Dontcha hate ultrapasteurized cream and half & half?
A while back I figured out why my coffee tasted like cheese at times. Ultrapasteurized half and half. Lately, the only store I know that has not stopped selling anything but ultrapasteurized is Whole Foods. I don't do whipped cream often so when I do I want it to be fresh tasting and good!
Ultrapasteurized- better for stores, worse for customers who care how things taste.
atheorist
Jan 14, 2007 07:06PM
Yep, it's annoying. I have a LOT of cook and baking books that recommend avoiding ultrapasteurized cream but it is practically impossible to find any that's not. (The nearest Whole Foods to us is about an hour away...)
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I was told by an owner of Trader's Point Creamery, you'll see their products in WF, that in Indiana it is illegal to sell creams that have not been ultra-pasteurized. We won't have a WF in this state for another couple of years, but it is coming. It willbe interesting to see if they are going to have it.
We need to speak as one voice in the US and boycott the ultra-pasteurized stuff. Let it rot on the grocery store shelves and let the dairy industry know we don't want that junk! Unfortunately there are just too many people willing to buy it.
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It's not the dairy industry but "our government."
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Most dairy regulations are state not federal, so it's not "our government."
The ultra-pasteurization of dairy products is profit driven. It provides longer shelf-life. That's why so much organic milk particularly is U-P. And things with slower sell through such as whipping cream.
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"State government" is also "our government".
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Yep, I guess some people might mean that.
I guess I get a little testy because so many people complain but don't seem to know who to blame, often blaming the wrong person. If we want to change rules, we have to know where to go to lobby to get them changed.
Sometimes, the things we hate aren't even rules, they're just the way things have developed and they can be changed more easily then we think.
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Well, you see, it WON'T rot on the shelves. It'll just sit there almost forever, which is kind of the point.
Perhaps my taster is out of kilter, but all of that stuff tastes just fine to me. And even when I add some cultured product to it to make an approximate crème fraiche, and it thickens and sours a bit as it's supposed to, it still stays perfectly edible for two weeks or more - which is a good thing, as that's how long it takes us to use it.
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If it sits there un-purchased long enough it will. But as i said there are enough people in the US who don't care how bad something is they will still buy it if it is all they are offered.
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Don't get excited about WF vis a vis cream. In CA, where we have no stupid laws about UP they only sell wonderful raw (at $12 it is a rare luxury) and crummy UP.
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Candy, how did you find out that Indiana is not getting a WF for a couple years?
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There was an announcement in a Indy news paper that the store will be built up in the 86th St. area in Indy but that they don't expect to have it open until 2008.
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It often takes a very long time to open a new WF. My neighbor works as an administrator type for California/Washington WF, and we have discussed this.
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I always spend a little extra to get Ronnybrook Farms milk when I make ice cream--it's pasteurized but not "ultrapastuerized" and produced in Dutchess County, NY, I think? Worth checking out whether you can just source some milk locally, farmer's market, what have you. I think the trick is just finding a dairy that doesn't happen to have the technology--and weirdly enough, I think most organic producers are embracing ultra-pasteurization. For me it's another reason to go local, to small farms.
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I'm pretty sure it's Columbia County.
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I love ultrapasteurized half & half. For someone like me who drinks the occasional cup of coffee, and eats hot cereal infrequently, a quart of ultrapasteurized half & half is right up my alley.
I can buy it with a sell-by date that is six weeks in the future. It will take me that long to finish it. I'm tired of throwing out dairy products that are more than half full.
I'm not a purist. I don't notice a bit of difference in the flavor.
Now, if we can get ultrapasteurized milk, I'd be happy. Buying a gallon of milk with a sell-by date only 10-12 days in the future means a commitment on my part to eating cereal every day, since I don't use milk for anything else.
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Buy organic milk since most of the major brands in grocery stores are ultra-pasteurized. Since there aren't that many big producers, they have to ship it long distances and it has to have a long shelf life, ergo, UP
I use dairy for cooking, which is what pasteurization is anyway, so the taste makes no difference. I don't use it up very quickly and like that it keeps a long time.
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I believe the lactose-free milk you can buy is ultrapasteurized as well - or, if it's not, it certainly lasts as though it were. We get either Lactaid from Trader Joe's (just because it's much cheaper there) or the Lucerne brand from Safeway/Vons.
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Well, ultrapasteurization is meant to extend the shelf life of products for the time *before* they are opened. After opening, the shelf life is not terribly longer.
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Is sure lasts a lot longer after opening. That's why my daughter and several friends started buying it, even though they had to pay more to get organic milk which they didn't care about except that it was UP. It last noticeably longer and they thought it was a better value since there was less spoilaage.
That's why I buy it now by choice for dairy I use infrequently and only for cooking.
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Perhaps it's the non-UP creams I get but the UP cream doesn't last more than a couple of days longer at best.
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If there's a Trader Joe's near you, check for the pasteurized (but not ultrapasteurized) heavy cream. It's cheaper than what you'd probably find at Whole Foods, and I use it whenever I need a lot of heavy cream for dessert making but don't want to spend more than $2.29 a pint.
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I've noticed that even the "organic" heavy whipping creams include carageenan on their ingredient list. Talk about yuck!
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>> The good local producers add nothing.
100% correct!
The local producers (farmers) cannot add so much as water to their milk and YES they test for that. Milk Composition Freezing Point test.
http://classes.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci308...
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