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OH watched the end of Countryfile yesterday and missed most of a report on dairy farming. The bit he DID see made reference to the conditions some dairy cows are kept in but unfortunately he missed most of the piece.

This set me to thinking about the milk we buy here - I buy UHT because we only shop once a week as it's an 18 mile round trip to the nearest supermarket. Does UHT milk come as free range/organic? We haven't been shopping since so I haven't checked out our local supermarkets. I would hate to think I was contributing to poor treatment of dairy cows and would happily switch brands if possible. The cartons we have here at the moment make no mention of the source of the milk.

Buying fresh would be more difficult for us in the circumstances and to be honest I haven't even checked out to see if there is such a thing as organic milk freely available in France but I suppose we might be able to work around it somehow...

We only get UHT here as there is no dairy industry, we get President which I reckon is a french brand and you can certainly get it in carrefour here. It's been a bit of a battle with my OH over this one as regular UHT costs around 60c/litre, whereas organiccan be as much as 1.90!

Graye wrote: Does UHT milk come as free range/organic?

Yes, it does - I think I've seen it at the Coop here. However, you'd be better off using coloured water... The high temperature "denatures" everything in the milk to such an extent, that it is believed to actively harm health by some! I'd rather drink my tea and coffee black. Pasteurised milk is bad enough... And that keeps easily for a week or more - I've even used it a week after the sell-by-date, and it was still perfect.

We buy long life milk purely because the only brand of fresh milk available in Brittany has a really nasty sour taste to it. If we go over the border into Normandy we can buy normal tasting fresh milk - the stuff I've drunk all my life. Anyway I've got used to the taste of long life these days so fresh milk tastes wierd!

Hello there ,

just have to make a comment ,

the prices mentioned for milk 60c and 1,90 for organic .My neighbour here is diary farmer and only gets 19c?
It's sold here in the shops for around 50/60c .
Someone's making a profit and it's certainly not the farmer ,should this be a good or bad situation?

Is it the diary or the supermarkets who are making big money ? Here it's mainly Aldi and Lidl.

Looks like there's alot of smallish diary farmers being forced to bancruptcy , then there will be only big farmers
left , and they are certainly not to be trusted .

A worrying situation , I suppose this is happening throughout Europe ?

regards ,

Paul

paul123456 wrote: A worrying situation , I suppose this is happening throughout Europe ?

Yes, it is - dairy farmers giving up on a daily basis here and elsewhere. The supermarkets blame the processors for being too expensive, the processors blame the supermarkets, and nobody gives a d*mn about the farmers. And if you wonder why anybody at all is still producing milk, it's because farmers are very resilient and tend not to give up if times are bad for while; but times have been extremely bad now for years, everybody lives on what they've got, i.e. they can't invest as they should (I'm talking about necessary replacement of equipment here, not investing in growth - although some still have the guts to do that!) - and most send the wife out to work for their living.

Where are you living at the moment? France or UK?

Cos I'm 100 percent sure that organic UHT is available in any decent-sized UK supermarket, but for France, it does rather depend which supermarket you shop at. Monoprix is excellent for produits bios, but I do believe they are only to be found in Paris.

Do let me know if you have any luck! I'll have a look at Carrefour/SuperU next time I go to get supplies

I work on a large dairy farm and we have about 2500 cows milking at peak. All our cows are very, very well treated, some of them are really tame and require a pat or scratch before they'll even think about co operating and going into the yard. I have my favourite number cows and recognise most cows by their udders lol.
Their health and handling treatment comes first and no one is allowed to prod, poke or shout at them, they are our living and are very valuable so are treated accordingly and very kindly.
Not all large dairy operations are bad.
I'm in NZ but I'm sure the majority of dairy farmers in the UK treat their cows the same.

Sky wrote:I'm in NZ but I'm sure the majority of dairy farmers in the UK treat their cows the same.

You are quite right - badly treated cows don't live long and don't produce well, so it's in everybody's interest to look after them. It always annoys me when I hear comments on the news like "20% of all British dairy cows are lame" - well, yeah, but have you looked at British dairy farmers? A visit to a local mart will show you that at least 50% of them are lame, too, but nobody gives a d*mn... Most farmers are over 60 these days, and since farming is just about the hardest (and most dangerous) job you can do, they are lamer than their cows!

I don't know about France or Spain but here in Italy UHT is half the price of fresh milk in the supermarkets. You can, however buy fresh and unpasteurised milk straight from the farm for 60cents a litre. It's not something they advertise, so it might be worth asking local farmers if you can buy milk direct.

Just in case you're still looking, I did a little reconnaissance mission at SuperU today, and they have 2 types of lait bio UHT, one is SuperU own-branded, and the other is a more general brand, lactel or something if I remember right.

It can be bought à la unité or in those packs of 6, the only real drawback is the packaging - plastic bottles, but I guess you could find ways to re-use/re-cycle them.

Those bottles go in the recycling bags or bins - but that's only if you have it in your area!

Yeah. I'm just one of those people that can't quite get over the disappointment that milk doesn't come in reuse-able glass bottles any more