[SCA-AE] Choc. Milk

[Tim Button]

Greetings from Tigranes,

Eirik,

The farm you worked at must have been quite different from our family farm 
and those of our neigbors when I was growing up.  (It was in New York, which 
may explain it, or very much larger than any of the ones around here)  We 
and our neighbors were all members of a cooperative call Eastern Milk 
Producers.  Eastern (and other co-ops) was set up to provide uniform service 
and standards for the farms that belonged to the co-op.

Milk was picked up by an Eastern truck, then taken to a creamery where it 
was tested, processed, then distributed to different bottlers, processors 
(butter, cheese, etc.).  It was impossible to know where "our" milk wound 
up, since it was mixed up with all the other milk from the other farms on 
the tanker driver's route, then mixed with all the milk from the other 
tankers at the creamery, etc. etc.

I don't understand why the concept of reprocessing seems so unusual as to be 
deemed a "wives tale."  Huge quantities of milk are unsold by the "sell by" 
date, and it would be an incredible waste of economic and environmental 
resources to just throw it away.  The process is regulated and monitored by 
the appropriate agencies, just as the milk that comes in direct from the 
farms.  Not all of it is reprocessed into chocolate milk (the demand is not 
that high), and not all of it is even processed into food items.  Glue, 
paint, health and beauty products, etc. use milk, and not all of is is 
obtained direct from the farm.

There are a lot of standard, govt. approved procedures in the food 
processing industry that would make folks swear off the product if the whole 
picture was known.  If the chocolate milk  subject causes this big an 
uproar, let's never try to discuss eating sausage ; )

Tigranes