How much does a half gallon of organic milk cost in your area?

yowza!
in LA, it's generally in the 4.29 - 4.99 range, but 3.19 at Trader Joe's (i think?)

Like ~$4 but it's only at one store here.

I don't buy it, I buy inorganic milk I suppose.

milk grosses me out sooooo much

what's organic milk, the kind that doesn't come in a carton?

milk grosses me out sooooo much

You should revive every single ILE thread about milk and mention that.

I don't even think I can get organic milk in this area.

$5.79 Manhattan

nuh-uh, $4.99 at food emporium/gourmet garage near me.

So that's about £2.50 for 4 pints? That sounds expensive. I think I pay about 50p a pint but to be honest I just put it the basket without thinking. This is why I have no money.

I haven't been drunk in a couple of years, and am down to 2-3 beers a week...seem to have lost my taste for the stuff. Anybody else here just lost interest in alcohol?

-- Rock Hardy

$4.99 or so in berkeley. it's cheaper at trader joe's but it's also always sold out there. we get gallons now though ($6.99) because our kid drinks and/or spills it by the ton

A gallon! Am in right in thinking that's 8 pints? What goes a bottle that big look like?

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2673568/2/istockphoto_2673568_one_gallon_of_milk.jpg

Ok. I couldn't even get that in my fridge.

$5.79 is what a gallon costs in Madison, WI. I never buy milk in quantities as small as a half gallon so I don't know the answer to the original question.

A whole gallon of milk lasts me about two days. Just me, not the whole house.

$3.99 - $4.79 in palo alto

i love it

http://cloverstornetta.com/externals/ba/48d33d61ef745a84f6a72735b1b552c8b4982a.jpg

^^ see how happy that fat bitch looks

it's a cow i think

I buy a gallon for $5.00 from a local farmer near Boston, MA.

I buy quarts for $2 from the milkpeople at the farmer's market, plus a $1 bottle deposit and I use them as my savings account and every month or so I return about 10 and get a new quart of milk and $8 back from the milkpeople. Woot! Glass bottles=money.

half-gal for $3.50 in Austin.

non-homogenized in a glass bottle = $3.30 from the creamery at Pike Place Market w/$1.75 for the bottle deposit.

clover's organic eggnog is good

WTF @ GIS for gallon of soymilk.

Is it me or is everyone else drinking a ton of milk. My family of four get through 2 litres in 2 days, tops. What are you doing with it - washing in it?

A half gallon? Pints? Over here in Belgium we can only get milk in, like, meters and grams, man.

$5.79 Manhattan

$3.59 @ Fairway and around $4 @ West Side Market

That anyone could distinguish "organic milk" from any other organic compound known as "milk" fucking baffles me. What is inorganic milk made of?

"inorganic milk" comes from cows that smoke cigarettes and don't exercise

inorganic milk comes from robot cows!

Inorganic milk, a.k.a. soy milk, is made by cows who only eat soy beans.

inorganic milk comes from your mom

http://www.mynursingwear.com/images%5CBooks%5CMomBooks%5CSML%5CHowWeaningHapp-front.jpg

i used to know a la leche league lady who fed her kid off the boob until he was 6

2 questions: why do you buy organic milk and what brand do you buy?

I'm in Austin and a half gallon costs us about $3.00. $5-$6 for a gallon.

for those unfamiliar with the term "organic" as applied to food products (rather than molecular compounds), this link has more information -

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=ORGANIC_CERTIFICATIO&navtype=RT&parentnav=AGRICULTURE

it always seems to me like organic milk lasts a hell of a lot longer than normal milk, but i think that's a coincidence, something to do with lots of organic milk getting ultra-pasteurized or something (sort of like parmalat?)

i used to know a la leche league lady who fed her kid off the boob until he was 6

-- remy bean, Sunday, December 9, 2007 10:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

i have an aunt who did this with my cousins.

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/organic.html

Well a gallon of regular milk costs about $6, so I'm guessing that organic would be significantly higher than that. So I don't know, but generally prices here (Honolulu) are higher than NYC.

if i drank milk i'd go for the raw stuff. its illegal lots of places!

Didn't I hear something about illegal cheese in NYC? Anyone?

raw milk is not illegal if you buy it directly from the farmer, they just can't sell it at the grocery store

same w/ raw fresh cheese

is there cheese made from human milk?

one of the guys i work with is in his 50s and trained in his youth as an electrical engineer. he's heavily into "real ale" etc. and told me once that he only likes fresh milk. i was like, what do you mean. now it was his turn to be surprised. "you know, fresh milk." "as opposed to what, spoiled milk?" and he was like no no, milk that hasn't been pasteurized or homogenized. i actually don't know if i've ever had a glass of that.

I think I can get that at my local farmer's market on Sundays.

gabbneb there are loads of fuzzy areas with organic certification and there is definitely a misconception that organic stuff is of higher quality (generally it's not) but it is certainly better for the environment to farm organically than not to and your link doesn't really speak to that, which is like the whole point of organic certification in the first place.

LOL @ quackwatch

tracer,

organic milk might be better for the environment, but people still ought to be aware that a good deal of organic milk is produced by huge corporations on feedlots in intolerable conditions just like conventional milk (there are also lots of farms that do both conventional and organic side by side).

ok ok

gah i can't believe i got lured into this conversation

gabby your love is like oxygen

Raw milk rules, if you can get it.
http://www.realmilk.com/where-other.html

I am dubious of any health benefits but it tastes better.
Even if it is potentially fatal.

So organic milk is milk from cows fed organically? They don't actually do anything different to the milk once it comes out of the cow?

They put it in cartons with fancier labels (well, they do in Tesco anyway).

onimo, "organic" is mainly about NOT doing things!

99 cents when its w/in 3 days of expiration

ps (even chocolate)

raw milk is not illegal if you buy it directly from the farmer, they just can't sell it at the grocery store

-- moonship journey to baja, Monday, 10 December 2007 02:20 (8 hours ago) Link

same w/ raw fresh cheese

-- moonship journey to baja, Monday, 10 December 2007 02:21 (8 hours ago) Link

but you can buy unpasteurised cheeses like parmesan and pecorino in the supermarkets...

Tesco half gallon semi-skimmed organic - £1.58
Tesco half gallon semi-skimmed - £1.34

6p a pint extra.

My wife's cousin is marrying a Welsh dairy farmer next year. I will ask him what his take on the organic thing is (which will inevitably lead to him moaning for about an hour about Tesco squeezing the life out of him).

onimo, "organic" is mainly about NOT doing things!

I understand that and I understand what it relates to in terms of things like vegetable production. I was trying to work out what it means to milk - given that "organic" milk seems to go through the same pasteurisation processes as "non-organic".

I was asking if I am correct in assuming (from what little I read) that it entails cows being fed organic produce and that there's no difference at all in post-milking processing.

i think the main difference is that the cows are not allowed to listen to any manufactured, synthesized pop music

http://www.mothercow.org/bull/cow-earphones-music.jpg

2 questions: why do you buy organic milk and what brand do you buy?

I buy organic milk and butter and cream (and cheese if I can find it) because pesticide/chemical fertilizer/contaminant residue is most likely to concentrate in an animal's fat. I used to buy Strauss (from California) because that's what we could get that wasn't ultra-pasteurized and was also non-homogenized. Now I've buy a local (as in from a farm about 20 miles out of town) brand.

but you can buy unpasteurised cheeses like parmesan and pecorino in the supermarkets...

-- braveclub

aha but if you read carefully you'll note i said "fresh". you can sell any raw cheese you want as long as it's been aged for more than 60 days. by that point they're confident the salinity / ph / dryness have killed any bugs.

it's *fresh* cheese (younger than 60 days) that's illegal.

parimigiano reggiano is aged anywhere from a year to 3 years

i think the main difference is that the cows are not allowed to listen to any manufactured, synthesized pop music

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, 10 December 2007 10:43 (6 hours ago) Link

so its indie to buy organic? what do the popists eat? i think they eat mostly lollipops and cotton candy, yes?

$3.49/half gallon in nashville. sometimes cheaper.

also, it tastes SO MUCH BETTER than your regular milk, and has a longer shelf-life (i can't explain this).

ultra-pasteurization, though i am unclear why organic comes in for this treatment more than non-organic

The longer shelf life can come from higher levels of linoelic acid and vitamin E, if the cows are grass-fed but not if they're grain fed. And, ultra-pasteurized = yuck, to me. Tastes cooked or steamed.

I'm tempted to buy some raw milk and make fresh cheese. There are some farm co-ops here where you buy a share of dairy cow and as a co-owner you get the raw milk.

What do people think about goat milk? I haven't tried it, but do love goat cheeses.

maybe i'm wrong about ultra-pasteurization! that's just what i heard.

i HAVE had fresh, raw goat's milk before. it is what you imagine it to be. goaty.

Tracer, I think you're right (based on what I've seen of our organic milk here in MN).

The weird part to me is that you can't make your own cheese out of ultra-pasteurized milk. But I just read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, so I think I'm conflating "people interested in eating organic food" with "people who REALLY want to make their own food."

Jaq, I was thinking of trying to make my own cheese, just for the fun of it - and apparently you can use pasteurized, but NOT ultra-pasteurized. Don't ask me why. (Also, don't trust me: I just read it; I haven't tried it myself... yet.)

It's true that ultra-pasteurized milk won't make cheese. I make my own mozzarella and paneer and ricotta, and it just doesn't work. The proteins get denatured by the temperatures.

i like goat milk, but yeah - goaty. it's not overwhelming, but it's there strongly enough to come through in tea/coffee.

Sara, I'm reading that book now!

speaking of exotic animal milk, my new favorite thing is water buffalo yogurt from a hippie farm in vermont.

http://www.woodstockwaterbuffalo.com/woodstock-water-buffalo-company.shtml

Man, I'd love to get my hands on a gallon of raw water buffalo milk and make some REAL mozzarella!

This thread is making me hungry (and so did that book)!

Water buffalo yogurt?! WOW!

it's so good. it doesn't have any kind of barnyard taste, and it's very creamy and rich yet not disgustingly claggy like fage or what have you.

pretty low in fat, too.

I can get that yogurt and their mozzarella locally, yay!! Thanks for the link lauren :)

if anybody lives near LA you can get fresh cow or buffalo mozzarella from a farm named GIOIA in el monte, highly recommended.

i've compared their buffalo and cow mozzarella and there's not very much difference, from which i conclude that people who go to italy and have their socks knocked off by real buffalo mozzarella tend to confuse the effect of freshness w/ the effect of buffalo milk

Just to confuse US/UK comparisons, an Imperial pint = 1.201 US pints. So, a half (US) gallon is 3.31 UK pints.

I think we pay 60p/pint for the organic full-fat stuff the kids guzzle all day long (Dairy Crest deliver three times a week), so that's £2 or just over $4 for the Yankeedoodle half-gal.