Milk & Eggs

The other day I found myself in an awkward situation.  We arrived home from vacation to find ourselves out of milk.  It was not our day to pick up milk from our source while the cows are dry.  We could have gone without for awhile if it weren’t for the toddler who kept checking the refrigerator with his cup, hollering “milk! milk!” So I went to the store.

I bet you are all wondering what kind of milk does a dairy farmer buy?  We prefer our own fresh un processed milk, but if that is not available we buy “whole” and “organic”.  In this case it was Horizon’s organic whole milk ½ gallon.

Please forgive us, Organic Valley friends (the competitor).  Horizon is what is available in my local store, and I have a family member who ships their farm’s milk to Horizon.

We buy whole (4%) because we believe the milk fat is good, especially for the kids.   Our own fresh un processed milk has an even higher percentage of milk fat, so sometimes even the “whole” variety seems a little light!

We buy organic because that means it came from cows that were not fed feed that had been sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and chemical fertilizers.  The cows also have not been treated with antibiotics or artificial hormones (rBst, for example).  Organic does not guarantee that the cows are from a dairy that practices grazing or a grass fed, forage based diet.  It also does not guarantee that it has more nutrients.  But it does mean that there are no chemicals or artificial hormones.

I also bought eggs. Say WHAT!!  Easter is upon us, and we do let the kids decorate eggs.  The store had white eggs on sale for $1/dozen.  We do not let the kids eat the colored eggs because of the food dyes. So it made sense to buy the white eggs (which color better) to save some money and we can save our fresh brown eggs for eating. 

I watched the ladies checking each carton of eggs before they put them in their cart.  I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know what I was doing, so I did the same.  I guess I was looking to see if any of them were cracked.  The funny thing is, at home, all we eat are cracks!  So I probably would have bought them anyway….

If you didn’t know, we do have fresh eggs for sale, $2.25/dozen.  Spring, summer and fall the chickens are outside scratching in the grass and the yolks are bright orange as compared to the yellow yolks you find at the store.  Drop by and pick up a dozen-I promise you there won’t be any cracks….we probably already ate them!