With the price of milk going up up and away just like anything else that nominated in declining dollars, you might be thinking about what to do about it. Short of buying a cow, here’s my answer:

Stop drinking milk!

Let’s face it sucking on the teat of a cow is simply unnatural unless you are a calf. Since you are reading this, I’m willing to bet that you walk upright on two legs at the very least. Thus you are not a calf.

Doing some due diligence will reveal many counter arguments to drinking milk. Many people are lactose intolerant for starters. If humans were evolutionary conditioned to drink milk that would not make sense. In fact the few lactose tolerant people in the world are those who genetically/culturally have been drinking milk for many many generations e.g. Northern Europeans and a few others.

Actually, I did not give up milk many years ago in order to save money. I gave it up because I was too lazy to go shopping often enough to keep the milk fresh. This was before hormones and preservatives became a natural ingredient. Back then milk turned sour in 5 days! Who knows – had I not been lazy and had I been unaware of the chemistry of modern cow fodder, I would probably still be drinking milk “to keep my bones strong”. (Food for thought – what do cows drink to keep THEIR bones strong?).

Anyway, lazy won, and I got used to doing without milk. Admittedly DW buys it anyway from time to time – it makes her happy – so I get off the wagon and use some on my cereal. I never drink it though.

However, water works fine with cereal. I usually mix some oatmeal in with the rest, corn flakes, raisins, nuts, seeds, sometimes a dab of honey. This gives the water a nice taste. When it comes to bread, I use water. This will change the taste slightly – I actually like water-based bread (bread classic!) better than milk based bread (bread post agricultural – support your farmer – revolution). Try it out. Just use the same amount of water instead of milk. In fact you can substitute milk for water in almost any recipe except maybe ice cream.

Originally posted 2007-12-08 08:03:00.