Recently, I shared with you the story of my great-grandmother’s backyard cow, and how she helped to provide milk for our family and many of the neighbors. Sounds great, right? But is it really better than the way we get our milk today? Bear with me for a minute, and let’s talk about the food safety side of getting milk from that backyard cow.
In the early 1900’s, the icebox was the way to keep food cold. But it didn’t keep things as cold for as long as our refrigerators do today. And if the iceman was late or couldn’t get through on time, you were out of luck. Most people would just get the amount of milk they needed for their families for that day, or maybe the next. People didn’t really keep milk around for a few days to longer than a week, the way we do today, but that doesn’t mean that food safety wasn’t a concern then.
So… what was in the bucket before the milk? Was the bucket clean? Did my great-grandmother wash her hands before she milked Betsy? Did she clean the dirt and manure off Betsy’s udder before she milked her? How healthy was Betsy? Was she on a good diet? What fell in the bucket of milk during milking or on the walk home? How did the neighbor store the milk when she got home? Was it kept in the icebox? How long did it take them to finish it?
Today, dairy farms and milk are regulated to minimize these types of risk. Did you know that no hands actually touch the milk before it gets to your house? And chances are, unless you’re dunking your cookies into your glass of milk, no one touches the milk at your house, either!
On the dairy farm, very strict procedures are followed to be sure that your milk is safe. First and foremost, the cows are very well taken care of and fed a carefully balanced diet. Any cow who is sick is milked separately, and her milk is dumped out (not used for our food). Before the cows are milked, their udders are inspected and cleaned, and a small sample of milk is checked for any obvious evidence of a problem. A milking machine that uses gentle vacuum pressure to milk the cows is attached to the udder, and when the udder is empty the machine automatically detaches. The milk goes through a series of stainless steel pipes, is cooled, and is stored either on a truck (ready to be picked up and head out to the processor), or in a large tank (ready to be put on a truck when the pickup man comes).
No one ever touches your milk! How cool is that?
This is as close as hands ever get to milk, and he’s wearing gloves while he’s working!
Once it leaves the farm, milk is put through a number of tests – looking for things like bacteria, cell count, any medications, and the protein and butterfat content. There are very strict regulations for the bacteria, cell count, and medications. If any medications are found in the milk, the entire tank is dumped out, and the farmer has to pay for it. If the bacteria and cell count are kept under a certain level (these are related to the health and well-being of the cows), the farmer get paid a premium for his milk. (All milk has some bacteria in it – this is why raw milk can be so dangerous.) If the protein and butterfat are above a certain level (this is related to the cows’ diet), the farmer also gets paid a premium for his milk.
Once the milk passes all its tests, it is pasteurized (to kill any of those pesky bacteria), homogenized, and bottled. Then it’s shipped out to grocery stores. Milk gets from the cow to your grocery store in just two days! That’s pretty “fresh off the farm,” if you ask me! Every dairy product that you purchase (milk, yogurt, cream, cottage cheese) has a stamp on it. This stamp includes the plant number where the milk was processed. Check out the code on your bottle of milk and head on over to WhereIsMyMilkFrom.com to find out where it came from. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised to see that the milk in your refrigerator came from practically your own backyard! (The code on our milk is 21008, and this gallon came from just 2 hours away from our house.)
So it turns out, that even though it sounds like a great way to get your milk, that heading over to the neighbor’s house with a bucket and a nickel may not be the safest way to get your milk. Today’s milk handling and testing systems are amazing at preventing possible contamination and sickness. And most milk is sold locally, too!
If you really want to get to know where your milk comes from, or how dairy farmers take care of their cows, ask around! Many dairies offer tours of their farms so you can see, first-hand, how hard farmers work to make sure their cows are happy and healthy. Check with your local Farm Bureau or Extension office, contact your state’s dairy association, search on Facebook, or use your favorite search engine to find a dairy farm near you that you can visit. There’s a pretty good chance that you just might be drinking their milk! (These are the dairy farms in Indiana.)
Read more about how cows are milked and the milk is handled before it reaches your grocery store:
{This post was sponsored by Indiana’s Family of Farmers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.}
- Other posts in this series:
- Milk from our backyard
- Food safety and milk
- Dairy farm sizes
- Food costs
Great article Marybeth! I know that the girls and I loved going to Fair Oaks Dairy. Now I need to take them back to see the pig farm they have.