Dairy: episode 2!

Now, since the last time I posted about dairy, I've run out of milk twice and replenished my dairy department with the milk from Sainsbury's in Spilsby, for three reasons: firstly, I happen to know their milk comes from a local farm. Secondly, I happened to be going to Spilsby for other reasons at the time anyway and thirdly, when I went into the shop and checked out the milk, it turned out that their normal, standard milk is pasteurised, but not homogenised.

Today I ran out of milk, but had no reason to go to Spilsby and couldn't really justify the 7 mile trip just for some milk. Bear in mind that the nearest milk-selling place to me is 3 miles away and wasn't open at the time I needed it, so I went to the next nearest place, which is a filling station in Horncastle (4.5 miles).

Sadly however, a quick look at the labels revealed that all of their milk was homogenised, which I'm no longer willing to accept, having learned what I have in the last week or so on the matter Summary: homogenising milk may make the fat in it more harmful and it also makes the milk more allergenic. Hence the explosion in "lactose" intolerance in the past decade or so, which is actually an intolerance or allergy to homogenised milk and all products of it. If people were advised to examine labels rather than simply avoid all dairy products, many would find they could enjoy a normal diet!

So I went a little further into Horncastle and tried the Co-op, but their milk was also homogenised. So I went over the road to Tesco and found that although their standard milk is homogenised, their "Pure" range and their special Channel Isles milk are only pasteurised.

So I got a big bottle of skimmed (my usual), which was about 40p dearer than the same size bottle of standard - a price I'm willing to pay as it won't break the bank and it's much better for my health. I also got a bottle of Channel Isles for £1, which I thought might be nice to make up the porridge we have for breakfast, from Heckington Windmill.

Altogether, good news that you can still get unhomogenised milk in a mainstream supermarket, but bad news that I had to try three shops before I found any. And I'm rather disappointed in the Co-op, I must say, as one expects better of them, seeing as how they pride themselves on their ethical business approach and they charge about as much for 4 pints of homogenised as Tesco do for the unhomogenised.

But buying from any of these retailers is something I'm sad to do, when you think that they pay so very little to the farmers that the latter are constantly under threat, and yet when you look at the price they charge us, you have to wonder where all that money's going. No mention of the Russian sanctions in that article, I see, and the effect they're having on us. And clearly, this is just one example of the unustainability of global food industry on economic and political levels. It saddens me to think that the vast majority of British shoppers are oblivious and uncaring about it all - it feels at times as though they'd happily watch the world burn if it shaved a few quid off their grocery bill.

I'm waiting for the farmers' market to come to Boston this month so I can get my hands on some more Lincolnshire Poacher raw milk. I bought some of their butter direct from the farm when I happened to be passing it last week, but you need to pre-order the milk to buy either at the farm or on the market stall.