My Milk Story

January 22nd, 2010 by

I don’t often post stories about my childhood, but this NPR story, titled “Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist,” had me reminiscing about what has grown to be a fond childhood memory of mine. 

 

My Story

Growing up, I hated milk.  In fact, one of the few concessions my parents made involved allowing me to add a little Nestle chocolate mix to my milk. A little chocolate milk mix meant I’d down a glass of milk at each meal without complaining. But that changed one day when we went over to our neighbors for dinner.

Whenever eating at someone else’s house, I knew better than to throw a tantrum about having to drink plain milk.  So on this occasion, I dutifully downed the glass presented to me with my meal, and the strangest thing happened — I liked it!  (Yes, Life cereal fans, it’s true: “Hey Mikey.  He likes it.”)

The milk, which somehow tasted different than what I was used to drinking, came from a cow that our neighbors milked. Feeling somewhat full of myself for drinking my milk without a fuss, I later admitted to my parents that “I liked that milk, and I’d drink more if it always tasted that way.”

Not too many months went by before my dad returned home with a cow in the trailer.  Turns out, he actually purchased that very cow from our neighbor, and I earned a new chore.  It was my job to milk the cow every evening.  No kidding: admitting that I liked fresh milk cost me about 30 minutes of my free time each day.

Milking was an interesting experience.  As school activities began infringing on my evening chores, I earned morning milk duty.  Getting up at 6:00 am so that I could make swing choir and stage band practice at 7:30 taught me a lot about responsibilities.  It also probably explains why I enjoy getting up at 5:00 am.

We soon had more milk than we knew what to do with and my original distain for milk soon turned to a weakness for all things dairy:  whole cream on my Corn Flakes for breakfast, and homemade ice cream for the holidays.  My parents even “shared” extra milk with the neighbors, creating a little local economy. 

While growing up, I never felt that milking chores was a fair tradeoff for the benefits of being able to enjoy milk.  But over the years, I’ve grown fond of the experience. It wasn’t until reading the NPR story, however, that I realized I don’t really like milk anymore.

 

Warren Taylor’s story

Warren Taylor is an Ohio dairyman, who as the NPR story states, “is on a crusade to put cows back on pastures and bring the flavor back to milk.” (source:  John Burnet,  “Got (Good) Milk?  Ask The Dairy Evangelist,” NPR, Dec. 10, 2009)

“Bring back flavor to milk?”  That is something I hadn’t considered in a long time. 

Taylor believes the process for changing the taste of milk starts with changing what cows eat.  This means letting them chomp on grass, rather than the typical feed stock of corn and soybeans.  (Feeding corn & soybeans means dairy farmers need less pasture ground, and it increases milk production.) 

Taylor also believes milk tastes better when it is:

Unwittingly, my family followed all of Taylor’s practices, and I’ve got to believe that it’s a big reason milk tasted better to me as a kid.  I must admit, however, that I have no scientific research to back up this belief.  As the article and ensuing comments indicate, not everyone agrees with Taylor: quality, cost, and food safety seem to be the issues at play. 

I’m sure we will hear more about this issue in the future, and I hope to learn from the debate that’s sure to emerge.  Until then, I’ll just ask, “So how does milk taste to you?”

 

Photo Credit:- David Jones – Flickr

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One Response to “My Milk Story”

  1. Cat Says:
    January 22nd, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    An older friend of mine was born on a ranch where they drank fresh milk. When his family moved to town, they had their first store-bought milk. Both kids threw up several times, and never drank milk again.

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