Is anyone making their own soy milk?

well, i can tell you one thing. the best cow's milk i ever had was fresh from my grandparents' small farm. no processing, no chemicals, cows were fed crops grown right at home.

mmmmmmm! how i miss that...

i know to meet grade A standards, the inspection is pretty tough. even for a grade B farm like the one in my family, there are plenty of milk samplings and tests and all that stuff. and you get bonus or docked depending on the content of the milk. and if you contaminate the tank on the milk truck, it comes out of your paycheck!

sad to say i haven't seen any BGH-free labels here... suppose it's not such a big deal as it is in dairy country, maybe people don't know around here. back home i remember seeing big block letters proclaiming BGH FREE on the cap.

 

Antibiotics are used on corn fed beef cattle, because the feed is to rich, and tends to cause bloat. The increased growth more than covers the cost of the antibiotic.

Milk is tested for antibiotics, and if present it gets rejected. Likely ending up dumped in a field.

I've heard that the best tasting milk is from pasture fed cows, but it doesn't give the best yields. So dairy farmers put a lot of effort into mixing a feed that gives a good yield without ruining taste. A bag of onions hanging in the barn will flavor the milk. Anything put into their feed is going to end up in the milk's flavor. I doubt chocolate will cover the taste of chiken crap.

Unfortunetly, veal is profitable.

 

my first son was latose intolerant like me, so we used soy based formula and then powdered soy milk formula from Costco, Ry does not seem to have the issues so we are feeding him the reg formula. but seems to me, the powdered stuff made a lot and was not all that expensive.

not quite sure i follow these posts about how hard soy milk is to make. at $5 a gallon, its obviously worth the effort. batch process the stuff once a week, it takes 2-3 hours, you wont get rich on the returns, but hey, as time goes on, like any process, you will find easier ways to do it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 29 2007, 08:33 PM) [snapback]532277[/snapback]</div>

I spent 25 years in Minnesota, which has a LOT of dairy farms.
My daughter worked on one of the largest dairy operations in western Minnesota.

Cows in large operations do NOT roam pastures. They do not get organically raised feed. They do get "protein suppliments" from poultry operations.
You are apparently in an area with small, family farmers. That's wonderful. We had small (under 200 cows) farms around us, too. The cows USUALLY got outside, to stand in the belly-deep muck, so the farmer could scrape the manure out of the barn. No farmer we knew had pasture for the cows, just a barnyard. All the pasture was for growing hay and grain, and the cows were only allowed out there after everything was harvested for the season.

I've personally opened bulk tanks in family farm milk rooms, and seen straw, dead insects, and other dirt swirling around in the fresh milk.

I've fed cows, and I've milked cows.

Most milk that most of the US gets in supermarkets does not come from small family farms. It comes from the large (500+ cows) operations that milk the cows three times a day, keep them either confined, or in large covered sheds (like the operation my daughter worked at), on concrete floors. The feed comes in on trucks, or is raised nearby, but is mixed with as much protein suppliment (fish meal (which, btw, there is a processing plant for in my town. they make fish guts into cow food. they advertize that fact), poultry bedding, and rendered by-products) as needed to make the highest butterfat percentage. Cows that look sick, or start acting sick, or who (finally) get infected enough that the distended udder quarter is visually noticable, are pulled off the line, and shot full of antibiotics. They are milked, and the milk is given to calves. The medication has the "days out" on the bottle. When the number of days have passed, the cow is put back on the line, without testing her milk.

Only the entire tank is tested for "soma cells"... there is a certain threshold that dairies must stay under, for their milk to be Grade A (fluid milk)... if it goes over that, they can sell it as Grade B (cheese and manufacturing). Soma cells are pus. There is some in ALL milk, and there is MORE in cheese, dry milk, and processed foods containing milk, whey, and casein.

I learned a lot from the family farmers in my neighborhood in Minnesota. All of this, I learned from them, not from PETA.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Oct 30 2007, 11:55 AM) [snapback]532439[/snapback]</div>

The thing about cow's milk is that you don't really need it. It also causes a lot of allergic reactions and it's a mucous producer. Infants are the only ones who could possibly need milk and they're better off with mother's milk (so I'm told). Why drink milk anyway? Most people are under the impression that it's a great source of calcium but you can get a lot of calcium from a handful of almonds. It's been found that they can reduce asthma in children by putting them on a strict vegetarian diet.

http://www.notmilk.org/

 

with many (safeway for one) grocery stores going to organic milk exclusively, the "better" dairy farms will become more common simply because the public demands it and that is where the money is flowing. there will still be a market for "factory" milk, so those types of farms will still be around.

in my area, we have both. we have a major dairy farm that only has about 400-500 cows, and they NEVER graze. have never seen one in the field in the nearly 20 years i have lived in this area.

but down the road, is the farm that i purchased my pasture raised beef from. so ya, you are both right about dairy farms, and will continue to both be right sadly simply because some people will not pay the extra money for any reason which is why fast food is so profitable. it is cheaper

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 30 2007, 12:31 PM) [snapback]532460[/snapback]</div>

I use butter too. Haven't had a glass of milk in decades, though. It ends up in my diet from time to time (like when Starbucks puts it in my latte when I forget to mention that they use soy milk. When I cook, I use soy milk. If it's something that needs a sweeter taste, I use almond milk. Sometimes I'll buy the smallest carton of milk that I can find at the store and use it in something but rarely. Autism is another one of those things where the cause is still unknown and considering that nutrition, what we put in to our bodies, isn't taught in med school, it's great that you at least tried removing things from the kid's diet but I don't recall anyone saying that milk components (whey) caused autism. A strict vegetarian diet has been known to relieve or eliminate allergies and asthma but there isn't anything in cow's milk that is essential to the diet that can't be gotten in other foods, to my knowledge.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 30 2007, 09:31 AM) [snapback]532460[/snapback]</div>

The reasons you like milk is because you acquired a taste for it. If you never had milk before today and you tried it you might think it to be quite gross. And if someone told you about how it got on the grocery store shelf you might never touch the stuff again.

Don't think you can't live without it. You can, and once your acquired taste for it weakened, you might never miss it. As an ingredient in cooking you might miss it a little but in my case, knowing where it came from and how, I able totally willing to make that sacrifice. Same thing goes with beef, pork and chicken.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Oct 30 2007, 12:36 PM) [snapback]532466[/snapback]</div>

i wish that was the case. unfortunately, smaller farms are at an inherent disadvantage all around. hauling costs are higher for smaller milk volumes and the price they get is lower too. there's no money left in small farming and everyone knows it.

my family has a herd of about 150 animals, they are kept indoors until mature. they're fed hay from the fields and milled grains from our own fields too. in the summertime, the mature animals graze all day outdoors in one of 4 grass pastures, and get a couple wagons of hay too. (grass only grows so fast)

unfortunately, grass fed animals aren't high milk producers. all the small family farms in that area are auctioning things off, and my family is barely keeping it together. costs of machinery, electricity, fuel, and feed lately (poor crop production this year- uncooperative weather) are really hitting home.

while i know the animals are treated better- i personally raised half those cows from baby calves- and the milk tastes so good... that operation can't beat out a corporate farm.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 30 2007, 11:59 AM) [snapback]532540[/snapback]</div>

I said you MIGHT think it tastes gross, so yes, you might like it if you tasted it for the first time today, but perhaps not. I didn't say or imply that it tastes bad to everyone - in fact because we all like breast milk as infants, many of us might like cows milk too. But whether you like it or not is not really important.

I presume you drive a Prius because you care about emissions, pollution, energy security and the like. If so your not the first person who thinks progressively about cars and energy, but when it comes to giving up a certain food, it's off limits even when he "knows" that it would be for the greater good. Similarly,
some prius chatters love meat so much that they won't give it up or even reduce their consumption even though it's clear to anyone who looks that meat is unhealthy to the person eating it, the animals producing it and the planet in general.

I wanted to point out that your professed love of milk is a really just an arbitrary habit and not really necessary. To give it up is not a bid deal, and if everyone did it it would do a lot of good in this world. This thread has clearly outlined how and why. If you really think your quality of life would suffer that much without milk then, wow, .... I guess I'm glad I'm not so encumbered.

I'm saddened that it is easy enough for some people to be selective about the causes they can get behind, independent of the intrinsic nature or the facts about the issue.

I just don't understand the inconsistencies.

 

wow... to imply not giving up milk means you are not a real environmentalist is unreal...

i bet i can pick apart your life just as you pick apart ours. its great that you and others have made the decision to go with a Prius in order to make a small contribution to preserving our environment. but it is only a small... very small contribution. there are no doubt an extensive laundry list of other things you can do as well. but no one, and i mean NO ONE will complete that list. but that is ok. because every tiny little thing we do, 20 people we know will hear or see us do it, and maybe 2 or 3 will see it as beneficial and try it and like it and that is how little things become significant.

there have been a lot of people here who bought a Prius, tried very hard to like it and just couldnt do it. do i look at them any differently as i would any long time flag waving Priuschatter here?? nope... because there is no difference. they wanted to do something to help, tried it, didnt work, so they im sure are trying something else. im sure they will find another way to contribute

heck, im allergic to milk but i drink it too. not a lot, not on a regular basis, but i like the taste, it just doesnt agree with me so i have a million reasons to drink soy, but soy milk is not edible to me. i use soy sauce extensively but soy milk?? no waaay!! cant stomach the taste. my son Devin, drank the soy baby formula, and he smelled like soy sauce!! he peed it, sweat it, was it...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fibb222 @ Oct 30 2007, 01:31 PM) [snapback]532494[/snapback]</div>

The first thing that I ever gave up eating, long before being vegan for a couple of years, was pork. For no other reason than how gross it smelled and tasted. Yuck. I gave up being vegan but still rarely go near red meat of any kind. About the only thing that I eat now, outside of the vegan diet, is chicken and salmon. When I am under the weather or otherwise stressed physically, I eat a strictly vegan diet because animal protein takes a lot longer and more energy to digest. Pork, though, is just plain nasty. I'm not lactose intolerant but the thought of drinking a glass of milk makes me sick.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 29 2007, 08:33 PM) [snapback]532277[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rae Vynn @ Oct 30 2007, 09:17 AM) [snapback]532453[/snapback]</div>

Thank you, Rae Vynn, for confirming my description of large dairy operations.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 30 2007, 09:31 AM) [snapback]532460[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 30 2007, 12:59 PM) [snapback]532558[/snapback]</div>

Fat tastes good. It's genetic. We evolved under conditions where calories were scarce, and where a few extra calories could mean the difference between life and death. Thus fat and sugar taste good.

In a modern industrial nation, calories are abundant, and what used to be healthful is now the opposite.

There's another thread in which a letter from the Sea Shepherd Society explains how, in recent decades, the meat industry has been transformed from a natural consumer of grass into an industrial process mining the sea to feed cows. Elsewhere, information is abundant on the inefficiency of meat as a producer of protein and the scandalous quantity of water consumed by meat operations.

While PETA has its animal-rights agenda, the environmental impact of meat and dairy is clear.

You have as much of a right to consume animal products as Arnie has to drive his fleet of Hummers. But it is a gross distortion to claim that the environmental information about modern animal operations is all propaganda from animal-rights advocates.

The question each person must answer for him- or herself is: Is my desire for the pleasurable taste of meat and dairy worth the effect it has on the environment? Answer that for yourself however seems right to you.

 

daniel, most meat producing operations are an extreme strain on the environment. the dairy farm i mentioned earlier would not be known to me if it were not identified as the primary source of groundwater contamination from its humongous manure pond leak.

but a farm using well managed pasture farming techniques not only produces meat that is healthier, it also is one of the best carbon sequestration systems as well, by some accounts, sequestering more carbon than forests.

sure it takes a LOT more land and work making the meat more expensive. but i think if we could put a dollar figure on the damage we are doing to our environment, i think the cost of grass fed beef might seem like a bargain afterall

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 30 2007, 03:59 PM) [snapback]532558[/snapback]</div>

Part of the reason why I gave up being vegan was that a lot of the vegans out there are mostly animal rights activists who care more for animals than they do for people. Some were real whack jobs, one was even considered to be too radical even for PETA is you can imagine that. They also seem to be more politically affiliated than they are affiliated with the earth. But I consider myself to be a tree hugger so don't confuse the two. A tree hugger isn't necessarily a vegan.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Oct 30 2007, 04:17 PM) [snapback]532635[/snapback]</div>

How does a beef farm sequester carbon? Carbon is taken up by plants, converting CO2 into organic compounds. That carbon is only sequestered if it is isolated from the atmosphere. A beef farm (old style) grows hay and grain, which take up carbon, but the organic (carbon-containing) compounds are fed to the cows, who digest it and exhale CO2 (and fart methane) which goes back into the atmosphere. The manure goes back onto the land where it breaks down, releasing any remaining carbon into the atmosphere. And the carbon sequestered in the cow itself is released into the atmosphere when the meat is eaten and digested and other parts consumed in various ways. Only the skin, made into leather, holds carbon sequestered, until it rots.

And while natural grass-fed beef is healthier than factory (feed-lot) beef, a healthy amount would probably be a very few ounces a week, if that. Most Americans eat many times as much meat as their bodies can utilize, and the extra is pure arterial clog. We all live unhealthy lifestyles. I have long since given up telling people they should live healthy, But there's a difference between saying "I don't care about the environment or my health" and saying "This is healthy as long as it's grass-fed."