Ice Cream and yogurt.
Since it seems that radionuclides are being found in milk, how can I use the sell by date to know when a package of yogurt or ice cream has been packed? Also could one expect a concentration or dilution of radionuclides in yogurt or ice cream?
What about cream cheese and cottage cheese?
By the way, according to
By the way, according to this website http://www.foodservicedirect.com/product.cfm/p/213497/Organic-Valley-HTS...
the regular pasteurized organic valley milk has a shelf life of 18 days, but the ultra pasteurized is 55 days.
I bought some ultra pasteurized (which i've never done before because really, it's so nutritionally void) so I could at least have something for my coffee. But I'm SOL next month!
ugh..
I called Lifeway (kefir
I called Lifeway (kefir prodcuts) and Organic Valley to find out about their pasturized and ultra pasturized milk and will report back if they get back to me. I spoke to someone at Clover Farms Dairy, which sells organic dairy products here in California. They told me the following:
Milk: 18 days
Cottage Cheese: 55 days
Sour Cream: 45 days
Great Thread
Thanks to all who are sharing info in this thread! I know all of us appreciate any information we can get.
Specifics
This goes the same for Horizon: DHA Milk is 60 days prior to best buy date. But this is for the milk in the carton. Millk in asceptic cartons (the ones that come in the serving serving size is different). Horrizon, single serving, UHT milk, plain, is packaged 180 days prior to best buy date. Here are the dates that I've found for other items"
Horizon cream cheese: 120 days prior to best buy date
Horizon half and half cream: 60 days prior to best buy date
Horizon cheese (cheddar, colby, mozzarella): 150 days prior to best buy date
Horizon cheese, mozzarella stick: 120 days prior to best buy date
Horizon cheese, colby stick: 90 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, single serving milk: 180 days. Note: Some are packaged 240 days from expiration date, but I didn't write down which ones during the call. You will have to call and check. We usually don't drink Organic Valley milk.
Organic Valley cheese, 8 oz: 120 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley cheese sticks: 150 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, eggs in carton: 30 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, egg whites in the small milk cartons: 90 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, pasteurized butter: 280 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, , butter in the 4x6 box: 180 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, salted/ European style butter: 280 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley cream cheese, 8 oz: 180 days prior to best buy date
Organic Valley, cream cheese, tubs: 150 days prior to best buy date
If others have called vendors and have found info on other items. I would appreciate the sharing of information. It takes a lot of time to call these companies. Some are responsive, others take multiple calls. Be very specific about the type and size of product when you call. If you are unsure, go to the company's website and look under products for type and size. Have a package of the product with you so that you can read the codes they give you. Let them know that you are concerned about the situation in Japan. Tell them you are trying to find products that were packaged/ bottled prior to the incident for your family. Hope this helps.
Spelling typo
OMG, sorry for the spelling typo on my Specifics post ("buy", instead of "by.") It was way too tired when I posted this.
Milk Dates
Thank you for posting this.
I find it interesting that the 60 day window does not apply to the brands of milk tested by BRAWM. If it did, even the milk with a "best by" of 4/21/2011 should have tested clean.
Reply to Milk Dates
Regarding Milk Dates post. Milk in half gallon and gallon cartons and jugs usually have a 18-19 day prior to best by date. Milk tested by the BRAWM team was probably in the these type of cartons and was not enriched with DHA. This mean that milk with best by date of 4/21/11 was probably bottled on 4/02/11 or 4/03/11. So it makes sense to me that radioactive isotopes would show up.
DHA in Milk
Thank you for the reply.
I did not realize that DHA could contribute to a longer shelf life, but it certainly appears that it may. Perhaps it is due to the ultra-pasteurization and not the DHA?
In any case, my experience with DHA fortified milk has been less than pleasant. While living in the Australian Outback several years ago, DHA milk was all we could get for a while. When used in coffee, it exhibited an absolutely awful fishy after-taste. This was not apparent when the milk was cold.
Reply to DHA in Milk Post
We usually only by just plain, organic milk in the half gallon cartons or the glass containers, but the DHA they are putting in the Horizon and Organic Valley milk is plant based and it does not contain fish oil, at least that is what the companies state on their cartons. Just an FYI.
I don't think the DHA is so
I don't think the DHA is so much the issue as the "ultra pasteurization". That process extends the shelf life quite considerably, form 18 days to about 2 months.
Food I've Checked
I know that Organic Valley Ultra Pasteurized 2% DHA milk is packaged 60 days before it's expiration date. Silk Almond Milk is 84 days prior to it's marked date. The majority of the world's almonds are grown in California, so I don't know if almond milk will be a good alternative going forward.
How did you come up with
How did you come up with that figure for Silk Almond Milk and what type of package? FWIW, I checked into the shelf life of some shelf-stable (non-refrigerated "box" cartons) rice, almond, and hemp milk products and a) was told they are packaged one year from the best buy date, b) this seems to jive with what is in my local stores. On their shelves is product that would have been manufactured in the Jan 2011 to mid Mar 2011 timeframe.
I sent an email to the Silk
I sent an email to the Silk company, and that is the information I was given.
I was wondering the same
I was wondering the same thing, as I was buying some yogurt yesterday......it's about the only dairy product I really use, so I bought some anyway, at least this time I did....
Need to call companies
I have been calling the specific manufacturers to find the packaging date information. The ice cream that I purchase has been packaged six months (180 days) prior to the sell by date. The yogurt that we buy has been packaged 60 days prior to the sell by date, and another company's yogurt has been packaged 50 days prior to the sell by date. We buy organic products, so I don't know if that makes a difference on best buy dates. Every item and every company is different. I've called companies to check up on butter, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, cream cheese, milk, eggs, bread, cereal, half and half cream. You have to ask about the specific type of milk, for examples, also. Milk fortified with DHA has a different packaging date than the ultra pasturized, pasteurized milk. And different flavors of milk (no, I'm not kidding - crazy, right?) - strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, and plain - all have different packaging dates. Good luck.
I have been calling
I have been calling companies also. Yoplait Gogurts are manufactured 60 days prior to sell by date. Bought some today and I am not going to feed them to my kids : ( They were made on 3/30.
Soy milk by Soy Dream is manufactured a year from Use by date so it is a good thing to stock up on. We also have bought packaged individual milks which have a long shelf life and are manufactured way before the use by date. Hope this helps.
Thanks for this T.O. mom
Today I'm on a mission to find out when all of our food was packaged.
Your welcome. Maybe, as a
Your welcome. Maybe, as a collective, we can gather as much info as we can and post:).
And different flavors of
And different flavors of milk (no, I'm not kidding - crazy, right?) - strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, and plain - all have different packaging dates.
My Mom used to tell us that the flavored milk was older and they could use the flavorings to cover the sour milk flavor.
What companies did you
What companies did you call?
Also do you know about packaging dates for frozen meat and vegetables?
I've been doing the same
I've been doing the same thing for milk, eggs, cream, etc, but pretty soon, it won't matter anymore. Some of the radiation is here to stay. I've been stressing over this a lot, but I know there's only so much we can do. The last cream I bought was made on 3/22. Maybe it's safe since the first samples were tested on 3/25, but who really knows. It's all a guessing game, really. It's not like the FDA is going to tell us anything or warn us. According to them as well as the EPA, low levels is A-okay. Very frustrating!
Reply to I've been doing the same post
I too realize that, at some point, this won't matter anymore. My plan is to lesson the exposure for my kids as long as possible until someone can figure out if the Cesium will stay in the milk for the next 300 years. If I only had to worry about I-131, I wouldn't be as worried, since the isotope no longer remains radioactive after 90 days. I realize it's still an ongoing situation in Japan, but I could always stock up on powdered milk, and wait it out.
But it's the Cesium that is of the greatest concern to me at the moment. Are the cows who intake the Cesium going to irradiate the milk for as long as they are being milked?
Do you think eggs might have
Do you think eggs might have lower levels than some of the other dairy products? What about corn, grains, and fruit with heavier peels? So much to think about now when grocery shopping...
The higher up the food
The higher up the food chain, the greater the concentrations. Also, the age of an animal will mean greater concentrations of various toxics since length of time exposed is cumulative.
1st level on the food chain are things that grow out of the ground, next up: animal life. Milk products during a time when nuclear material is present: cow milk will have less radionuclides of I-131 and Cs-137 than sheep or goat milk. Yoghurts and cheeses during a time of fallout will have greater concentrations of radionuclides since they are concentrated forms of milk product. Eggs, well, they may have less than cow milk percentage wise and, if they are being fed a pelletized farm diet with not free range grazing, chances are they will show little to no concentrations simply because the feed was probably packed months ago!
-Off my menu: All Seafood! Why? because the oceans have become the prime military and industrial sewer and the last thing I want is to inadvertently ingest enough nuclear material to invite some horrific terminal disease such as leukemia, lymphoma or other cancers known to be more common since 1946...