An Unexpected Warning about Milk

I've always buy milk at a certain grocery chain because the brand it sells seems to last longer in the fridge. I thought this was because it was fresher - but when I finally tried my hand at making cheese last week, my mozzarella came out rubbery. After a lot of research, I learned it was because of over-processed milk.

In her book Home Cheese Making, Ricki Carrol makes it clear you can use pasteurized milk for making cheese. However, you can't successfully use ultra-pasteurized milk for cheese making.

No problem - I thought. The milk I buy is pasteurized, but not heated to death through ultra-pasteurization. Yet this page by Carrol's company (New England Cheesemaking Supply) makes it clear that my milk was heated higher than it should have been, even though it wasn't labeled ultra-pasteurized.

Ultra-pasteurized and traditionally pasteurized milk are both heated to kill bacteria, but traditional pasteurization heats the milk to a minimum of 161 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds (or 145 degrees F for 30 minutes). Ultra-pasteurizated heats the milk to at least 280 degrees Fahrenheit for a minimum of two seconds.


This quick, hot heating keeps the milk from spoiling as quickly (with a shelf life up up to 6 months). But wait. The milk I normally buy goes sour in about 2 or 3 weeks. Well, according to New England Cheesemaking Supply, more and more milk is not marked ultra-pasteurized but is heated over the temperatures used in traditional pasteurizing. This explains why the milk I normally buy lasts longer than other brands - and also why it doesn't work for cheese making.

Worse, ultra-pasteurized milk isn't as healthy. It has broken protein bonds - which means our bodies don't absorb it well, according to a 2008 study from the Journal of Nutrition. Ultra-pasteurized milk also has less nutrition than raw or even traditionally pasteurized milk: about 4% less thiamin, less than 5% vitamin E, and less than 10% biotin. Ultra-pasteurization may also make it hard for our bodies to absorb B12 in milk.

Conclusion? Avoid shelf stable milk, or any milk labeled UHT or Ultra-Pasteurized. (Organic milk is often the worst culprit.) But sadly, it seems, you may still end up with over-processed, over-heated milk. And you won't know it until you try to make cheese...


This post featured at Homestead Abundance.

9 comments

  1. And that's why we often buy raw instead. And it tastes better, so says my 6 yr old.

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  2. Abigail, unfortunately, raw milk sales aren't legal in many states...and many people simply don't have access to it, even where it is legal. Here's a handy site that shows which states have made it illegal to buy or sell raw milk: http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. I have been on a search for grass fed beef/ chicken and pastured eggs as well as raw milk where I live. And life is hard when government regulates everything. I guess one option is to grow your own or raise your own cow. :|

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  5. FABULOUS POSTING! Thanks for the info!!!

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  6. I've done some research on milk myself. WE'd drink raw milk all the time if I could afford it. It's $5 for a pint! And we get WIC, so I looked up which store has milk not treated with hormones or antibiotics. Walmart's great value milk, pledges to not use these, but I guess you never know!

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  7. Adrienne, Safeway's Lucerne milk (and actually all their dairy products) are supposed to be hormone free, too. However, it seems to be over-heated, even though it's not marked Ultra-pasteurized.

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  8. Or you could probably just not drink milk at all. Its not very good for you any how and has been linked to obesity, hormonal imbalances, and prostate cancer...amongst other things. Go for oat, almond or hemp milks which are packed with vitamins and nutrients instead of fat and other unknown yucky-ness

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  9. That's true, but I do think the milk debate is a complicated one. For example, the pros and cons vary depending upon whether the milk is raw or pasteurized, homogenized or not, hormone free or not, whether you drink one or more glasses a day or simply use it a little in cooking, etc. Also, anyone reading who is interested in drinking an "alternative" milk should do a bit of research on the pros and cons. This little article gives a brief rundown of them: http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/1451-milk-cow-goat-rice-almond-soy-nutrition-comparison.html

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