I just bought some skim milk in bags for the first time. The bags themselves are blue. Presumably, this is to hide the rather unappetizing bluish color of skim milk and make it look white.
Now, I’ve been told that milk in bags is a uniquely Canadian thing, or at least some Americans have told me they’ve never seen milk in bags. Is this true, or is milk available in bags in some areas of the US? Milk in jugs is rare here, except for in 7-11 and similar stores, which have 500 mL, 1 L, 2 L and 4 L jugs. (Bagged milk comes in three bags with a total of 4 L.)
Also, are there any other blue packages used for skim milk, besides these blue bags? Are gallon jugs in the US now blue-colored to make the milk look white, or do they just depend on the translucency of the jug?
I’ve seen milk in bags here in Wisconsin, though it was more in 7-11 type stores than groceries. I seem to remember it being in gallon or half-gallon bags. It’s been a while, though, since my brothers and I were young enough that milk was an absolute necessity and we couldn’t just wait for the grocery store to open the next morning. I’ve no idea what it’s like now.
In my experience, drinking milk (whole, 2%, 1%, skim) comes mostly in clear plastic gallon and half-gallon jugs. Anything heavier than that (cream, half-and-half) comes in paper cartons and in smaller quantities, pints or quarts as opposed to gallons.
Here’s a link to Swiss Valley Farm’s page about what type of milk comes in what size and type of container. They’re a popular co-op in the upper Midwest.
I’ve never seen milk sold in bags in the US that was intended for home consumption. Milk intended for dispensers is in bags, presumably to save space.
The half-gallon jug I just bought is the standard half-gallon milk jug; that is, translucent white, sort of like a frosted light bulb. The milk does look different from the 2% sitting next to it in that the skim looks thinner and the 2% looks more opaque. Other than that, there is no difference in jugs.
I don’t know how things work in Canada, but milk for sale is sort of color-coded. In Pennsylvania, where I live, red cap and label is whole milk, purple is 2%, green label with white cap is 1%, and yellow is skim. I’m thinking the blue bag is just to indicate that you’re buying skim milk, and not to disguise the milk. Next time you go to the grocery store, see how the others are colored.
American consumers are not going to go for milk in bags any time soon, dude. Ick.
A lot of milk here is going to opaque (yellow-beige) containers because it preserves freshness. Otherwise, they’re clear - skim milk dosen’t look blue to me at all, and certainly not by the gallon. By the glass, maybe.
I think that depends more on the store than the region. Weis Markets code their milk one way (red-whole, blue-lowfat (1% and 2%), pink-skim). Giant code theirs another way (red-whole, blue-lowfat, yellow-skim).
Mayfield Farms bottles their milk in bright yellow plastic. Their ads claim that exposure to light speeds spoiling. Since milk is really only exposed to a lot of light in the store, I’m not convinced that their packaging makes that big a difference. But I buy Mayfield anyway because I remember visiting their dairy and petting Rosie the cow when I was a kid.
I’ll have to check if the caps are color-coded the next time I go to a 7-11. I remember, at least, that some of the caps are blue and the chocolate milk caps are brown. The 2 L cartons of milk here have caps, but IIRC they’re not color-coded. Could it be that the color codes are left over from the days of milk delivery, when the cap was the only way to tell the milk types apart?
The Swiss Valley site matches what I remember of American milk (from NY) – gallon and half-gallon jugs (as opposed to 4 L packages of 3 bags and 2 L cartons in Canada), and both cartons and jugs for most of the smaller sizes. The 2 L cartons have been around as long as I remember (since the 80s), and they were really awkward to pour before they had caps on the side. Jugs are definitely better than cartons at that size.
It’s possible that all milk comes in blue bags now, to protect it from light. I’ve never bought bagged milk myself before, so it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a bag of milk. My parents once bought bags (clear bags of 2%), but they switched to cartons long ago. So maybe, in the 10 or 12 years since I’ve seen a bag of milk, they’ve all become blue. Or maybe only the ‘premium’ brands are blue.
Farmers in Nova Scotia produces unusual rectangular TetraPaks of milk with plastic tops and a cap, which is always yellow. When I first saw one, I wanted to keep it as a souvenir – then it started to smell.
I drink only nonfat skim, as it’s the only kind of milk that doesn’t give me stomach aches.
I’ve never noticed the milk itself is blue. It does look thinner than regular milk. I’ve also only seen the bags 'o milk up in Canada (I think they were white), and you could buy the specially-shaped pitchers to put the milk bags in. I remember thinking they were pretty nifty and economical, seems like a lot less packaging than the hard plastic cartons. I rarely buy milk because it usually goes bad before I can drink it all, but 1L bags would be convenient as would the reusable pitchers. I wish they’d get them here.
Kwik Trip, a chain of convenience stores in this area, sells milk in bags. I can’t remember when they started, but I think it was at least 10 years ago. You can see what they look like here.
When I worked in a restaurant we had big two or three gallon bags of milk for the milk dispenser. But those had a nozzle that was threaded through a weighted clamp-like device. You chopped off the end of the nozzle with a pair of scizzors and then lifted the clamp and the milk came out.
But I hardly see how one could store an amorphous blob of milk in a refrigerator.
They used to have milk in bags in NZ, but that’s a few years ago. They used to also sell plastic jugs sized exactly for the bag. But it’s all cardboard containers and plastic bottles now.
Lid colours:
Purple/grey - full fat
blue - standard 3%
green - trim 0.1%
yellow - calcitrim 0.1% plus added calcium.
I saw milk bags a couple of years ago at the house of a friend of mine, in rural Wisconsin. His family was pretty poor, and I think he said that bagged milk was cheaper.
I was astonished when I saw milk in bags at my Canadian friend’s home. They graciously gave me a demonstration of using some plastic container-with-a-handle into which you placed the milk bag. After you snipped off one corner you simply picked up the whole conraption and poured i out. The plastic thing kept the bag upright. It seemed kind of iffy to me at the time – if you used one f the American containers you didn’t have to worry about the milk spilling out if you knocked it over, and if you screwed the top on ight you could even store the milk sideways. ith the Canadian bag it aways seemed a little insecure. Plus the milk was always open, ready to absorb the odor and taste of whatever was next to it in the fridge.
I’ve never seen it in the States, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they carried it in towns near the border.
How bizzar! And what a pain I might add. It kind of makes those midnight trips to the cookie jar and then drinking the milk straight from the carton a pain in the ass to do. If at all.
/spoiled American.
I’ve lived in the US all my life and I’ve never seen milk in bags. In my experience, milk comes in cartons or jugs.
I find the concept of milk in a bag to be bizarre and slightly disturbing and I would be happy if you Canadians kept your unsuspected perversions to yourselves.
(Geez. Next you’ll be telling me that there are French-speaking communities on this continent outside Louisiana.)
One cool aspect of milk-in-a-bag is its cousin, hand-sized chocolate-milk-in-a-bag, which actually has several advantages over cartons. You bite off one end, then squeeze it tight while sucking at the hole, squirting chocolate-y goodness down your throat at high velocity. It’s both delicious, and appealing to that primal breastfeeding instinct.
