Filled Milk

Today I have decided to talk about milk. Ryan and I love milk and while living in the states, we would buy 3 gallons at a time just for the two of us. Since coming to Bermuda we have been shocked by a few things. There is only one distributor of milk for the whole island. Milk only comes in half gallons and a half gallon costs between $3.50-$4.50 (Yes that equals at least $7 a gallon....if of course we were so lucky to be able to by them in gallons). Also milk only comes in paper cartons, not plastic. Plastic prolongs the shelf life of milk, so since we have to buy the paper cartons, we are forced to drink the milk quickly before it expires. Since we don't want to buy too many half-gallons at a time, we end up going to the store to buy milk at least 2-3 times a week.

The subject matter that inspired this post was actually the concept of "filled milk." I have never heard of filled milk before here and for good reason, filled milk was banned by the US Congress in 1923. The Filled Milk Act was incorporated in response to intense lobbying by the dairy industry. According to Wikipedia, "Filled milk is skim milk that has been reconstituted with fats, usually vegetable oils, from sources other than dairy cows and only exists as evaporated milk. Like pure evaporated milk, filled milk is generally considered unsuitable for drinking because of its particular flavor, but is equivalent to evaporated milk for baking and cooking purposes. Other filled milk products with substituted fat are used to make ice cream, sour cream, whipping cream, and half-and-half substitutes among other dairy products." What I can't figure out is that the filled milk on the shelves in Bermuda is a liquid in a half gallon unlike evaporated milk. Ryan actually had filled milk in a milk shake yesterday and it tasted quite good. I am not really sure what to think, but the concept of vegetable oils in my milk makes me want to stick with the good old skim milk we are used to.

Until next time...