The US government has 600,000 tons of skimmed milk powder in storage. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s913647.htm Supply far exceeds demand. At the present rate the US government will have to build more warehouses to house the stuff. They have tried giving SMP away to starving African countries only to find that it was giving people diarreah. http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/79 So what should be done about all the skimmed milk? You can make paint out of it. You can use it on the garden for healthier plants.
LOL, gary you made me laugh. I grew up with 2 kinds of milk in the house, the 'good milk' which was fresh 2% and then the 'powdered skim milk'. The powdered milk my mom would make and pour into old fashion milk jugs that was used on cereal and baking, not for drinking outright, it was a cost cutting measure. Can't the US give it to the food banks within its borders?
My grandma loves the stuff, but I think its only because a bag of milk powder last longer than non-powdered milk. I can never bring my self to drink the stuff though, it seems too sick.
I heard about this, but reports in Germany said it wasn't the SPM that was causing the problem, it was the water they were mixing it with. One of the biggest projects that many relief funds are doing in Africa is creating potable wells for every village. Medical experts estimated that this simple project alone would cut the number of fatalities in half. Recently a Swiss relief project manager found out in South America that filling water in used clean PE bottle (2 liter coke bottles are the preferred ones) and lying them on top of the roof for the whole day is the simpliest and most economically effective method to sterilize water.
This doesn't surprise me at all. Lemme guess, the milk is not only SKIM (a bad idea alone), PASTUERIZED (another bad idea, this is one of those things that inhibits smooth digestion) POWDERED (wtf?) and I'm willing to bet it came from feedlot dairy cows that have been injected hormones and poorly nourished (probably fed pesticide-ridden GM grain and other bad things that would further decrease the nutritive value). By the time it's been so altered and denatured and utterly messed up, it's no wonder that this stuff would give starving Africans such problems. And wait, someone says the water they mix it with also has problems? Is it any wonder that these people would get sick from it? Sadly, I don't have any better suggestions to offer...
Interesting last 2 posts. Powdered milk has its uses, but the over-production of SKIM powder was just dumb. I have organic whole milk powder, very tasty, but i cannot bring myself to use skim.
The thing is that skimmed milk is a by-product of cream and butter manufacture. I am not sure how long skimmed milk has been available in the shops but in the old days it was simply discarded.
Do they have to powderize it? Seems ppl prefer fresh skim to powder stuff, lower mf products like 2%, 1% and skim have gained in popularity over the years. Maybe there wouldn't be that much of an excess if they made more of it fresh.
If they don't make it into powder (forgot how... freeze dry process?) it has a usable shelf life of about 10 days. So you might just as well throw it away because if they can't get rid of it powdered they surely can't get rid of it faster fresh. And yeah, I also recall reading that the reason they won't use it for African relief is the lack of potable water to reconstitute it. I don't drink milk anymore, can't stand the stuff, but when I did it was great, especially for cooking while on camping and hiking trips.
