I’ve noticed that when my SO opens a fresh container of milk, he shakes it before opening. I asked him why, and he said it needs to be shaken because some stuff settles. I have never done this myself, and have never heard of it.
This is not chocolate or strawberry flavored milk, it’s regular old 2%.
Anyone else shake their milk? Is it necessary?
Back in the day milk might have needed shaking - and I do mean back in the day, when milk was delivered whole and in glass bottles and the cream rose to the top. Milk from the grocery store nowadays, however, is homogenized, so it’s unnecessary. I bet your SO learned to shake the milk from his mother, who may have remembered it from her youth or even have learned it from her own mother, and passed it along as something that “needs to be done.”
I still do this. For a while as a child, a friend of ours provided milk from her dairy herd. You soon learned to shake it up, because the cream rose to the top. So 30 years later I’m still shaking my milk.
StG
I used to live on a dairy farm, so we had fresh unhomogenized mild straight from the source. You had to shake it to mix on the cream, and it became a habit. I still do it, even with skim milk - I can’t help myself.
That’s what homogenization is for. Unhomogenized = need to shake it. Homogenized = no shaking needed.
We have two children who drink milk like it’s going out of style.
Consequently, we buy 5-6 gallons of milk at a time and stick them in the freezer.
When we notice the milk in the fridge is about 2/3 gone, we pull out a gallon from the freezer and let it thaw.
I think freezing the milk separates the cream, because I have noticed if we don’t shake the now-unfrozen milk, it tastes watery.
Exactly what he said, to the letter.
I shake milk. I like the bubbles it forms.
When I was in middle school I would shake the milk (skim) because I thought it made it taste colder.
To the letter? Couldn’t you have corrected my typos? 
I shake my milk up before I open it. I never thought about why I do it until now. I guess I can quit doing it.
I used to shake it all of the time, without realizing it. I liked the bubbles too. One day my brother-in-law saw me and questioned the act. He said that it made milk go bad faster.
I stopped shaking milk then. I don’t know if it is true, but it makes sense: if there are some rotten-milk organisms in a certain part of the bottle, shaking will distribute them throughout the good milk. Additionally, shaking or agitation speeds up chemical reactions. Sounds plausible to me.
Even homogenized milk can settle slightly out of its emulsion.
Plus, I like bubbles 
What’s wrong with shaking milk containers?
Oh, wait. You mean cow’s milk!
Carry on.
Yes, I have relatives that had dairy farms and used to drink still warm milk. But we didn’t shake it. Don’t know why.
OTOH, I will shake any beverage that comes in a cardboard carton. It helps get rid of the staleness somehow. (Maybe loosens stuff that stuck to the side?)
I sometimes still see a little cream on the top of whole milk (but when was the last time I bought that???) and so some shaking is needed then.
I buy whole milk and I’ve never once seen cream on the top of it. Wonder what’s the deal?
Ditto here. The kids at school thought milk bubbles were gross. Granted, it was elementary school, but what’s gross about milk and air?
Grampa always shook it when he was a kid because the cream rose to the top.
“I buy whole milk and I’ve never once seen cream on the top of it. Wonder what’s the deal?”
It’s called homogenized.
I buy Organic Whole milk from Trader Joes, $4.99/gal & the cream is right at the top, sometimes clogs the neck of the bottle.