38 Modern Milk

I would like to relate to you what happened to me after a bought a pint of milk in order to make some mash potatoes.

A few days later I cooked some diced potatoes, added some of the milk, and generously added some butter. Whole of it made an excellent mash potato that I enjoyed very much with some black pepper. I like to cook simple things, but good things well made, it gives me pleasure to eat it for the quality and taste of it.

The next few days I was very busy and enjoyed simple fayre, like pizza and Indian ready meals. This was for convenience as well as for the flavours and nourishment. I had put the milk, in its pint container, in the door of the refrigerator. Obviously, I had forgotten about it, when I cook carrot or green beans, I do not add any milk nor need it. Which means that about two weeks later I realised that I had some milk in my refrigerator.

I was very surprised to see a layer of mould on top of the milk and on the side of the container. After inspection of the milk, it had not turned. I should say there that I am of a generation who knows about real milk, I have seen cows milked, I have tasted fresh milk, and I have bought normal milk for a very long time. When spoiled, the milk is supposed to turn, not develop some mould!!!

So, the milk bought in supermarket is pasteurised. This is normal and expected, this practice dates as far back as the late nineteenth century. And it is homogenised, a slightly more modern process, which helps the milk maintain its consistency through time and avoid the creation of a layer of cream as soon as the following morning. These two processes are good and decent for selling some good milk, and combined with good animal husbandry and health care checks, should be sufficient for consumers.

However, the product has been dramatically changed, it did not turn. Nature has been diverted to create an object of pure profit, and maybe low morality. By this I mean that when milk is kept for too long it starts to acidify and separates, on the way to being cheese somewhere down the line…, but not here! When milk is not milk, and believe me I bought the regular plain basic whole milk in a reputable normal supermarket, there is something very wrong afoot in our world.

Mould was on top of the milk and on the side of the container whereas the supposed milk inside was smelling “fresh”, not a trace of acidity, not a hint of separation, just and only a whitish liquid that was sold as milk. It should have changed consistency, the acidity level should have gone up, anything could have happened but the creation of mould on top of the milk.

I understand that most people would find this unremarkable, like what was shown on TV the other day. Wine contains sulphite and this is why we got headache. At least that is the way it was shown by the presenter. What they forgot to say is to the extent by which it has been changed these last forty years, and therefore the amount of sulphite used, because the public has been sold some crispy modern wine “enjoyable” to drink.

I have nothing against cold fermentation and the modern technology which is proved to make good wine, after all one hundred and seventy years ago wine was very different to the point that it would shock anybody today, but when they show a winemaker relying only on shortcut to make an easy wine that will sell, at the detriment to better flavour and less headache, it is a bit too much.

So, why are we at this stage?

And this is the good question, with the obvious answer: economics and profitability, not consumer satisfaction and well-being.

First when milk is not milk but transformed in way that it does not deteriorate because of weather or time, what do you call it? Greed-milk?

And then, when winemakers use shortcuts to create easy drinking wine that will keep well for a long time on shelves, BECAUSE of the use of chemicals, why do the general public tolerate it? Because it is cheap and people can get drunk cheaply? Or because it got cheaper to have a headache…, especially if you can have cheap boose, forget for a few hours your problems, and after all you are just following the other sheep that have bought it for so long after having been subjected to heavy advertising (remember the “I was just following orders” excuse).

People are supposed to be able to think for themselves, please use your brain to ask yourself some questions. It is not because we call something modern, or cheap, that this is better consumerism. I do recognise that we live in a changing world, but we should respect basic laws of Nature. Except for some American populists, we all know the problem with climate change. We should not try to add extra problems, but accept the natural order and use it for the benefit of all, not of a few.

There are some difficult questions due to our current situation and our world with slightly bearable answers, modern “milk” is definitely not any kind of answer to the greed of some corporation.