M&S Lower Fat Milk

[noblehead]

Marks & Spencer are bringing out a lower fat milk in October which will benefit milk producers, livestock, environment, consumers and of course M&S profits :wink: Here is the article:

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/07/0 ... t-milk.htm

Knowing M&S it will be expensive to buy, hopefully other supermarket chains will catch on and sell it at a more affordable price!

Nigel

 

[ailz]

I thought skimmed. semi-skimmed and 1% milk was low fat? Is this just a new way of raising money?

Ailz

 

[noblehead]

I thought skimmed. semi-skimmed and 1% milk was low fat? Is this just a new way of raising money?

It's naturally produced milk without having any fat removed through a manufacturing process, the diet they feed the cows (removing palm oil) suggests that the milk is lower in saturated fat by a minimum of 6%... not much I know but surely a step in the right direction for those who don't like semi-skimmed/skimmed milk.

Nigel

 

[viviennem]

At this time of year, the cows up here are out at pasture, and only get artificial food (a scoopful of 'nuts', otherwise known as 'cake' or 'ration') when they come in to be milked twice a day. When indoors in winter they get silage instead of green grass, and the same two scoops of ration at milking times.

The article intrigues me - are they talking about milk from permanently-housed cows? ie, those that never go out to graze? or is there really that much palm oil in normal dairy 'ration'?

The farmer used to be paid for his milk on butter-fat content - I wonder if that's still true? 'cos if so, not difficult to drop the fat content by altering the feed ration.

The things you take for granted . . . :roll:

Viv 8)

 

[pianoman]

At this time of year, the cows up here are out at pasture, and only get artificial food (a scoopful of 'nuts', otherwise known as 'cake' or 'ration') when they come in to be milked twice a day. When indoors in winter they get silage instead of green grass, and the same two scoops of ration at milking times.

Herbivores eating grasses.. now there's an idea that might just catch on! I also wondered about the palm oil... what are they feeding these cows?

I also wonder how much longer it will be before we lose our fat phobia?

 

[phoenix]

I live in France .Like Viv, I'm surrounded by fields of grass complete very small herds of cows , and assume that the vast majority of their feed is from grass in summer and silage in the winter months . It depends on the weather, this year I think they were indoors for a very short time. The are getting some supplemental feeding at the moment since the fields are so dry but the feeding racks seem to contain hay. My farmer neighbours have small businesses, aren't well off (probably wouldn't exist without EU subsidies) and I expect that supplemental feeding is kept to the bare minimum. As far as I know the milk gets collected by one of the large milk suppliers (candia)
However, I also found this from the Guardian which seems to say that palm kernels get into a lot of animal feed.

British cats, dogs, cows, pigs and even goldfish are helping destroy the rainforests of south-east Asia. A new study for the government finds that more than a tenth of all the world's palm kernel meal – a lucrative by-product of the production of palm oil – is fed to British animals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... rainforest