To illustrate the difference, no one wants to drink a glass of canned
milk. Bleah. But a glass of this shelf-stable milk goes down like any
other milk, because it IS ordinary milk. Just sterilized. You can pour
this on your cereal. I mean, I guess you *could *pour canned milk on Lucky
Charms, but it seems like it might be heavier than one might like.
Scott
On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 4:32 PM Mr. Ransom <mr.ransom@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nope. Canned milk is something entirely different. My dad used to always
have a can of that around for his coffee. Typically much thicker and
sweeter than ordinary milk. No, what I'm describing is literally regular
tasting regular looking regular milk. The only difference is that you
don't have to refrigerate it until you open it. Otherwise
indistinguishable from normal cow's milk.
Scott
On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 4:17 PM Derek Seaton <seatons@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That sounds like what we call "canned milk" which is evaporated milk,
so you don't use as much or you mix with water. Brands like Carnation sell
the different options from skim, to cream. You usually find it in the
baking section along with condensed milk which is a sweetened milk.
Like you we don't drink a lot of milk, so it was always going bad. For us
we only use milk in coffee or tea and the occasional baking. Canned milk,
even after opening, will last a long, long time in the fridge. I've used
canned milk ever since I was a kid.
Derek
On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 2:33 PM Mr. Ransom <mr.ransom@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm in my early sixties, and I've literally never even *heard *of
shelf-stable milk before. I looked in a number of grocery stores, and I
can find whole displays of oat milk, and almond milk, and other nut milks,
but regular milk is *only *available in refrigerated containers. There
are no containers of shelf-stable milk to be found anywhere near me, except
at Dollar Tree.
It tastes completely fine, to me. Like I said, due to the removal of
refrigerated storage costs, I don't get why ALL milk isn't sold this way.
It is 1000% more convenient than refrigerated milk, and yet I would bet
that most Americans have never heard of it. I had not.
Scott
On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 2:27 PM Steve Crane <steve.crane@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I'm surprised to hear shelf stable milk can be hard to find in the US.
It has been commonly available on any supermarket's shelves since the 70s.
When I was in the army in the operational area in northern South West
Africa (now Namibia) in 1982-1983 it was the only milk we got. It had a
noticeably different taste to fresh milk, but I imagine technology has
improved that in the 42 years since then. I haven't had any of it in many
years.
Steve Crane
about.me/stevecrane
On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 at 23:21, Spring Dew <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The availability of shelf life milk can be erratic. It was easy to
find in any grocery store in Utah, but in my hometown in Mississippi, it's
only at the Walmart. Many stores put it in the "baking goods" aisle but
some put it with charcoal briquettes and picnic supplies. I like it quite
a
bit for the same reasons. In some places you can even get tetra packs of
goats milk.
Sent from Proton Mail Android
-------- Original Message --------
On 4/24/24 3:11 PM, Mr. Ransom wrote:
So, I was looking at the LivingAlone reddit group, and someone posted
a complaint about milk usage, which resonated with me. My milk usage is
not consistent. Sometimes I go through a lot of milk, sometimes I go
weeks
or months without needing it at all. It depends on what I'm cooking and
whether I want cereal and stuff like that.
What happens, then, is that I either buy too little, which is
annoying, or I buy too much and end up throwing half of it out, which is
also annoying. It would be nice if I could stock up on milk the way I do
sugar and just pull it out of the cabinet as needed. You can kind of do
that with powdered milk, but it's not really the same: powdered milk is
fake milk, and I want real milk.
Someone else in that group posted about a product I had never heard
of: "shelf stable milk". This is milk that they don't just pasteurize,
they basically sterilize it, then vacuum seal it. It can be stored
*without
refrigeration *for up to a year.
I've never seen it sold anywhere, but the poster said they actually
sell it at Dollar Tree, in 1%, 2%, and whole milk containers. I never buy
food at Dollar Tree, but I checked, and, yes, there it was. So I bought
some, just to see.
Took it home, opened it up, and... it was milk. Not weird tasting
fake milk. Just milk. It was warm, of course, and you have to
refrigerate
it after opening, but it was fine. After I refrigerated it, it was, in
all
ways, equal to the regular milk I've been buying. Also, because there's
NOTHING alive in that milk, once you've opened it it lasts much longer
than
regular milk, because it spoils much slower; there's nothing growing in
there.
I went back and stocked up. The use-by date on these containers is
January of 2025. I have a gallon in my pantry, in quart containers. I
open them as I need them. If I empty a container and still need more, I
just pull a new container out of the cupboard. *Super convenient.*
This is the only milk I'm going to be buying, going forward. It's
indistinguishable from "real milk" because it IS real milk, it's just
*super*-pasteurized.
It is slightly more expensive than the grocery store milk ($5 a
gallon, in quart containers, at Dollar Tree), but not if you count how
much
I tended to throw out.
I've looked for it at other stores and can't find it anywhere. But
the Dollar Tree stuff is fine. Like I said, this is the ONLY way to buy
milk. I don't know why *all* milk isn't sold this way, it is so much
better. I'm not kidding, this IS the way milk should be sold.
Scott
