Raw milk can be unsafe, pasteurization saves lives. I’m surprised this hasn’t been removed from the FDA site yet: The Dangers of Raw Milk: Unpasteurized Milk Can Pose a Serious Health Risk | FDA
He lives in Germany, and I do not know what the regulations are there.
ETA it is legal to buy/sell it, which makes sense as it is not like he is buying it on the black market, but there are obviously a whole lot of regulations which may or may not make it less of a Russian roulette.
Wikipedia says
I like the taste - I liked it even more when the taste was more pronounced - not for every application (it’s not so nice in tea), but on cereal, in coffee, or just as a glass of milk, I often preferred the slightly sweeter and more creamy flavour of UHT.
I’ve been afraid to try raw milk since bird flu started to be found in it, but I’ve had it from two different farms. One was super fresh and rich and delicious. The other tasted ever so slightly off, and not as good as pasteurized. So I’m going to say it depends on the producer (and probably the freshness, but also, their sanitation.)
“New”? My flatmates and I bought UHT milk frequently when I was in Scotland in 1989-91.
Yeah, it’s been around for some time. I remember it in the 80s when I lived in Germany. I thought it was awful to drink, but might use it for cooking.
It tastes like any other ultra-pasteurized milk. Some people can detect a difference, others don’t. All that “ultra-pasteurized” means it is heated to a greater temperature than regular pasteurized milk, nothing is added to it. There are no chemicals other than what is naturally produced by the cow and no preservatives other than the pasteurization process and sealing it up really well. The higher temp extends the shelf life.
The only thing you can’t do with ultra-pasteurized milk vs. regular pasteurized milk is that you can’t use the UP milk for making cheese. That’s a pretty niche application that most people don’t worry about.
Yes. I have in fact done so because I live alone and don’t drink/use that much liquid milk and the shelf-stable stuff comes in packages of a size I’d use up rapidly once opened but otherwise keeps for months, reducing my food waste.
Absolutely use. I’ve also used it for making hot cocoa from scratch.
Aside from flavored UP milk (I’ve seen vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate varieties) there is nothing in UP milk other than milk.
No. It’s made shelf-stable by using a more intense heating/pasteurization process then sealing it very thoroughly to prevent any bacteria or other nasties from getting into it.
Once you open it you need to put in the refrigerator. If you leave it on the counter you’ll have a bacteria colony just like any other milk.
As long as it is refrigerated promptly the UP milk does have a longer “refrigerator shelf life” than regular milk does, which is also useful.
I’ve been purchasing quarts of UHT milk for awhile now because I use them fast enough they don’t go bad. I mark the date I open them with a sharpie so I have some idea how long they’ve been in there. I’ve though of getting some more packaged to be shelf-stable for “just in case”, but honestly I get most of my dairy in the form of either cheese or baked into my food in one way or another. Also bring one or two of the small “kid” containers on camping trips where keeping things properly chilled is a bit problematic.
Yeah, the reconstituted powdered stuff is vile. But I use it in cooking and so far no one has complained in about 40 years of kitchen witchery.
It also depends on the cow.
Different breeds of cattle have different amounts of fat content in their milk. Also what the cow eats. And cows, being critters, are individuals and have individual variations in their milk - that is, after al, where the traits to breed different varieties of dairy cattle came from.
During covid I bought a couple cases of evaporated milk, (not sweetened condensed) and it worked out just fine for occasional milk needs. Dilute about 50/50 with water and you have milk.
It absolutely tastes a bit different than fresh milk, has that slightly cooked taste, but it’s milky enough in a pinch.
That and shelf stable lunch box packs of milk are great options for campout coffee creamer purposes. No refrigeration, small size, and a few adults can make their coffee just right and toss out/drink the remainder before you break camp.
Marketing is one thing, but those packs of UHT milk have been around for 60 years:
My sister’s first husband was a farm boy whose parents had a couple of cows. The milk went from the cow to the milking machine to the bulk tank in the basement to the half-gallon jar in the fridge to the table. He would also give my mother some every now and then, so I drank a lot of raw milk when I was a kid.
When I first tried it, i thought it was awful. Now i think it tastes fine, and only slightly different from regular pasteurized milk. I am older and my sense of taste isn’t as good as it used to be, but i think it’s actually gotten a lot better, and tastes less different than it used to.
I think it’s not just the UHT pasteurization but also the aseptic packaging that’s needed.
I grew up in Pakistan in the 1970s and 80s. Electricity was unreliable and so was refrigeration. The bulk milk supply (you would buy milk from a shop that dispensed it into glass bottles you brought to the shop) was frequently compromised by both spoilage and adulteration.
UHT milk introduced in the early 1980s to the market revolutionized safe access to milk for tens of millions. When I got to the US as a young adult, I was puzzled to see that it was not available in grocery stores.
I have worked in food retail for most of the last 25 years. Various supermarkets and convenience store operators, or consultants who work for them.
UHT milk availability has been increasing very slowly. It is available in three of the four major supermarket chains in this are right now. For us, sales are a tiny fraction of 1% of all milk sales.
Oh yes also: One factor that slowed down initial acceptance of UHT in my location (PR) was the local dairy lobby, who as could be imagined was concerned about shipfuls of UHT from a lower-cost jurisdiction docking at the port. Lots of clamor about the importance of freshness and the value of hometown farms (and their sweet sweet price subsidies). Same happened in some US states apparently. However after 1998 and hurricane Georges the public in this island was like “screw that, cook the hometown milk if you must, I will pay for something that gets me thru the power outages”.
It is hyper pasteurized before sealing - not sure but orginally some were irradiated.
That said, I have gastroparesis now, so I can eat like one small solid food meal a day, and use whole milk and bariatric fusion meal replacement swill for the rest of my nutritional needs and it is nasty when made with just water and I calculate the nutritional values with whole milk [I want the fat content for nutritional absorbtion]
I find it tastes slightly ‘flatter’ that fresh whole milk [I will not hazard skim as I have never tried it] but in addition to my shakes, I have used it in baking and making a classic egg custard [using powdered whole eggs, actually] and in a bechamel sauce. All just fine. If I didn’t know it was shelf stable, I would not have noticed [the egg in the custard coming from powdered did have a slight textural difference but tasted fine]
I like to keep a quart in the pantry in case we run out of fresh milk. I’ve been doing so for 2 decades, it’s been available in the greater Boston area since the 90s.
Americans have had larger refrigerators than those in Europe or elsewhere for a long time, so shelf-stable milk didn’t offer much advantage. And it seems to be more expensive than conventional milk.
Many things puzzled me when I came to the US. Most of the ones related to food and its supply chain no longer puzzle me since I’ve been in the business for 25.
I have a Walmart paid membership and always use delivery. It’s worth letting delivery shop for me. I tip generously.
Local Walmart only stocks 12 packs of 8 oz Horizon Organic Shelf Stable Whole Milk
6 packs are next day shipping. Probably from the closest Walmart distribution hub.
I feel a little guilty using shipping. But Walmart made this necessary. Not me.
Anyway, I’d bet there’s a Walmart distribution hub within 40 miles of my home.
6 bottles for use when I don’t have regular milk will last me several months.
I may need to make a point to use it before it expires.
I always keep a few cartons of shelf stable milk in the pantry for use if I run out of fresh milk. I don’t think it tastes significantly different.