Man, I’m just stunned this thread even exists. I thought it was going to be a joke thread, along the lines of Ask the guy who stubbed his toe this morning. But it’s a serious thread! I’ve been buying milk in bags for so long it would never occur to me that everyone doesn’t do it. But of course, the milk cartons (and sometimes plastic jugs) are still there in the milk section of the grocery store, so somebody must be buyin’ em. In fact, now that I think of it, there are a lot more of those than bags in the milk section. I’m the one who’s out of step. I’m going to start a thread titled: Ask the guy who didn’t even realize he was weird for buying milk in bags.
I’ve had milk (along with chocolate milk and OJ) from a bag purchased at the Kwik Trip chain of gas stations. That’s the only place I’ve seen it here in WI, though.
That legend is wrong for a very evident reason: America did not provide any help to Spain in the 50s.
Spain was in a similar situation to Cuba’s current position until 1959. No Marshall Plan for Spain. Once NATO (aka “the Americans”) were allowed to set up/use military bases in Spain, “the opening” began, but until then, we were a bunch of fascists and therefore no help for us. It’s just another chapter in the old “our fascists vs their fascists” story.
That’s without even getting into things like “UHT milk wasn’t available in most of Spain in the late 1970s” and “UHT milk is still viewed as a strange thing in the US nowadays, so where would they have gotten it to send to Spain?” Actually, it took over a decade and a change in packaging between that first brand selling it in Barcelona and it starting to be sold in the rest of the country.
I was assuming something similar, and thinking that there’s a business opportunity for a specially-designed pitcher that had a slot to put the spigot in.
The only time I’ve seen milk in a bag was at the food service area at my dorm in college: the milk came in these huge (5-10 gallon) plastic bags with a long plastic tube coming out the corner. The staff had to wrestle the bag into a large stainless steel dispenser, with the tube coming out the dispenser slot. Then they’d have to saw off the end of the tube. The dispenser had a lever that pressed the tube shut for storage; to get the milk, you’d put your glass below the tube, raise the lever to let the stuff flow, then lower the lever when you were done.
Seems to me that the pitcher for the bag milk at Kwik Trip had a slot on the pouring end that allowed you to slide the open corner of the bag in to pinch it shut.
When I first read that, I thought that sounded like a great idea. Upon reflection, though, I’m thinking that if you had to touch the corner of the bag every time to slide it into the slot, it would be worse than the ambient germs in the fridge. Hmmmmm…
I know people who’d use a clothespin to close the opening (two, one from each side of the opening, if they’d cut it too large). You don’t need to touch the actual opening for that.
It’s like that in the US too. Milk has a lot cheaper where I live for the past few months than it was a couple of years ago, I mean almost 50% cheaper…but only if you buy it by the gallon. A gallon costs $2.30-39, half a gallon $1.50-60. When milk was $3.99/gallon, it was $1.90/half gallon, so the gallon price bottomed out but the half gallon price didn’t move nearly as much.
My father-in-law buys his milk in bags there. Kwik Trip has been making forays into Minnesota, so my parents have started buying orange juice in bags there. Don’t think they’ve bought milk in bags yet.
Is this only a Canadian thing? I’ve never seen milk in bags in my life. A quart of milk in a container costs $0.89 or $0.99 here.
In Argentina, almost all milk is sold in plastic bags. (Except, obviously, the shelf-stable box milk.) Most people use pitchers to stabilize the bag once open, but I’ve found that as long as the bag is at least half empty, it can balance just fine in the fridge or on the kitchen table. You just have to be more careful.
Someone upthread asked if it leaked more often. I’d say yes, but not as often as you’d think. That plastic is pretty thick. Plus, it’s a lot easier to check if the bag is sealed tight at the grocery store; just squeeze hard and see if any liquid comes out. You can’t do that with a carton.
I had no idea this was a world-wide thing, though. Maybe it will catch on in the U.S. after people become tired of recycling all that cardboard.
I always hated the cardboard cartons. They don’t seal totally, and sometime the ripped fringey bits of the orifice develop crusty smegs that end up in the milk as floaters. Nearly every place has the plastic jugs which I much prefer. And I am unlikely to get tired of recycling them because I don’t. 