NaBloPoMoNoProFoNo #8: Musings on dairy

Some thoughts on dairy:

The official October Unprocessed guide suggests drinking raw milk or at least nonhomogenized milk.

I have had raw milk before.  Even though it was served to me by the man who had ACTUALLY JUST MILKED THE COW I found it too gross to drink.  And I am normally very, very polite with eating anything that people have taken the time and effort to make me. So what I'm saying is that raw milk is REALLY not my thing, and anyways I'm a microbiologist and firmly on Team Pasteurization. 

Another unprocessed blog (100 Days of Real Food) says that processing of dairy products isn't really conceptually different than processing of meat or veggies by cooking them, so why split hairs? And I have to say I 100% agree with that attitude.

That blog is also super anti-reduced-fat dairy products, but I've always been partial to skim and don't really see a problem with that.  She also suggests buying organic dairy only, which I do sometimes but not always...I have a pretty limited grocery budget and I'm currently trying to focus my organic money on the dirty dozen.  Also, life is too short not to eat as much good cheese as possible and only SOME OF THAT is organic, guys!

 

Label-reading has been pretty informative, though.  For example, some sour creams (like Daisy brand) contain only cultured cream.  Others (like the cheapo store brand) have seriously six or seven more not-real-food ingredients in there (???).  Meanwhile finding cheese that passes the kitchen test has been super easy since I don't care about annatto (sorry, I just don't) and I was raised in Wisconsin and therefore have been turning up my nose at Velveeta and the like for as long as I can remember (seriously, NOT FOOD). Finding yogurt takes a lot more reading but has been do-able as long as I'm not too perfectionist about things like corn starch and pectin.

Um, long story short, I am not fretting too much about my dairy consumption during this challenge. But, as always, I am being more mindful of what I buy, including lots of neurotic label-reading. Like I  mentioned at the beginning, I'm wanting to make a reasonable and permanent lifestyle change here, not drive myself crazy (via cheese deprivation.  PERISH THE THOUGHT).