What’s the difference between whole milk, 2%, 1% and skim milk? Obviously the fat content is different but what are the other differences? Is skim milk really just watered down whole milk? If so, what are the various ratios?
The reason I ask is because we are currently going through a gallon of milk every other day. And my kids are only six, four and two. I’ll go broke once they older!
My thought process is this: While shopping for our 2% milk, I noticed that all milk (whole, 2%, skim, etc. – but not chocolate milk) costs $3.00 a gallon. So if 2% is really just watered down whole milk, then can’t I just buy a gallon of whole milk and water it down to make 2% (or 1% or skim) and save boatloads of money?
My wife thinks I’m crazy but I think I’m on to something. Help me out!
However, please don’t bother with the “milk is bad for you” posts.
Guinastasia is right. They aren’t adding water, they’re taking out fat. There are a lot of other “solids” in milk. Watered down milk lacks in calcium, protein and vitamins.
Having seen three kids through childhood and adolescence, I’ve had a lot of milk go through my house. Here’s what we did.
“Whole” milk generally has 3.5% - 4.0% (give or take) fat content. The fat has been whipped, or “homogenized” so it’s evenly spread through the milk, instead of collecting at the top.
I take a gallon of whole milk and mix it with a gallon of reconstituted nonfat dry milk. This gives the powdered milk mix some flavor, spreads the fat content down to approximately 2% and cuts your milk bill tremendously.
After some tinkering I refined the process:
a 1:1 mixture of whole milk and dry milk seemed a little thin. I cut the mix back to 12 cups of reconsituted dry milk to 16 cups of whole milk. Adjust the mixture to taste.
Mix the milk the night before. Having both parts of the mix chilled down to refrigertator temperature helps the taste.
If your little locusts – er – growing young children don’t exhaust the supply the first day, stir it agaion every day.
And, yeah, they’ll be drinking a lot more of it before they taper off.
Thanks for the link. The charts help make it much clearer that the fat is removed, and all the good stuff is left. If it were just as simple as adding water than the nutrient levels would have also been diluted. Guess I could just give them Flintstones vitamins!
Well, we are actually a 2% household. The rules we went by were: 1) no cows milk for the first year, 2) whole milk from age one to age two, and 3) then 2% for another couple years.
Boy does that bring back bad memories! I don’t know that mom ever mixed dry milk with regular milk, but she did try to switch it out on us a few times. It never went over well. Of course, I was in for a shock when we moved to Saudi Arabia and “milk” was sold in little liter boxes that didn’t need refrigeration. I was in 4th grade and looking back I’m sure I was told exactly what the “milk” was, but I can’t remember now. It took a while to get used to though.
Because the fat that they remove in order to make it skim milk has its own value. The fat that’s removed is “cream”, you know, used in whipping cream, half and half, etc. So, the dairies reduce the price of skim milk, but then sell the cream in other ways. My WAG would be that, overall, they make more money selling the milk separately from the cream, and that’s why they price it a little cheaper. See, if they priced it the same, more people would buy whole or 2%, thereby cutting into the dairies profits longterm.
A pint of skimmed milk contains marginally more calcium, protein, minerals (and water) than a pint of full-fat milk; please note that this isn’t the same as saying that removing the fat increases the amount of the other components, just that if you have a full pint of each, the space that would have been taken up by fat now contains a proportional mix of the other components.
BLECCCH! My Dad tried to pull this on us, but their were protests! Every once and a while he’d try to slip that rancid concoction into out discerning palets, but never succeeded. What did you use to dull your children’s taste buds?
