Label Babel: Buying Milk and Cream

Reader Contribution by Staff

Buying Milk

The usual commercial choices in this department unfortunately have more to do with arbitrary niche marketing than simple, unvarnished milk or cream. Here, in ascending order of richness, are the kinds usually available in retail markets.

Fat-free or nonfat milk: Still informally called “skim milk” by some, though the term has disappeared from most labels. It contains the whey and casein of milk with none of the butterfat, and is fortified with vitamins A and D. Proportionally it contains more lactose than any other form of fresh milk. (The proportion of lactose decreases with every increase in milkfat content, so that heavy cream contains only minute amounts.) It also curdles more easily with the heat of cooking. When it comes from well-managed herds of cows producing a lot of protein in the milk, it can be quite satisfying. The fat-free milk from large commercial dairies, however, is at best indifferent tasting. There are versions with added nonfat dry milk solids, which in my opinion just plaster an extraneous cheesiness over dull-tasting milk. Note that they have more lactose than plain skim milk.

All other gradations manufactured by large commercial processors are based on fat-free milk homogenized with certain standardized percentages of milkfat.

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