Curiosity Question for our Dairy Farmer Members

[Hillcrest]

I recently bought a gallon of store brand whole milk. It was stale dated about 2 weeks out. After a few days it began to develop a slight corn flavor which got progressively stronger each day, like ghosting in a pipe. When I got to half a gallon I replaced it and threw out the rest as it was too strong to consume. I notice this happens periodically. I did some quick research and apparently this is a known problem; there having been a study in 1829 which found that cows being fed more than 15 pounds of feed (often corn silk) one hour prior to milking will transmute the feed flavors into the milk. More than 35 pounds of feed and and milk is undrinkable. I try to buy milk from family farms but occasionally get stuck with store brand when its unavailable.

Is that all this was or was the milk going bad ? It didn't appear to be souring or curdling and was cold ,.. just tasted like corn.

Also, I just found out yesterday there is a dairy farm less than 10 minutes away that has a bakery/store front that sells their own milk and cream (and hmmmm ...fruit pies!) and I will be trying that next but I am curious about the corn flavor if anyone has further insight. Thanks so much for any insight.

 

[The Benedictine]

It's all it was. When cows feast on something their milk might take on the flavor of what they were eating. A common one is wild onions. Goat's milk does the same thing.

 

[Hillcrest]

It's all it was. When cows feast on something their milk might take on the flavor of what they were eating. A common one is wild onions. Goat's milk does the same thing.

O.K. I was surprised, that it, for lack of a better word, it 'fermented' or got stronger over a few days. Well, I guess this thread can be locked also ...

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

 

[Briar Lee]

I recently bought a gallon of store brand whole milk. It was stale dated about 2 weeks out. After a few days it began to develop a slight corn flavor which got progressively stronger each day, like ghosting in a pipe. When I got to half a gallon I replaced it and threw out the rest as it was too strong to consume. I notice this happens periodically. I did some quick research and apparently this is a known problem; there having been a study in 1829 which found that cows being fed more than 15 pounds of feed (often corn silk) one hour prior to milking will transmute the feed flavors into the milk. More than 35 pounds of feed and and milk is undrinkable. I try to buy milk from family farms but occasionally get stuck with store brand when its unavailable.

Is that all this was or was the milk going bad ? It didn't appear to be souring or curdling and was cold ,.. just tasted like corn.

Also, I just found out yesterday there is a dairy farm less than 10 minutes away that has a bakery/store front that sells their own milk and cream (and hmmmm ...fruit pies!) and I will be trying that next but I am curious about the corn flavor if anyone has further insight. Thanks so much for any insight.

I have a gold medal in my stuff somewhere from being 3rd individual in Missouri at the 1973 FFA Dairy Products competition. And my father was a Grade A Fluid Milk producer.

In 1973, and likely even more-so today, all commercial fluid milk will have a slight feed (corn) flavor. The finest cream (which flavors the milk) comes from grass fed cows, and even fifty years ago in a small one man dairy, my father had to feed a supplemental corn based ration to his cows, which had three acres of lush pastures per milker, and fed the best alfalfa in the winter.

Today the dairy products competitions are even more rigorous than 1973.

Raw milk straight from the cow is nasty, vile, and extremely dangerous for humans to drink. Any disease that cow has goes straight to you and may put you in the graveyard, and if you survive you are dog sick. I’ve known this since I was a child. Before modern pasteurized and homogenized safe, cold, fresh milk was sold all recipes for milk required it be scalded, to kill bacteria.

Fluid milk is a first world luxury. My father’s milk parlor was surgically clean. The milk had to be refrigerated and stirred constantly and milk trucks with long hoses sucked the cold milk into stainless steel tanks where it was whisked to enormous stainless steel tanks at the Hiland Coop where some kind of scientific black magic made it safe, pure, pasteurized, homogenized and exactly a certain percentage of milk fat.

When dairy farmers only sold cream, the skim milk used to be used on the farm to fatten hogs. It will fatten you the same way, if you drink too much.

The dairy farmers have an excellent PR machine.

Milk It Does a Body Good

 

[The Benedictine]

I have a gold medal in my stuff somewhere from being 3rd individual in Missouri at the 1973 FFA Dairy Products competition. And my father was a Grade A Fluid Milk producer.

In 1973, and likely even more-so today, all commercial fluid milk will have a slight feed (corn) flavor. The finest cream (which flavors the milk) comes from grass fed cows, and even fifty years ago in a small one man dairy, my father had to feed a corn based ration to his cows, which had three acres of lush pastures per milker.

Today the dairy products competitions are even more rigorous than 1973.

Raw milk straight from the cow is nasty, vile, and extremely dangerous for humans to drink. Any disease that cow has goes straight to you and may put you in the graveyard, and if you survive you are dog sick. I’ve known this since I was a child. Before modern pasteurized and homogenized safe, cold, fresh milk was sold all recipes for milk required it be scalded, to kill bacteria.

Fluid milk is a first world luxury. My father’s milk parlor was surgically clean. The milk had to be refrigerated and stirred constantly and milk trucks with long hoses sucked the cold milk into stainless steel tanks where it was whisked to enormous stainless steel tanks at the Hiland Coop where some kind of scientific black magic made it safe, pure, pasteurized, homogenized and exactly a certain percentage of milk fat.

When dairy farmers only sold cream, the skim milk used to be used on the farm to fatten hogs. It will fatten you the same way, if you drink too much.

The dairy farmers have an excellent PR machine.

Milk It Does a Body Good

On my grandparent's farm in France they raise Normande cattle. They treat the milk with UHT pasteurization. This makes it shelf stable until it is open. Raw milk in France is very rare; only certain niche stores carry it.

We raised Chèvre des Fossés goats for milk and meat just west of Paris. We also utilized UHT for that as well.

My sister has a herd of nubians here in Indiana. We use slow pasteurization on the milk. We sell the milk and meat at the Linton farmers market. So many regulations and fees that we have to price the milk and meat at a premium. It sells, especially to the Hispanics.

We also have 2 pet Boer/Nigerian dwarf goats. I have told my sister that I'm interested in getting pigs. We have 2 pet pigs here; a Vietnamese Pot Belly and a Juliana.

 

[Sig]

Our cows eat very little corn. They mostly graze and forage, plus scraps from our gardens....and some corn or alfalfa silage in winter.
Most people think our milk tastes "strong"....like more milky strong.
We only milk when the cows haven't eaten in awhile, mostly because they behave better honestly.
To kinda answer your question, yes it could be from their diet. If its pasteurized, it should be safe. Heck, even yellow, chunky milk is safe to drink...or, a eat. Your stomach may reject it, but its not toxic.

 

[Hillcrest]

Our cows eat very little corn. They mostly graze and forage, plus scraps from our gardens....and some corn or alfalfa silage in winter.
Most people think our milk tastes "strong"....like more milky strong.
We only milk when the cows haven't eaten in awhile, mostly because they behave better honestly.
To kinda answer your question, yes it could be from their diet. If its pasteurized, it should be safe. Heck, even yellow, chunky milk is safe to drink...or, a eat. Your stomach may reject it, but its not toxic.

That type of milk I'd like to try ! Plus maybe if the cow ate sweet virginia tobacco that would go well with my coffee !!!

 

[Briar Lee]

There are 11.6 gallons of milk per 100 pounds of milk to the dairy plant, or about 7 pounds of butter, or 11 pounds of cheese.


Milk, butter and cheese are commodities. The makers use pretty girls and little kids and fancy labels to sell the product but it is all exactly the same, per grade.

Sixty years ago the price supports for Grade A milk were about $5 per hundred and my father was a good, modern, progressive farmer who probably averaged 50 pounds of milk per cow per day, instead of the over 100 today which is average.

The milk checks came twice a month. My job was to fetch it to Daddy who would explain it to me, how they paid so much for butterfat count, deducted for things, and it was always $900 and sometimes it was as much as $1,500.

Then I’d take it to Mama, who was in charge of all the money. I mean every penny.

Daddy kept checks in the glove compartment. He never stubbed one, and never balanced the checkbook.

Milk, butter, and cheese were all about a dollar a pound in 1965.



The July 2025 Grade A fluid milk price is $18.82



To have kept up with inflation the current price ought to be around $50.

Milk should be $10 a gallon.

The price of cheap milk, butter and cheese in the stores is the impoverishment of America’s heartland.

Those old dairy farmers then could milk twenty five head and maybe up to fifty, without help, by themselves.

Xxxx
More than 10,000 undocumented immigrant workers perform an estimated 70% of the labor on Wisconsin dairy farms, according to an April 2023 survey by the School for Workers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Despite increasingly hostile national political rhetoric about immigrants, Wisconsin farmers are heavily dependent on this unauthorized workforce. Without them, the whole dairy industry would collapse overnight. State and national farm lobby groups have pushed for a change in U.S. law to create a visa program for year-round, low-skilled farm workers on dairies. Under the current system, only seasonal agricultural workers and those with special technical skills can qualify for visas, which is why most of Wisconsin’s dairy workers are undocumented.
Xxxx

I used to go to Humansville about once a month, then once a season, and now hardly at all, except to decorate graves.

Where proud homes stood, are fat mothers on falling down porches yelling at dirty ragged children playing in the pot holed streets lined with empty Fireball bottles to get out of the way of my car.

I understand now, the meaning of Rank Strangers.

 

[JoburgB2]

Barf. I’ve had no interest or desire to drink a glass of milk in decades. Carry on, however, with whatever you fancy. But no thanks.

 

[Briar Lee]

Barf. I’ve had no interest or desire to drink a glass of milk in decades. Carry on, however, with whatever you fancy. But no thanks.

You are not alone.

Per capita gallons of fluid milk consumption in the USA are lower today than 1909 when records were first kept. In 1909 only the wealthy could afford fluid milk. Only 20% of USA milk production is for fluid milk.

Where the huge growth has been is manufactured dairy products like powdered milk, butter, and cheese.

And one tanker truck you see out of six on the roads is exported, mainly to Mexico and China.

Mexico Has Become America’s Most Reliable Dairy Customer - CoBank Site - CoBank

Domestic dairy product consumption has climbed to the highest levels in over six decades and dairy exports are close to record levels.

www.cobank.com

Milk is much like tobacco.

You don’t have to have it to live.

The reason people like it is either fat, or nicotine.

 

[Hillcrest]

Dairy Products competition

I could see myself a Judge for something like that ! Unlike some others here I love dairy products and always have.
Low fat milk is the fastest way for an athlete to rehydrate ... the whole purpose of Gatorade was to try to invent a manmade alternative to lowfat milk. Its in their company history.

 

[Hillcrest]

Barf. I’ve had no interest or desire to drink a glass of milk in decades. Carry on, however, with whatever you fancy. But no thanks.

More for me !!

 

[Hillcrest]

You don’t have to have it to live.

I think I do and actually at one time my brother had to survive on it alone for a few weeks.

 

[The Benedictine]

More for me !!

I love milk. Goat's milk is my favorite. It reminds me of home.

 

[Briar Lee]

I could see myself a Judge for something like that ! Unlike some others here I love dairy products and always have.
Low fat milk is the fastest way for an athlete to rehydrate ... the whole purpose of Gatorade was to try to invent a manmade alternative to lowfat milk. Its in their company history.

When I did it, they’d just stopped taste testing cheeses. We did taste and score fluid milk and cottage cheese, and we did identify all the other cheeses but didn’t taste score them. Even then most of the competition was a written exam about milk production and processing and dairy products safety.

The best milk or cottage cheese score then was a 9, it all was slightly feedy.

They taught us how to doctor good milk to have taste defects using cardboard, garlic, nails, and leaving it out past the expired date. All milk that gets bottled has to be tasty, or the tasters won’t ship it, they make it into cheese instead.

And the worst was never lower than a 5, because sickening or killing an FFA kid was rather out of the question.

We could not possibly have imagined a world in 1973 where superstition, pseudo science and ignorance would overthrow generations of careful development of what was once a dangerous product that spread disease and death. It was beyond our imagination.

Al Capone was one of the founding fathers of milk safety. His sister got sick from bad milk. Scarface only sold safe products. He required his dairies put expiration dates on the homogenized and pasteurized safe milk he sold.

We knew we were part of selling a treat that would put a gut on you.

I never saw my mother drink a glass of milk in my life!

By the way, in 1973 and maybe even today, the very best of the best milk went into those little eight ounce school lunch cartons.

Because the school boards had us all taste it to award contracts.

 

[Hillcrest]

Saturday morning when I try the local dairy milk I will pair it with my Jean Waille of Lunel Algerian Briar sitter in your honor!