Organic Valley Grassmilk @ Whole Foods

Behold the mother of all milk.. Organic Valley Grassmilk has been available for almost a year now at Whole Foods. I picked up a half gallon carton about 6 months ago for $5. My most recent purchase a month ago cost me $5.50. So it very affordable (hey it costs less than 2 cappuccinos).

So there I was at Whole Foods to pick up milk as one of the items in shopping list. And there it was in the milk shelf... My mouth popped open, I sighed WOW, and moved in quickly to gaze at carton which read the words GRASS FED. I picked it up and read some more to make sure it was what I thought it was. It was!.



So here's the key to what makes this product great. Yes, it's organic, and yes it has 4 stars on Cornucopia, but what makes this product stand out from the rest is that the cows feed on pasture grass, just like old times! You're getting full nutrition as nature intended. The cows are happy doing what they do, and so is the farmer.

[Link] Organic Valley Grassmilk information webpage

I just visited Organic Valley website today to grab the pic for this post and noticed they are also selling grass fed butter and cheese! I'll have to check those out next time I'm at Whole Foods.

Btw, Whole Foods has a great meat section and it's affordable. I've been able to pick up chicken breast/drumsticks, tri tip, and pork already BBQed and smoked and sauced for lunch and dinner for much less than what a restaurant would charge, and the quality is much higher.

I also like to pick up their brown box double chocolate cookies ($5.99). Last time I picked them up, they had a bit too much oil or butter, but they were still good. Their 10" (or 12"???) banana cream pie is always a winner ($10). Always have liked their little creme brulee ($6).

Oh and the soups are phenomenal. I like their clam chowder, fish soup (they have some seafoodish name for this one), beef soup (forget the exact name), and sometimes the lamb soup (this one's a little rough!). Anytime I sample a new soup, I am coerced by the flavor to buy it.

Their pizza used to be good. I think it's gone down in quality. Their cheese is now cheesefood (combo of oil + cheese).

What have you run into at Whole Foods or other such stores?

Find your ice cream dairy

I bought some ice cream from Fresh n Easy today. I just used the plant # off my ice cream carton to find the dairy! The plant # was 06-153 which is Foster Farms Dairy out of Modesto.

Now, they weren't listed on Cornucopia, but I did google them and didn't find anything negative about them. Their webpage uses all the keywords such as open pasture, family, and hormone free.

Foster Farms has recently purchased the Humboldt Creamery which processes milk from large local milk cooperative.

Pasture fed cows - Organic Milk - Now you know

NO MORE EXCUSES!!!

Ok guys, I've run into a way that you can check where exactly your milk comes from. NO MORE EXCUSES buying corporate factory farmed milk! Let's put those factory farms out of their misery!

And this works wonderfully if you have a iPhone at the grocery store. You can look up the source and make a decision on the spot while you are at the dairy fridge.

Here's how to do it:
Step 1)Go to http://whereismymilkfrom.com/. On the left side, type in the plant # that you see on the milk carton. Usually the half gallon paper cartons will have a plant # that was printed at the time the whole carton was printed at the print shop. The gallon plastic containers will have a dotted plant # sprayed on them.

Here is a convenient full list of all the dairies.

Step 2)Next, go to Cornucopia.org and see if your dairy farm has 3+ cow ratings. The more cows the better! They even have a numeric score to differentiate the quality of the dairy farming operation. Higher the better!

I believe from my research (I am generalizing and it may not be true) that the half gallons contain better sourced (better quality) milk, whereas, the gallon containers are marketed as "bulk", of lower quality, and picked up by people trying to save a few pennies.

I noticed the organic milk gallon I purchased from Trader Joe's was sourced from Rockview Farms of Downey CA (plant # 06-98), which according to Cornucopia, is of questionable origin, since Rockview has a huge dairy operation in Nevada that mimics a factory where cows might not have pasture access.

The half gallon paper carton of organic milk I purchased from Fresh and Easy (a U.S. branch of UK's Tesco) had a plant # of 06-691 which meant it was sourced from Clover Stornetta Farms Inc of Petaluma. Going to Cornucopia, I found that it had 4 cow ratings which is satisfactory for me. I KNOW it's not a factory farm!

Economics:
The gallon of Rockview Farms "organic" milk from Trader Joe's cost me $5.99. The half gallon from Fresh & Easy only cost me $3.29 per half gallon, which is $6.58 for a full gallon. So it only cost me $.58 more to source from a cleaner and a more sustainable dairy operation! Not only that, when I clicked the Clover Organic Farms link on Cornucopia, I found that Clover sources all it's milk from either multigenerational family farmers or cooperatives.

I'd like to hear what you guys found out!