Almost, but not completely, totally unlike milk.
This post from Grau made me think of one of the biggest pains in the ass about prepping (To me, anyway).
Milk. Milk is a pain in the ass because even with good refrigeration, you only get so much life out of it. When I was in Africa we drank a lot of “Long life” milk, which was most of what was available; you could get conventional milk but it was spendy and not easy to come by.
Long Life milk is also available here, under the term “Ultra high temperature” pasteurization, and one of the common brand names is Parmalat.
This stuff has a six month shelf life at room temperature. It’s not horribly expensive, and it’s not horrible.
One other thing: For a very brief time I helped out around a lighthouse. The operator did something I was amused by then and have done ever since. he used plastic ice cube trays to freeze milk and cream. No, you couldn’t exactly bake with it anymore, but it was fine in coffee, which was what he used it for. Think of it; coffee with cream six months from supply. the ice cubed milk brought the coffee to operating temperature and creamed it all in one go. It was a good solution then as now.
If you’re in the middle of the Zombie apocalypse, drinking long life milk and eating tactical bacon will be just fine. If the shit hits the fan, the people who are prepared will be obvious not by their giant trucks filled with arms and ammo, but because they’ll be clean and well fed.
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I’ve been using ultra-pasteurized half and half for years but still find it occasionally takes a wrong turn prematurely, after it’s ruined a cup of brew.
I gave up a couple weeks ago, and it’s black only, now.
Never seen UHTP milk for sale. Is it a grocery store item?
I drink my coffee black, but I do keep some powdered milk on hand. Also some sweetened kiddie drink mixes to add to water that I might have to treat with bleach if boiling is not an option. (Filter the water if you can first with coffee filters or paper towels in a funnel, then add 1/8 teaspoon of non perfumed bleach to a gallon or 1/4 teaspoon to a gallon if the water is very cloudy, very cold, or surface water).
We bought a lot of long-life milk while living in Spain, it was much safe than the Spanish regular milk, which the US Naval Station wouldn’t even accept for sale in the commissary. They actually built a milk processing plant costing millions of dollars rather than use Spanish milk products.
I have to wonder what irradiation would do to milk, though–would it have a longer shelf life that way?
Someone must’ve tried it, I guess.
My grandfather and I used to run out to the farm regularly to hunt, or just visit his brother and family. If they knew we were coming my great aunt would take some of the cream right from the separator after the morning milking and freeze it in an ice cube tray with tooth picks in each cube so that I could have them for a snack or treat that afternoon. If I played my cards right, and helped out around the place I was usually able to get about half a tray of creamcicles out of her.
Back in my ‘under-the-water’ days, I used to have to drink several different type’s of ‘long-life’ milk…not bad for cooking, OR if you put a sweet cereal(like Frosted Flakes) into it, but nothing I could drink a glass of with some cake, or cookies.
Right up there with long-life milk are the soy, almond, and rice milk products. My kids and wife don’t mind them, and I don’t mind the chocolate flavor ones, but please…don’t label it as milk, because it wouldn’t fool anyone.
Og: get the ultra-pateurized milk. Also get acidophilus capsules. Not tablets or pills, the straight stuff in a capsule. When you open a quart of the milk, open a capsule of the bacteria and add it to your milk, shake, and consume. As long as the milk is kept cold, the acidophilus will be slow to multiply and turn your milk to yogurt. This isn’t perfect, but it restores some of the beneficial bacteria to “dead” milk.
In the ME I found a powered milk made by Nestles called Klim. It was actually pretty good and had a pretty much forever shelf life. I suspect that if you sealed a package in a can with an O2 absorber it would go a really long time.
Until just a few years ago there was a brand of powdered milke called “Milkman” it was the only dry milk that I could actually drink without getting nauseous. I used to carry the 1qt. aluminized envelopes of it when hiking, camping, hunting and fishing. One packet in a qt water bottle, then fill with clean water, shake thoroughly and set it in a nice glacial stream to cool. It was good to drink or put on cereal or in coffee or tea. Of course they went out of business. Dammit.
I grew-up drinking powdered milk because we were kinda poor (we prefer the word “frugal”) and my dad could buy big boxes of it and mix it cheaply. It was skim-milk without the fat and it was fortified with vitamins. My folks still have the plastic containers that came with each box.
Overseas in hot and Socialist India we got a 2-litre milk ration from the Govt. store – it tasted funky and a bit gamey. My brother and I (ages 8 and 9) rode our bikes over to the Govt. shop, each with a 1-litre pail/can that had a lid and a handle and with our family’s ration-book, to wait in line for the store to open in the morning before the supply of milk ran-out. Usually we received some local Hindu harassment from adults standing in line who didn’t like “f*ing white monkeys” — and the usual reception of rock-throwing from other kids as we rode home with the milk hanging from out handlebars.
In Spain when I was stumping around with my leg all swollen up from the Brown Recluse bite, to fortify myself I drank Spanish milk from a plastic bag – it was pasteurized and sterilized (?) and designed to last without refrigeration.
Damn WTF now I have a blog post.
“Milk is a pain in the ass because even with good refrigeration, you only get so much life out of it. ”
That’s why God invented cheese.
“It’s not horribly expensive, and it’s not horrible. ”
That is horrible! Not even sure if it’s milk. Milk comes from animals, not machines.
And of course long life milk also comes from animals; now if i could get used to cheese in my coffee, i guess that would be ok.