@ChuckECheese: I bite my fingernails.

No, but seriously, lactose tolerance exists in a fraction of adult humans. They wouldn't be able to tolerate human milk either.

That said,

I stick to my Soymilk, it's healthier in the end anyways.

Ounce for ounce, soymilk just has more nutrients in it.

Also, know how doctors always say "breast is best" for our children? That's because milk is talilored to fit humans, with the proper antibiotics and hormones in it. Now, why would we want to drink milk that is tailored to fit cows, with cow hormones in it? I'm not saying it's going to cause cancer or anything that extreme, but if cow milk is made to get little calves big and hefty like mom and dad, wouldn't that be the opposite of what a human would want to drink who is trying to stay thin?

Gross.

I read this yesterday, and wouldn't you know, I opened a new carton of 1/2 and 1/2 this morning and it was bad. Exp date not until August 10!

Milk aside, are some of you just taking for granted that your refridgerator is operating at the ideal temperature? I made it a priority to install a fridge thermometer in the fridge and freezer parts when I bought our fridge when we moved into our house. Good thing, the first one didn't work properly, of course the ice was melty so that was a big give away besides the not close to 0 degree freezer. Seriously, the thermometers are only a few bucks at your local megamart go buy one and stop taking chances that things are "cold enough." Wouldn't it be better to know that it isn't your milk and not get sick from other foods and possibly get your fridge fixed under warrenty then get food poisoning?

I try to keep my milk in the back of the fridge, so that it isn't exposed to the air every time I open the fridge door.

@poornotignorant: Why is Americanized soymilk so expensive, you asked? I'll take a stab at that.

I live in a part of Houston that is close to a large Asian district on one side and to a middle-class uptown district on the other. So I shop in an Asian market for things I use in vegetarian cooking, and at HEB in the other (HEB, HQ'd in San Antonio, is the local best grocery with some of the lowest prices). I also shop at Whole Foods. The cost for a quart of soy milk at HEB or Whole Foods (depending on brand, usually Westsoy or Silk) is roughly the same as a half gallon of Asian soy milk at Golden Foods or Hong Kong Market.

My take on this is that Silk and Westsoy charge what the market will bear. They come in special cartons (TetraPak and refrigerator cartons) and are processed to stay fresh much longer (as vegetable-derived food often does anyway). It contains chemical ingredients (natural ones, like titanium dioxide) to adjust the color and flavor to more of a "milkshake" taste that Americans can tolerate better. We expect our milk to be virtually tasteless and slightly sweet, and that's what they give us. We're used to paying more for specialty dairy products, so they meet that expectation as well.

Asian soy milk, around here, is produced mostly by the local Banyan tofu factory. Tofu is make out of soy milk. Banyan's tofu is excellent and so is their soymilk, but you wont like the soymilk if you don't like tofu. It is natural, beans and water, but you can get it sweetened with sugar if you want. It's packaged in plastic milk cartons with a simple, two-color-process label. This makes it unattractive to Americans because it looks a bit junky and tastes "off."

Since we also have a huge Hispanic population, you will often see the rice milk preparation called horchata in the Fiesta grocery stores. It is usually pretty heavily sweetened and flavored, and way overpriced at that. Rice milk, as a nondairy milk, can be worth it if you don't like the taste of soy, and can be made easily at home with little more than a handful of cooked rice, water, a little salt and sugar, and a good blender.

Like I said above, I make my own (soy/rice/oat milk, rice milk, nut milk, and horchata). I can adjust the ingredients until I have combinations I like. Each batch comes out to a dime to a quarter per 1-1/2 quarts (the machine's capacity). And I know where it came from.

Has anyone seen mention of it on big media?

We're a mixed house. I'm a believer in getting my nutrition without the baggage of big-milk business while my gf swears by raw milk. I make scrunchy face every time the stuff touches one of my favorite glasses. Guess neither of us would cry if big dairy lost out, unless maybe it was to another flipping bottled water product.

UHT milk is available in many U.S. groceries, usually near the powdered milk. It costs considerably more than "fresh" milk, but it's a nice thing to keep in the pantry for those times you run out of milk and cannot go to the store.

American milk is pasteurized less than UHT milk, and must be kept cold. The same thing was done in Europe until about 35 years ago. Before the regular pasteurization of milk, milk was a common source of serious diseases, including tuberculosis. A safe milk supply was such a great concern, and the expenses of building and running pasteurization plants so great, that most U.S. states mandated the sale of pasteurized milk, and forbade the sale of raw, unpasteurized milk. This is why you cannot find raw milk in much of the U.S.

If you are interested in finding sources of raw, unpasteurized milk in your area, browse here: [www.realmilk.com]

Eggs (even in the U.S.) can be stored at room temperature, but won't keep for more than 7-10 days, and they will deteriorate in quality rapidly during that week.

Here are some sites on milk safety and pasteurization:
[www.idfa.org]
[www.fcs.msue.msu.edu]

UHT milk tastes vastly different from refrigerated milk. I've had both, and with some work, you can actually find UHT milk here. Personally, I drink so little I'd normally buy them if it weren't for my wife. :-)

IIRC, UHT milk tastes more "plasticy". I know that's not a good description, but it is definitely different. Non-UHT milk seems to be more watery, at least to me.

That and UHT milk is more expensive, at least here, due to the sizes sold. 1 L of UHT milk (the tetra brick size) is the price of a 1 L container of regular milk. However, most people in Canada buy their milk in giant bags in sets of three, generally each bag has a bit more than 1 L of milk in it. Litre by Litre, bagged milk is about 30 - 50% cheaper than 1 L catrons/bricks. Unless UHT milk begins to compete with that price, it will NEVER be popular here.

As a member of the lactose intolerant community (thank God for Lactaid) Americans/Canadians have so much damn milk in their diet, price is the major factor. There's just not that much milk in the European diet (comparatively) to justify NOT using UHT milk. In fact, there's so much milk, I have to request lactose free lunches when there's lunches served at meetings at work -- no way I'm talking a half dozen lactaids for lunch!

I'd say that whole tastes better longer, but that's probably just an effect of the higher fat milk tasting stronger in the first place.

I've noticed this, but it's no worse this summer than other summers.

When the nearest grocery is 25 miles away, it's difficult to keep the milk cool, especially when it goes in the trunk. As for ice cream - not a chance of getting that home cold.

So we usually get the milk at the nearest convenience store - that's only 6 miles away.

I suppose an insulated cooler with an ice bath could keep it cold and make it last longer, but it's not worth the effort/expense.

By the way, pasteurized milk does not sour. Instead, it spoils. True sour milk is like sour cream, useful to cook with. Spoiled milk is what happens when the milk gets rancid and bitter.

Hiland Milk was always fresh until the expiration date when we lived in Norman, OK. After moving to Tulsa (127 miles east), we have had to switch brands. In Tulsa, we never had a gallon of Hiland that was still drinkable within 5 days of the expiration date. We moved our refrigerator with us, so it isn't a problem with our refrigerator. We asked the neighbors if they'd had problems with Hiland, and they said the exact same thing. There was a Hiland plant in Norman, so the milk there probably didn't require any transportation, but I don't think there is one in Tulsa, so that might explain why Hiland milk goes bad so quickly in Tulsa.

Folks, did you know you can freeze milk indefinitely? When I was young and poor and on food assistance, I had to buy more milk than I could use (a two-year-old didn't drink much and I am mostly lactose intolerant). Freezing it kept it good far longer than if I just stuck it in the fridge and hoped for the best. I put it in ice cube trays and stored the cubes in plastic bags so I could just take out some cubes and thaw them quickly (in the fridge for drinking, thrown right into the pot for cooking).

Nowadays I have a good job in IT and I can afford to buy soymilk. "Scam," my foot. Just because "Soy Water" boy up there doesn't like soymilk doesn't make it a "scam." I don't like or drink beer because I think it tastes like a badly managed yeast infection mixed with spoiled bread, but I don't therefore call it a "scam." Someone is buying into that quack "Dr." Mercola's anti-soy vendetta, I fear (what is that man's problem, I often wonder).

I bought a machine like the ones they use in China and Japan, and I make my own. If made properly, soymilk tastes fine. The home recipe involves using enough beans, as fresh as you can buy them, the use of a judicious amount of oats and rice for the thicker mouthfeel Americans expect, a pinch of salt, and enough neutral sweetener to match the natural sweetness of milk. The key is knowing how to heat the beans to get rid of an enzyme that makes beans taste sour and another one that compromises the absorption of certain vitamins.

It's more simple than it sounds, since the machine does most of the work. You don't have to do too much more than you have to do when you make a pot of soup.

It's kind of nice, in a weird way, reading through all these comments and knowing that as a vegetarian who doesn't use dairy or eggs, I don't really have to worry about this at my house.

I should try organic, but that stuff is pretty expensive, and for fewer ounces too. I can swallow the premium for organic produce, but organic meat/dairy products are too expensive for me. And to think that they're subsidized substantially by the US gov't...

Though I can't say I noticed it going bad faster, but I mostly use it for cooking, buy in quart size, take the container from the back of the store shelf, and store it at the back of my fridge.

But I do think fresh fruits & vegetables are going bad faster than they used to.

But I'm more likely to think it's the way the stores are storing the goods being at issue.

@NYGal81 - I agree. When you open the milk makes all the difference. And the fat content is also a big factor in spoilage. Half & half seems to last forever!!

@ LincolnK- organic milk is NOT unpasteurized, if it's sold in the grocery store, it's subject to the same federal standards as the dairy farm your father works for.

@rockasocky - I wondered the same thing about that Asian soy remark. I chalked it up to a particularly clueless form of bigotry. Soy is no less a food than any other, but because in the U.S. it's usually used as "substitutes" for traditional American choices (like soy milk for regular milk, or tofu in place of meat), people seem to get this idea that it's somehow artificial created in some lab... like sugar substitute.

if someone is selling something, for a profit, and there is a possibility that they could screw the customer for a larger profit.. they innevitably will screw with impunity.

Actually, I think it's just confusion between "Organic" and "Raw" milk.

The organic milk available here in Los Angeles has a really long shelf life because it is pasteurized more than the regular milk. The only place I ever found with similar dates on non-organic brands was from Costco. While cheap at Costco, we no longer have a need to go through 2 gallons at a time.

I left a cup of milk out for one day in a glass, and it turned into yogurt. Maybe it's just not pasteurized enough? Milk lasts less than a week at my house anyway.

- I'm going to disagree with this, because at least for the last 15 years or so (which it's possible that the poster hasn't worked in the industry since then), refrigerated trucks' reefer units have a separate line to draw off the fuel tank, so they can run independently and keep the cargo cool even if the truck is off.

Raleigh, NC - Haven't had problems with milk going bad, but in Late '07 and early '08 Food lion issued recalls for milk going bad before its time.

I started buying organic and it's well worth the price - the difference is crazy - it stays good for well over a week. For the extra money I spend, I don't waste any in milk poured down the drain.

I'd agree that something is going on. Maybe it's not just one part of the journey? Maybe milk is no longer being picked up every day from the "farm" so they can have fuller trucks, same for where it is pasturized and where it is sold, etc. Maybe the stores turned down their coolers...

Is it only happening with milk?

I really don't know. I just don't like it.

@oyvader: if you read the packaging on the Lact-aid milk it only lasts for ages BEFORE you open it, once you open it the shelf life is the same as regular milk

@twophrasebark: hmm I wonder if maybe it's not poor refrigeration but cheaper packaging that doesn't insulate it as well?
I live in Maryland, and I only buy Lact-Aid milk and haven't noticed any problems, but then I only buy in the carton, not gallon jugs

Not sure if it's true but I've heard that raw milk tastes better then UHT. Some say raw tastes better then regular milk

Most Americans don't really know about alternatives like milk in tetra packs. I didn't until reading this comment section. If a grocery store offered such a product I'm not sure how positively people would respond as it is something completely new. Over time I think people, especially those with families who go through a lot of milk, would warm up to the idea. I definitely would!

That's assuming that the FDA allowed milk in tetra packs to make it on to store shelves. No all Americans are dumb, contrary to popular global beliefs, but our food and drug administration can be pretty stupid. For instance they require that companies wash the protective coating off eggs and it took YEARS for Quorn products to be made legal here.

I get lactose-free, fat-free milk, and as far as I've been able to tell, it lasts forever. The longest I've had a carton has been 1.5 months.

Now I'm in the D.C. area and I haven't noticed any problems with milk for various brands and stores.

No problems with milk, however my local grocery store has sold me bad eggs and moldy cheese within the past few months. Somebody along the supply chain is definitely cutting costs on refrigeration.

I just noticed this recently. I had a half-gallon that had an expiration date of July 19th, but which was stinky yesterday morning. It came from a Kroger in Houston. It's hot as hell here right now, but nothing else in the fridge seems to be having problems. Guess I'm switching to organic.

Two years ago when my s.o. and I moved into our house, I noticed our milk going bad a few days before the date. at first I thought it was our fridge, so I brought a thermometer home from work (I work in a foodbank), and found my fridge to be at the proper temp. I decided it was the ghetto-y Kroger's where I was buying the milk, since other things I was buying there (cheese, OJ) were also going bad before they normally should. (I have also caught this particular store selling shelf-stable items past their 'use by' date). I bought milk at UDF and our local convenience store and had the same thing happen, so I switched to organic. Problem solved. The milk stays fresh for weeks (we don't keep it in the door), and it tastes way better than the stuff I used to buy.

I lived overseas a couple of times and liked the 'box of milk' I could buy - it was ultra-heat treated and came in a special box that didn't required refrigeration until it was opened - really convenient!

@garfield1979: Because we are energy pigs, that's why. They also don't refrigerate eggs in Europe, and we wouldn't have to either, except that the egg industry washes the protective coating from the eggs that would keep them from spoiling on the counter.

We in America are only beginning to think about the impact of our little trips to the grocery store, and not enough of us. It makes me sick to look at all the 100 calories packs that keep popping up, like we need to put less and less into every package so we use as many resources as possible per bite of food.

I know I'm ranting, but having spent a lot of time in Canada, everything we do here is just overbloated, overpackaged nonsense. Hopefully we're learning. I'd like to start with outlawing bottled water and plastic bags myself, or at least making them prohibitively expensive. I'd also like to see bagged or boxed milk that is shelf stable. Way too much waste here.

I live in Wisconsin and the milk is fine, because I live in Wisconsin and they literally make it down the road. I could go get it right out of the cow if I wanted to.

My father, however, has started buying half gallons instead of whole gallons, because the experation date is highly unreliable, and he can finish off a half gallon in a few days.

Can I just say that milk is a product that is not needed by most of the population. What other living animal needs milk after it's been weened from it's mother?

None. And neither do we.

Case in point, how many lactose intolerent animals have you ever heard of? And how many people suffer from this problem every day (including myself). I won't cite stats because we all know that 64% of all stats are made up on the spot and 93% of those stats are wrong 100% of the time.

Holy cow. hehe

Who knew there'd be this much crying over spoiled milk.

okay, I'll stop.

Anyway, in NC, and I haven't noticed this, but I have noticed that meat has been spoiling at much faster rate since I've been here. We have to freeze chicken breast, or lunch meat immediately after bringing it home or it will be bad within 2 days. I had been blaming my refrigerator.

We buy Lactaid milk at home, since my wife's lactarded. The stuff's a little pricy, bit it lasts for ages.

I have noticed this as well over the past few months. Especially since it has started actually being Summer around here. I don't drink a whole lot of milk so I definitely notice when it does not make it to the date on the container. I remember milk being good several days beyond the date.

I'm a total nut about my fridge and have a digital thermometer inside. It's holding steady at 40°F.

I live in Southeastern PA, and buy raw milk straight from farmers who's farms I've visited. No problems here!

Maybe producers could add soybean paste to make the soy "milk" similar to milk in mouth feel. I would rather drink whole milk instead of 2% just because of how it tastes and feels when I drink it, but my wife won't let me.

Okay, call me a crunchy hairy-legged hippy if you will, but I SWEAR milk from cows treated with rBGH goes sour faster. A couple years ago I was switching between the 2, depending on where I bought it, and I was always having to throw out the rBGH milk before I'd finished it. And I a) drink milk every day and b) don't buy it in huge jugs, so it's not like it was sitting around for weeks at a time.

I switched to non-rBGH Berkeley Farms (I live in the East Bay, CA) and haven't had to throw out milk ONCE.

Wow, I thought I was nuts. I go through milk unevenly- some weeks I can go through a gallon in 3 days, other times a week. I've had 3 in a row go bad before I got through them, and it wasn't because I was away or just tired of milk at the time. Might be time to switch to half gallons too. Orlando suburb, for what it's worth.

I for one am welcoming a change in american lifestyle. It will benefit all of us in the end.

Too bad neither date was ever any good. I've never had more spoiled milk, faster, than during my three years in the city. I eventually gave up on half-gallons unless I knew I would use them within 48 hours, because in Brooklyn and in two different neighborhoods in Manhattan, they all seemed to go bad within three days no matter where I bought them -- Citarella or Anonymous Korean Bodega.

So you'd think we don't get it as well... right?

I went into a local store by me last night to buy milk. The expiration date was still 3 days into the future so I figured it was still really fresh (and because of the NYC rule above - even fresher than for the rest of you.)

I noticed all the quarts were bulging... To the point that I was afraid to touch them for fear of one bursting. I am standing there in front of the milk cooler (full cooler, not one of the open air ones) and the store owner comes back and says "don't buy the milk - none of it is any good"

He only got the delivery the day before and they're all bad. Niiiiccceee..

woah... I had noticed this too... I shop at Price Chopper in south central Mass.

I'm going to start buying half gallons instead.

Hey Consumerist readers, read Consumerist readers!

[consumerist.com]

:)

Somehow I remembered that. I dunno how I did, but I did.

Milk in my area (KC, MO) stays good past the expiration date. If it starts to turn, blend in some sugar and fruit and call it yoghurt.

It is illegal to sell in in grocery stores in most, but not all states. Washington State has several dozen grade A raw dairies that transport and sell all over the state. I live in Portland, OR, where it is TOTALLY legal to buy raw milk directly from the farm.

Absolutely. I've bought several milks lately that had gone bad within a day of bringing them home, and several others that were bad before opening them.
I switched to Silk Vanilla since I only use it for coffee anyway. I hate milk except for what it does to coffee.

@DrGirlfriend: The smaller the carton would fall in line to the ideas that have been proposed that the milk is being kept outside of an ideal temperature range for too long of a period of time. The smaller cartons have smaller volume and change in temperature faster than a larger volume would.

I used to live in France and Germany, and as far as i remember milk there was mostly not refrigerated, except it was pasteurized and sold in tetra-packs (brick shaped cartons) kind of like the Soy Dream milk is sold here. Except you could buy them 6 cartons to a pack. Refrigerated milk mostly the unpasteurized kind was in the refrigerated part anyways.
Is the milk in the coolers at the US grocery stores unpasteurized?
Is there a benefit to having so much milk in coolers, other than the fact that it's cold when you bring it home from the store?
What would it take for americans to buy milk in tetra-packs, they're efficient and much much more ecologically sensible than plastic bottles requiring refrigeration from the minute they're filled.

Just my 2 cents...

We are in Schenectady, NY, and we purchase milk either from Stewart's or from Hannaford.

Stewart's only carries their house brand, which is produced locally (Stewart's is based in Saratoga, if I understand correctly).

From Hannaford, we are getting the house brand, also, though I don't know where it is produced. I know that they are based somewhere in Maine, but I doubt they are shipping the milk from that far away.

- Truckers are cutting off the truck when they make deliveries to save gas. Used to, they'd leave the truck running at all times to make sure everything stayed nice & cold. When you shut the truck off, the trailer warms up. Rapid and repeated temperature changes degrade the milk.

- Thinner plastics & "bio" plastics. They're thinner & block less light. More light means the milk goes bad faster.

- They're waiting longer to get signed in & paid. A lot of milk isn't sent out on huge trucks, it's sent out on small trucks. The driver wheels in a few crates worth & waits for his check before he starts stocking it. The longer he stands there, the warmer the milk gets. And since all the milk in the truck is already warming up because it's been cut off...

- Moving from a "Sell By Date/Best By Date" to an "expiration date". Milk used to have a "Best By Date" where the milk was still technically good for about 5-7 days after the date. I've seen more and more milk being given an "Expiration Date" now. Which means stuff that is now marked "Expires On July 27th" would have been previously marked "Sell By July 22nd". This means that stores can keep it on the shelf longer than they used to.

Just a tip: If you only use a little bit, don't waste your money on "Fresh" milk. Horizon and Organic Valley make shelf stable (think Parmalat or the same "Tetrapak" boxes Soy Milk comes in) versions of their organic milk. If you're not going to use a quart in a week, then you can get it in a "lunch box" size which is perfect for adding milk to your coffee.

YES! As a matter of fact, I just returned on Monday 2 gallons of milk with the same expiration date of 6/23 I'd bought the night before. Both tasted like they were turning.

They need to remove the control of the refridgeration from the driver.

Raw Milk is unpasteurized and illegal.

I assume that since some places in Europe don't even refrigerate their UHT milk on the shelf that it'd be more immune to cheap drivers stateside too, even though they refrigerate it to make us feel better here.

I also think they just make up arbitrarily short sell-by dates because Americans don't like the thought of drinking milk that's been sitting on the shelf for 6 months. Does anyone have an explanation of the super-long shelf life in Europe?

We use milk really fast, but I've noticed that I come across more leaking jugs now than ever. Produce and meat are expiring faster. I can't keep either for more than a week and a half in the fridge (which I keep near freezing) without it goin bad. Especially processed meat like turkey bacon... it use to last FOREVER (seriously, sometimes I couldn't believe it was still good after almost a month) and now it turns a couple days after I open it. :( I believe foods are being transported in warmer environments.

I also recently bought a big tub of plain yogurt that was totally spoiled (though it looked fine) at least a week before its "sell by" date.

I wonder if different fats work differently for their respective products? Clearly the issue is not that fat will stave off spoilage indefinitely, since even pure oils (fats) will go rancid eventually. But maybe how fat operates in milk is different than how fat operates in nuts? I'm not sure on that one.

Here in Wisconsin my milk is always good. That's either because we go through it so fast it doesn't have time to spoil or because I can milk a cow on any corner.

I bought milk this past weekend at Wally World and it's good until the 25th (2 weeks). It mostly lasts a week before it starts to turn, which by that time it's almost empty.

@AnderBobo: @TVarmy: I've wondered that about the stores. WalMart's freezers seem to be just cold enough, but not for the trip home. It also seems that if they're "skimming" the temps, that it would allow some melting while they're restocking. From what I've seen, it looks like they put the pallets down the aisles before they start restocking, and having the freezer doors open for that amount of time may be allowing some melting to occur. Not to mention that some items have obviously had liquid water freeze on the boxes.

I have noticed this too but with a twist - the smaller the carton, the faster the milk turns. Sometimes I buy the pint-sized cartons of milk to keep at work, and those don't last any more than 3-4 days. (This is Safeway's Lucerne brand). I might give organic a shot and see how long that lasts.

I know, gross, but it's true. It doesn't "sour" (rot) but goes to curds and whey.

I'm in Providence, RI and buy Hood 1% milk in the opaque plastic jugs. It lasts for about 2 weeks (though I usually go through it much faster than that).

/sarcasm

P.S. I really do live next to a goat farm, but I consider myself lucky.

I live in Northern IL, and my family's a bunch of milk guzzlers. No matter how much I buy, I seem to run out before grocery day. I picked up a few of Friendly Farms brand 2% at my local Aldi's for $2.29/gallon (which is insanely cheap around here). I haven't had any problems with milk lately.

@ptkdude: Yeah, not seeing the whole "scam" part of soy milk. My boyfriend recently switched to Silk as well, for three reasons (none of which being lactose intolerance):

1. It lasts weeks longer (the carton we picked up last night is exp. dated for September)

2. It may be more expensive initially, but he can keep it for weeks without having it go bad and make less trips to the store to replace a carton that went bad

3. He really only uses milk in cereal, so the vanilla Silk actually makes cereal taste better

I've started buying half-gallons, because there's no way I can go through a gallon of milk in five days.

My friend says it happens because perishables are in hotter temps during the summer. Could this be the same case with milk, and will the issue of milk going sour faster become a non-issue in the winter?

The overwhelming majority of trailer refrigeration units are diesel powered so there might be some truth to this. However, it would strike me as easier just to push the increased cost down to the consumer. Milk prices vary anyways.

Agreed. Organic milk lasts forever. I used to throw away half the milk I bought until I started buying organic. Now I always use up the entire 1/2 gallon before it goes bad. I would say I take 2-3 weeks to use a 1/2 gallon, generally. Regular milk never lasted that long. Ever. Can't say why, but could the horomones and chemicals spoil the milk faster? Methinks yes. Or maybe they just put something in it deliberately to make it spoil faster, because you'll just buy more, and faster, right?

But remember to freeze it OUT of the container it came in (put it into tupperware) or open the bottle and pour a little out to make some headroom, otherwise the bottle will burst.

Also, I can't believe I have to mention this, but don't freeze milk in a paper/cardboard container, will be a soggy mess when you defrost it.

One thing I don't mind at all paying the extra money for is Horizon Organic Milk, which Walmart carries. It tastes so much better than any of the other brands (regular or organic) of milk and it's nice knowing it doesn't have the hormones and antibiotics in it that the other milks have.

I always make sure too to buy the ones with the farest exparation date, even if I have to go back way into the shelf to get it.

I've been buying fudgsicles from my local Acme and I've noticed every time that when I unwrap the fudgsicle they had melted, and refroze in the Acme freezers.... it is REALLY annoying b/c the stick then goes in the center of this nasty refrozen mess.... ugh. So yeah... I believe trucks are not keeping it cool in lieu of gas.

It's funny that the non-organic producers methods lead to shorter-lived milk (and probably cows, and maybe people, too).

Got this bottle at Target - have had bad luck with 7-11 as well.

And I thought it was just me. Used to be able to keep milk at least a week after the exp date. Now I'm lucky if it lasts to a couple of days before exp.

Shopping at Vons

I buy my organic milk (2% fat), half gallon at Trader Joe's, pasturized and supposively from nearby farms (I live in the SF Bay Area).

I have a bad habit of opening it up within a day or two of buying it and then not touching it again until two weeks later and then consuming it within +/-5 days of the exp date. It's never turned funky on me.

I also keep it in the back of the fridge, never the door.

Snark aside, I'll keep an eye out. I always buy the freshest milk possible, and even then half the time I feel like I have to rush to drink it all. It's a small victory when I use it all before it expires.

Usually I buy from Wal-Mart or a local chain and only once have I ever had a really nasty awful problem. Expired milk usually is that way. A good day or two before the date on the jug, and it tasted like bitter....bitterness.

FWIW, I get the best price on Horizon half-gallons at the local Quik-Trip gas station, which is both cool and kind of weird.

@EllaMcWho: I meant lightly

@PhilWeinstein: I buy litghtly pasteurized (low temp) organic milk from an independent dairy via my farmers market - usually 4 to 5 gallons at a time, due to both my 2 year and her 45 yr. old dad drinking up to a half-gallon a day between them. Yes, whole milk...And when my husband's been out of town, those gallons last (unopened) for up to 3 weeks and another week after opening. So I fall on the higher-the-butterfat-content side of the argument, rather than thinking its the ultra-pasteurization.

A connection? Perhaps. What? Don't know.

You may be onto something. It's not like the grocery shrink ray can hit gallon and half-gallon jugs of milk. I bet the cost cutting measures are more underhanded.

One of us usually buys a half-gallon of milk -- 1% or skim -- on either Saturday (my grocery trip) or on Monday (his grocery trip). We've been finding that we need to buy a new container every week, because it's usually *just* at that, "this smells a hair off but I can still use it to make mac & cheese tonight" point on day 7. Regardless of the "sell by" date, which is usually 5-9 days after the time we have to toss the milk.

I know that once you've opened it you're supposed to use it within a week, but I distinctly remember that when I was in grad school in Boston a few years back, I could usually get 10 days. My boyfriend is always perplexed how quickly our milk turns, too.

(I don't count 2005 - early 2008 for comparison, because I lived in New York City, where there is a WIDE variety of bodegas and grocery stores and it takes time to learn which ones in a neighborhood are reliable.)

how odd...

Ultra-pasteurized milk can be organic or not. And organic milk is not necessarily ultra-pasteurized. Several store brands of organic milk are not UP and will go bad as quickly as regular non-organic milk.

There is also UHT milk which is ultra-high temperature pasteurized milk. This milk is shelf-stable and is the milk you get in Europe on the grocery store shelf in a box or tetrapack.

Here is wikipedia on the differences:
[en.wikipedia.org]

I agree that somewhere along the way costs are being cut - whether it be refrigeration, or packing, or speed - I'm not sure...

I'll pass on organic milk as there isn't really quality control, no pasteurization, etc.

My dad has been hauling milk from dairy farms for 30 years, so I'll tend to believe him.

I'll join in here and just say that my family and I have noticed that our milk from Mayfield is going sour quicker than it used to as well.

As someone who can't drink milk at all, I hadn't noticed it going sour faster ;-).

@Angryrider: how is soy milk a "scam"?

@Aesteval: Most organic milks are ultra-pasteurized which means it is processed at a higher temperature than normal pasteurized milk. This kills more of the bad guys thus the milk stays fresher longer.

Used to take almost forever for it to start to go bad, now it starts to smell funny after about two weeks. I have a "backup" quart of Coffeemate at the ready, just in case.

One other thing to think about is what that date on the bottle really means. Is it a "sell by" date or an "expiration date"? They're different. I always look for the milk with the date farthest from the present day. So if I buy milk with a stamped date of, say, July 27th, but I open it today, I almost expect it to spoil/expire if it goes unused until the 27th. However, if I buy it today, and I don't open it till the 23rd, it will surely make it to the 27th sans spoilage/expiration. Even if I opened it on the 27th, as long as the seal wasn't broken, I should be able to get a couple of days out of the milk before it spoils. I don't know how many times I've caught my husband trying to throw out sealed milk because it's close to the "expiration date" even though it hasn't been opened and exposed to the increased oxygen, germies, etc. that expedite the spoiling process.

Long story short...I don't go by the date. When in doubt, use your snout!

We have noticed that the expire dates on milk just put on the shelves is only a few days. It seems to be that way almost all the time when it used to almost always have a good two weeks on the label. I don't know if it is a demand change or some systematic change or backlog of milk or what.

If the implication that truckers are turning down their refrigeration to save on fuel is at all true, there is a much broader issue in that those trucks carry everything from raw meats and poultry to a host of other perishables. Yikes!

Whatever it's saying, that picture rocks.

@Aesteval: I have no idea why this is, but Costco's organic milk does seem to stay fresh for an extremely long time. We stopped buying elsewhere once we started buying from Costco.

can't say i've noticed our milk going bad any earlier than usual, and we usually push it to the limit.

The milk carton in the pic is like "Wtf mate!?"

@puffyshirt: I second that.

I noticed the Kroger fridge seems not very cold at all, but it's hard to tell since they keep the entire store just a few degrees above absolute zero.

@luckybob343: Yeah that was the first thing that comes to my mind is that the fridge isn't getting cold enough.

I can't agree though. We always have milk in the house, though we don't go through it fast or anything, and I can't say I've noticed it going bad faster. Maybe it's an isolated situation, or I'm just not very observant.

I switched to soy for the very same reason. The milk consumption never really changed (I wasn't drinking less or taking longer to drink/use it), but it was going bad all the same. Took some getting used to, but soy is actually pretty decent.

Organic milk lasts at least 2x as long, sometimes 3x if you dont open often. Sounds like it is worth the extra money.

@luckybob343: the door isn't the coldest part of the fridge

Nice to know our fridge isn't broken.