[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'A')s for what to do with the rest of the Sweet Tarts: If you have a problem with raccoons in your trash bins, leave a few Sweet Tarts around. The raccoons will find them and eat them, and be unable to taste real food for a while. Might scare them off your trash bins.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', ' ')Imagine if there were some major blackouts and everyone on your block couldn't make their coffee machine work! It would be day of the living dead! But if you didn't drink coffee at least you could think straight... And I suppose if you were the one person on the block with a percolating coffee maker and coffee, everyone would be your friend

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'C')offee can be made with water heated on a charcoal or wood-fired grill and a strainer, either one made specifically for this purpose or an improvised one. I did so myself during a week-long power outrage related to Hurricane Isabel. People would still get their fix, until the coffee itself ran out.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')I will never give up alcohol. It's highly cardioprotective, not to mention a de-stresser. I see it as a health food when taken in moderation.

I'll never forget a pathologist's noting that every time he did an autopsy of an alcoholic, he was amazed how clean the arteries were. "Like a baby's," he said.

[highlander]

I finally got through three pages of off topic health warnings, trying to see if anyone, anyone had a clue why milk is going up.
Here it is folks, and it really is depletion economics
About two weeks ago the US gov't decided too much milk was being produced. they paid several dairy farmers to reduce their production (sell cows) The total reduction was in the order of one billion pounds of milk a year. So , big 9and probably some small) dairy farmers get paid a bonus to produce less, the rest of us pay.
nothing new here.
And quit bashing us biofuelers. Heck some of us are even taking our waste material (glycerine) and mixing it into livestock feed. Yum Yum
I'm glad there are lots of deer hereabouts!

[I_Like_Plants]

Rickets...... yeah, kids drinking sodas, most of which have phosphoric acid, bad for bones. And, not having milk'n'cereal because they're having Hot Pockets or some damn thing for b'fast. And, I wonder if some parents are giving their kids horchata instead of milk, I know it looks milky, but it's not milk, people!

I get Clover Stornetta milk when I can, otherwise Berkeley Farms, life's too short (for the cows!) for generic milk!

[Heineken]

I can't digest cow's milk, so personally it doesn't matter to me how expensive it gets. Drank bathtubs of the stuff when I was younger, though.

I tried soy milk but it produced a greasy aftertaste and gave me gas. So I gave up on it also.

Finally I discovered rice milk ("Rice Dream"). Tastes good (though also leaving a bit of an aftertaste), very healthy, totally digestible, and not too outrageously expensive for the small amount I drink (maybe two quarts a week, less than $5).

By the way, GG3, just to clarify, the milk-price increase was projected for this year, not a current increase.

[mommy22]

A couple points on the corn syrup issue:
In my kid's school, milk with high fructose corn syrup is served at her school...really.
I hope it's just the strawberry or chocolate milk or vanilla milk (yes, my 8 year old says is now available). Why drink plain old white milk anyway?
A question I have, and I'm hoping someone can answer is:
In Europe, in their processed foods (includin candy and soda I think) glucose os what's listed as the main sweetener. Does that have the same effect on the body as HFCS? Even Euro products produced in the us have HFCS as the sweetener (like Orangina soda).

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mommy22', 'A') couple points on the corn syrup issue:
In my kid's school, milk with high fructose corn syrup is served at her school...really.
I hope it's just the strawberry or chocolate milk or vanilla milk (yes, my 8 year old says is now available). Why drink plain old white milk anyway?

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'I') can't digest cow's milk, so personally it doesn't matter to me how expensive it gets. Drank bathtubs of the stuff when I was younger, though.

[I_Like_Plants]

I think you can get used to it and un-used to it if you don't drink it for a while. If you like yoghurt at all, get some good live culture stuff and eat that and wean yourself back onto milk, and you'll be ok.

Milk is a good food and in my personal experience, associated with a leaner, healthier, body so make sure it's from an ethical source and drink up!

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'I') think you can get used to it and un-used to it if you don't drink it for a while.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kmann', ' ')If corn goes up from 3.00 per bushel to 4.00 per bushel (50 lbs. per bushel), the cost increase in corn is going to add about 5 cents to a gallon of milk. My guess is that increased energy costs outweigh corn price increases (so far).

[Newsseeker]

This seems to be a case study of the law of unintended consequences.

[gg3]

Milk report from East Bay area, California.

Today's price, Clover Stornetta Dairies, one gallon: $4.39.

I asked the guy at the checkout counter what the price of milk was a few months ago. He said, yeah it's gone up, used to be two gallons for $5.00 as recently as two months ago.

So that's nearly a doubling in price for milk in a few months. There may be cheaper milk available in some stores. I've been buying Clover for years because it's the cleanest & best-tasting stuff this side of organic, they have never used bovine growth hormones in their herds, and they routinely get awards for hygiene, milk quality, and humane herd management practices. I'm not about to start buying crappy milk to save a buck or two a week (if that), I can cut something else out of the budget if needed.

Count on the Bushies to screw up everything including biofuels. They could have backed measures to produce it from nonfood crops that can be grown where food crops cannot. Instead they backed a policy that will undoubtedly lead to poor families buying less milk for their children. Shit, stealing candy from a baby is bad enough, now it's about stealing milk from children.

[mercurygirl]

I will put forth the opinion that cows shouldn't be fed grain at all.

They have evolved as grass-eaters and grain causes all sorts of problems for them. Unfortunately, some time ago, factory farms went to corn, and other cheap feeds, (including meat wastes, can you say, mad cow?), and drugs, as they were cheaper, faster, and easier than pasture. Corn has become a monocrop, mainly feeding cattle (and us) who are so malnourished, their meat makes us sick. There are all sorts of ramifications. It's the typical corporate model.

Pasteurization is problematic as well.

It's like everything else, go back closer to what nature intended and things will work. Too bad the folks in power think otherwise.
I'm starting to avoid corn on principle, even organic. I've sought out grass-fed raw milk and meat, which is so superior to what most people are accustomed to, it's amazing.

Here are a couple of links:

westonaprice.org

realmilk.com

The real milk site has info on sources by state.

[I_Like_Plants]

Clover Stornetta is good milk, I'm paying $1.86 for a 1/2 gallon of Berkeley Farms, so the Clover stuff is not that much more.

We're going to have to get used to paying more for food and spending less on bling in this country.

[Ache]

Market forecasters warn of sharp hikes ahead this summer

Thursday, May 31, 2007

By DAVID MERCER

The Associated Press
CHAMPAIGN - Liz Kooy loves sharp cheddar cheese and is willing to pay almost any price for it.

"Ten dollars a brick, I'd still buy it" and cut back on other purchases, the 36-year-old social worker laughed as she browsed the dairy aisle in a grocery store near downtown Chicago on Wednesday.

She might want to start looking for places to cut back.

Dairy market forecasters are warning that consumers can expect a sharp increase in dairy prices this summer. By June, the milk futures market predicts, the price paid to farmers will have increased 50 percent this year - driven by higher costs of transporting milk to market and increased demand for corn to produce ethanol.

U.S. retail milk prices have increased about 3 percent, or roughly a dime a gallon, this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But University of Illinois dairy specialist Michael Hutjens forecasts further increases of up to 40 cents a gallon for milk over the next few months and up to 60 cents for a pound of cheese.

That would drive the cost of a gallon of whole milk around the country to an average of $3.78 a gallon, based on the USDA's monthly survey of milk prices in 30 metro areas.

Prices in the last survey, earlier this month, ranged from $2.76 a gallon in Dallas to $3.86 in Chicago and $4.09 in New Orleans, where the dairy industry has struggled to bounce back from Hurricane Katrina.

Hutjens and others said higher gasoline prices have increased the costs of moving milk from farm to market, and corn - the primary feed for dairy cattle - is being gobbled up by producers of fuel-additive ethanol. The USDA projects 3.2 billion bushels of this year's corn crop will be used to make ethanol, a 52 percent increase over 2006.

"There is no free lunch," Hutjens said. "That corn then has to come away from that dedicated resource."

Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, pointed to another factor: Global demand for milk, he said, has grown the past few years, primarily in the new Asian economic powers.

"China of course is a big story," he said. "They're consuming more (milk protein); they're using more dairy ingredients in animal feed."

In years past, that demand might have been met by Australia and New Zealand, he said. But drought in Australia and the limits of New Zealand's dairy industry have pushed China and its neighbors to buy American.

Hutjens said the biggest dairy price spikes are likely to come later this summer in the areas farthest from the Midwest corn and grain fields that feed most of the country's dairy cattle.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ache', 'B')y June, the milk futures market predicts, the price paid to farmers will have increased 50 percent this year - driven by higher costs of transporting milk to market and increased demand for corn to produce ethanol.