and keeps well for at least 8 days. They're both pasteurized, unhomogenized, and packaged in glass jugs. Dairy A milks holsteins (less cream). Dairy B milks jerseys (more cream). Dairy A's is whiter in appearance (less silage/forage, more grain). Dairy B's is yellower (more silage/forage, less grain). No two dairies are alike. And better than both of them, there's a raw milk dairy that I sometimes buy from whose milk tastes best to me. Plus, it doesn't spoil like pasteurized milk. Rather, it goes sour, and when it sours, I can still use it for cooking and baking.
- tpush 5y ago
  > [...] ultra-pasteurized or UHT (which most German milk probably is) [...] In Germany there's a difference between fresh milk (pasteurized & homogenized) which is sold refrigerated and "H-Milch" which is UHT and sold unrefrigerated. Most people buying milk to drink get the fresh stuff. It also tastes much much better IMO than the UHT milk.
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    I like both cold, I probably slightly prefer fresh milk as a drink on it's own but I much prefer UHT in coffee (it's creamier without been cream). No absolutes in matters of taste though.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I believe some locales allow for water to be added to the milk, typically a very small percentage upto the volume of the lost cream. Not sure if that's true or not. Believe it or not, the best major milk I've had is Walmart's great value brand organic. It's not as good as many of the independent dairies, but definitely the best major I've had. It comes in plastic and I believe it's UHT. I don't like to buy stuff in the paper cartons because it's usually not actual wax but PTFE/PFOA based coatings.
exfascist 5y ago
I live and the US and have noticed the milk from the "nicer" grocers like Whole Foods and Farm Fresh tastes absolutely awful but the stuff from Food Lion etc in the HDPE jugs with the minimal labeling tastes way better. I don't know why that is.
- astura 5y ago
  This is because for some reason the organic milks are almost always UHT (ultra-high-temperature processing) where the milk is heated to a higher temperature for a shorter time. Some people notice a significant taste difference between UHT milk and non-UHT milk.
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    > Some people notice a significant taste difference between UHT milk and non-UHT milk. You mean some people don't? They taste radically different (I like both btw).
    - astura 5y ago
      Well, I might be broken but I can't tell the difference.
rootusrootus 5y ago
That sounds like confirmation bias. I've bought a lot of milk in a variety of containers from plastic to paper to glass, from a variety of sources. There is a wide variety of flavors, it has much more to do with what dairy it came from than the container it is packed in.
dematz 5y ago
I've haven't had much milk or tried different brands...between your recommendation and the apparent milk cult: "Who are the peoples who have achieved, who have become large, strong, vigorous people, who have reduced their infant mortality, who have the best trades in the world, who have an appreciation for art and literature and music, who are progressive in science and every activity of the human intellect? They are the people who have patronized the dairy industry." good milk definitely sounds worth trying
sleightofmind 5y ago
I grew up drinking mostly milk from our cow, which was usually a Guernsey or a Jersey -- fed on a combination of pasture and commercial grains. Pasteurized in the early years, but raw later on. Never really liked drinking milk. But man, my cousins loved visiting because they could have all the cold milk they wanted. Milk doesn't disgust me the way tomatoes do, or act as a near emetic the way olives do, but I just don't particularly like drinking milk of any variety, well, except for chocolate milk. But I love most of the products derived from it -- cheese, ice cream, butter, etc. With a family cow you really get used to how the cow's diet affects milk flavor -- the lush green grass in the spring was quite noticeable. And of course, I like milk with cold cereal but not with hot cereals. And our beef came from a calf raised to a yearling each year. Eggs came from the chickens, although they were the first to disappear in response to the convenience of the supermarket. I was born in the early 50s and my folks were Californians from small-town Minnesota, so I'm used to the idea of very sweet dishes being considered okay at all meals. An example, my mom picked up from her Dutch-immigrant mother, a breakfast dish made from thoroughly dried out bread scraps, simmered in milk with cinnamon and liberal amounts of sugar. They called it (I don't know the Dutch spelling) stoot-uh-bray (phonetic) which I suspect meant something like stewed bread. Loved it and the many other fattening 30s concepts of what constituted a proper meal. A slightly less chocolatey version of homemade pudding over graham crackers was considered a perfectly acceptable lunch, Grandma called it cocoa-dope. And though no one pushed my mom to cook all our meals, it was clear she felt it a failure if any of us in our family of six found it necessary to prepare their own meal. Dad was a railroad conductor on 24-hr call. When he got called, she got up and prepared him a meal and/or lunch, regardless of time of day or night. He simply could not break her of this habit. But yeah, my folks and their folks definitely grew up on a diet resembling at least some of what the article referenced, and held similarly strong attitudes about the kitchen being the center of home culture. Sit down meals for the whole family were mandatory until such time as we left home. No TV or radio during meals, just conversation. Not such a bad deal, really -- three mandatory whole-family conversations a day -- two if school was in session. Occasionally I used to quickly walk the 600-yards home (from elementary school) for lunch. Some days I'd trade my homemade-bread sandwich for one of my schoolmates Wonder Bread sandwiches at the outdoor lunch tables of elementary school, both parties usually felt they got the better of the deal. Different times, different attitudes.

MrDresden 5y ago

The taste is also highly effected by what the animal is fed. Cows fed on fresh gras will produce the most wonderful flavors in the resulting butters and milk vs those fed with dried gras or feed.

chucknthem 5y ago

My family has been getting milk from a brand called Straus family creamery which is available in glass bottles in northern California. Best tasting I've found around here.

fosk 5y ago
$7, but yeah it’s good.
dieselgate 5y ago
Grew up on the same street as a Straus dairy. Kinda interesting how the dairies for different milk labels in that area (Straus, Clover, Lucerne) all basically have the same land and cows - but the milk will taste quite different across the labels. I’ve always preferred plastic jug to paper carton myself. Wish Straus came in bigger bottles..

jasonkester 5y ago

Even milk from the same dairy tastes radically different in plastic than paper. I always hated plastic milk as a kid. Nobody else seemed to notice the difference though. I sometimes wonder if there’s only a small subset of the population that can notice it.

R0b0t1 5y ago
Some pthalates seem to be detectable to some subset of the population. Same chemicals that are estrogen-alike.
- stephen_g 5y ago
  Why would milk containers have phthalates in them? All ours here in Australia are made with HDPE which doesn't need plasticisers. Although I have read that apparently a fair proportion of milk in the US is made with equipment that uses PVC piping that leeches phthalates before it's even packaged...
  - kurthr 5y ago
    It's similar in the US. I'd note that even the crystal clear (highly recyclable) plastic you see does not contain the phthalates you're looking for. There was a fad in the early 00s for using polycarbonate water bottles that probably contained BPA, but those were then (rightfully) banned. You can't even use BPA or ortho-phthalates in children's toys since they very likely put them in their tiny mouths. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367856/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367856/
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      Plastics still need a plasticizer, so those BPA-free plastics simply use a chemical like BPA but not studied.
      - kurthr 5y ago
        I don't know about PolyCarobonate, but for LDPE and HDPE (and PET) that sounds incorrect. Certainly, chemists are worried about much smaller amounts of contamination (ppb) than humans and they would definitely know (and measure) how much plasticizer was leaching from their bottles. It appears to be almost none: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/lab-plasticware-supplies/plastic-material-selection/low-density-polyethylene-ldpe-labware.html https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/lab-pla...

jotm 5y ago

Most German milk is either "long life" or UHT, both of which taste better to me than "normal" pasteurized milk, which is the most common in England, for example. The three different pasteurization techniques result in different tasting milk. I do notice a difference between foil lined carton, plastic jug and carton milk, the latter usually tastes the worst probably because the carton is more permeable? But I do love fresh raw milk whenever I can get it.

sandos 5y ago
Yeah the UHT milk tastes sweeter apparently. I dont drink milk any more due to lactose intolerance, but only one time I noticed a real difference in milk taste, and that was when the milk very super-clearly to me tasted of almonds.
- namdnay 5y ago
  > I dont drink milk any more due to lactose intolerance Do they sell lactose-free milk where you are? it's quite standard in France, you can get full/semi/skim in lactose-free variants
- namibj 5y ago
  Here it has a variant (of shelf-stable milk) that was treated with lactase, both 3.5% and 1.5% fat.
- rando14775 5y ago
  UHT to my taste also adds slightly bitter flavor. I grew up drinking fresh milk but my parents at some point switched to UHT and so did most people I know. I'm not sure if the middle ground longer-shelf-life type is actually more popular than UHT in Germany as someone here claims. UHT tasted bad to me (slightly off) back then, but now being used to it I have the opposite reaction and think something's wrong when I drink fresh milk. The difference in taste seems negligible when used as a cooking ingredient. UHT (and longer-shelf life) milk became pretty popular in Germany during the late 90s I think. I'd speculate it's because it's much more convenient due to smaller fridges, as well as discounters (which are very popular) selling it for very cheap. I will also agree with the other commenter that the type of heat treatment is the most obvious factor in how milk tastes, and that I've heard people from abroad comment on this. Though I've never had US milk so IDK.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jml7c5 5y ago

Just a note: the taste difference you're picking up on is not due to the simple presence or absence of plastic. Paper cartons are lined with LDPE film and milk jugs are usually composed of HDPE. Both options are, in effect, polyethylene plastic containers.

stephen_g 5y ago
Yeah, I was going to comment the same thing. There should be little difference between the taste from LDPE lining in paper cartons vs. HDPE plastic containers.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  Plastic jugs let in lots of light, while paper cartons are opaque, which could have an effect. FWIW, I do have a preference, I think milk is best drunk straight from a paper carton (in single servings, milk from the plastic "milk chugs" has always tasted worse to me).
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    True, but stores generally don't get any natural light in their fridge sections. Over here (NL), most milk is only on shelves for a day, they cart in new batches daily. We err, go through a lot of milk.
    - da768 5y ago
      Some store fluorescent bulbs produce enough UV, 24/7, to make printed boxes fade away, and turn plastics brittle and yellow. It's not as strong as full sunlight, but it's still there nonetheless.
    - jrootabega 5y ago
      Even visible wavelengths, especially from fluorescent/LED lighting, can skunk beer. So it's not impossible that this could happen to milk, for whatever that's worth.
    - 5y ago

CamperBob2 5y ago

The secret to the Darigold plastic/paper dichotomy may be in the expiration dates. At least for the 1% product, the half-gallon cardboard cartons tend to expire at least one month, sometimes two, later than the plastic jugs sitting next to them. Not hard to imagine how milk that's been sitting around in a plastic jug for an extra month or two will taste worse.

seb314 5y ago
Milk with a multi-month shelf live can't be fresh, I believe. The fresh (mildly processed) milk I know turns bad within about a week, the "extended shelf life" stuff that was introduced a couple of years ago (in Germany) lasts for a few weeks. There is also "H Milch" which tastes very differend and can be stored at room temperature for several months.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Well, it can be fresh if you buy it soon after production, obviously. I assume the cow-to-cereal bowl pipeline is just a lot shorter for the cardboard cartons for whatever reason. Makes no sense, but the date discrepancy has existed for years.

postexitus 5y ago

Impact of modern packaging on the taste itself has been proven to be neglible in double blind studies. However, the taste of milk varies wildly based on the animal (food, location, roaming, season etc.) and also of course the process applied to sterilize the milk (pasteurization/UHT, skimming, filtering). Same milk from from same cow will taste very different when raw vs UHT. I am very much a UHT person, but for some weird reason my country (UK) considers UHT second grade so it's not always easy to find them - or they are shunned to "baking" aisles.

justsomehnguy 5y ago
> modern packaging But the packaging itself matters, eg soda in a Al can and a glass bottle is perceived quite differently. If the milk came in a plastic bottle I have no problem drinking directly from the bottle, if it came in TetraPak... If I bothered to cut it with scissors I would probably be fine drinking milk directly, but if I just ripped the corner by the perforation then I would definitely drink from the mug, because I hate the feeling of the paper fibers on my lips. Also there is a thing with Americans, they just buy milk. I can't buy "just" milk. I can buy 1%, 1.5%, 3.5% and (my preferred) ~3.5-4% fat milk. I don't like 1%, it is just a water with a bit of milk taste for me. Even reading Wikipedia article on skimmed milk makes me wonder how it even can be called a milk. I read many stories of Americans who didn't like milk since their childhood, only to discover in their adult life what what they drunk back then wasn't even a milk per se and sometimes their parents not only gave them skimmed milk but further diluted it with water. Urgh!
- martyvis 5y ago
  Just an FYI, but aluminium cans are lined with a plastic lacquer - so what you are tasting isn't from metal.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    I know, hence "perceived". Still, my lips are on the can and if I fill the glass from the said can it tastes more "glassy" than "metallic". As a sibling comment says - it's all in our heads *shrug_emoji*

VoodooJuJu 5y ago

There are a lot of factors that go into milk and its taste. There's: pasteurized (most American milk), homogenized, ultra-pasteurized or UHT (which most German milk probably is), raw milk, how quickly it was cooled-down, cream content, and then there's the variance between dairies based on things such as breed, feed, time of year, quality of life, etc. We can't accurately make blanket statements about one country's milk one way or the other. There are two dairies near me that I purchase from, but the characteristics of each's milk varies quite noticeably. Dairy A tastes just okay and goes bad after about 5 days. Dairy B tastes excellent and keeps well for at least 8 days. They're both pasteurized, unhomogenized, and packaged in glass jugs. Dairy A milks holsteins (less cream). Dairy B milks jerseys (more cream). Dairy A's is whiter in appearance (less silage/forage, more grain). Dairy B's is yellower (more silage/forage, less grain). No two dairies are alike. And better than both of them, there's a raw milk dairy that I sometimes buy from whose milk tastes best to me. Plus, it doesn't spoil like pasteurized milk. Rather, it goes sour, and when it sours, I can still use it for cooking and baking.

tpush 5y ago
> [...] ultra-pasteurized or UHT (which most German milk probably is) [...] In Germany there's a difference between fresh milk (pasteurized & homogenized) which is sold refrigerated and "H-Milch" which is UHT and sold unrefrigerated. Most people buying milk to drink get the fresh stuff. It also tastes much much better IMO than the UHT milk.
- noir_lord 5y ago
  I like both cold, I probably slightly prefer fresh milk as a drink on it's own but I much prefer UHT in coffee (it's creamier without been cream). No absolutes in matters of taste though.
giantg2 5y ago
I believe some locales allow for water to be added to the milk, typically a very small percentage upto the volume of the lost cream. Not sure if that's true or not. Believe it or not, the best major milk I've had is Walmart's great value brand organic. It's not as good as many of the independent dairies, but definitely the best major I've had. It comes in plastic and I believe it's UHT. I don't like to buy stuff in the paper cartons because it's usually not actual wax but PTFE/PFOA based coatings.

exfascist 5y ago

I live and the US and have noticed the milk from the "nicer" grocers like Whole Foods and Farm Fresh tastes absolutely awful but the stuff from Food Lion etc in the HDPE jugs with the minimal labeling tastes way better. I don't know why that is.

astura 5y ago
This is because for some reason the organic milks are almost always UHT (ultra-high-temperature processing) where the milk is heated to a higher temperature for a shorter time. Some people notice a significant taste difference between UHT milk and non-UHT milk.
- noir_lord 5y ago
  > Some people notice a significant taste difference between UHT milk and non-UHT milk. You mean some people don't? They taste radically different (I like both btw).
  - astura 5y ago
    Well, I might be broken but I can't tell the difference.

rootusrootus 5y ago

That sounds like confirmation bias. I've bought a lot of milk in a variety of containers from plastic to paper to glass, from a variety of sources. There is a wide variety of flavors, it has much more to do with what dairy it came from than the container it is packed in.

dematz 5y ago

I've haven't had much milk or tried different brands...between your recommendation and the apparent milk cult: "Who are the peoples who have achieved, who have become large, strong, vigorous people, who have reduced their infant mortality, who have the best trades in the world, who have an appreciation for art and literature and music, who are progressive in science and every activity of the human intellect? They are the people who have patronized the dairy industry." good milk definitely sounds worth trying

sleightofmind 5y ago

I grew up drinking mostly milk from our cow, which was usually a Guernsey or a Jersey -- fed on a combination of pasture and commercial grains. Pasteurized in the early years, but raw later on. Never really liked drinking milk. But man, my cousins loved visiting because they could have all the cold milk they wanted. Milk doesn't disgust me the way tomatoes do, or act as a near emetic the way olives do, but I just don't particularly like drinking milk of any variety, well, except for chocolate milk. But I love most of the products derived from it -- cheese, ice cream, butter, etc. With a family cow you really get used to how the cow's diet affects milk flavor -- the lush green grass in the spring was quite noticeable. And of course, I like milk with cold cereal but not with hot cereals. And our beef came from a calf raised to a yearling each year. Eggs came from the chickens, although they were the first to disappear in response to the convenience of the supermarket. I was born in the early 50s and my folks were Californians from small-town Minnesota, so I'm used to the idea of very sweet dishes being considered okay at all meals. An example, my mom picked up from her Dutch-immigrant mother, a breakfast dish made from thoroughly dried out bread scraps, simmered in milk with cinnamon and liberal amounts of sugar. They called it (I don't know the Dutch spelling) stoot-uh-bray (phonetic) which I suspect meant something like stewed bread. Loved it and the many other fattening 30s concepts of what constituted a proper meal. A slightly less chocolatey version of homemade pudding over graham crackers was considered a perfectly acceptable lunch, Grandma called it cocoa-dope. And though no one pushed my mom to cook all our meals, it was clear she felt it a failure if any of us in our family of six found it necessary to prepare their own meal. Dad was a railroad conductor on 24-hr call. When he got called, she got up and prepared him a meal and/or lunch, regardless of time of day or night. He simply could not break her of this habit. But yeah, my folks and their folks definitely grew up on a diet resembling at least some of what the article referenced, and held similarly strong attitudes about the kitchen being the center of home culture. Sit down meals for the whole family were mandatory until such time as we left home. No TV or radio during meals, just conversation. Not such a bad deal, really -- three mandatory whole-family conversations a day -- two if school was in session. Occasionally I used to quickly walk the 600-yards home (from elementary school) for lunch. Some days I'd trade my homemade-bread sandwich for one of my schoolmates Wonder Bread sandwiches at the outdoor lunch tables of elementary school, both parties usually felt they got the better of the deal. Different times, different attitudes.