Interesting! Thanks QuiltE! Next time I make bread, I will replace the water with whey and see what happens.

@GingerK ... what a good woman you are ... making homemade bread! :)
Granted, I made bread the other day. Simplest and easiest ever .... flour etc. combined with a can of beer!

Now for the funny part.
It was sold as a kit at the church bazaar.
Kit included the flour mix and can of beer sitting in a tinfoil pan to bake it in.
Then tied up all pretty with cellophane and ribbons.
*gasp* beer sold in the church hall! 🤣

OMG. home baked bread! My downfall. I have made it several times to great success. Meaning I ate almost the entire loaf. So I don't make it anymore. I told my family never to get me a bread machine because soon enough I would be on my 1000 lb Life! If I buy bread it is the kind I don't love so I am not drawn to it.

Hi everyone! I'm back from a short hiatus. I've missed you all. :)

I did not grow up on a farm, but I am an experienced cheese-maker, so I feel that I have something to say about the topic of raw milk. There are some very good reasons why raw milk is not legal to sell in many states. In a perfect world, raw milk is just fine, if it is milked and stored properly. However, that is just not always the case in a non-commercial environment. Improper herd management and mishandling of milk can lead to serious bacteria, such as listeria, to form.

Listeria can be deadly. Let me repeat that. Listeria can be deadly.

When I first started making cheese some good friends of ours invited me to their place to get some fresh, raw, goat's milk. Oh boy! I was thrilled to get my hands on some of that! I went to their place and I was totally dismayed to see how their animals were being cared for. My friends were now in their 70s and what started out as a few milking goats, sadly turned into a herd of a few hundred, un-cared-for goats living in filthy conditions. I was appalled. They grabbed a couple of gallons out of their fridge and weren't sure how old it was and offered it to me. I politely took the milk, went home and threw it down the drain. I went back and forth about reporting them, but the situation took care of itself and they found new homes for all of their goats.

I had been very romantic about using raw milk, just as they do in France, for making my cheese, but that day really changed my mind. I don't make cheese that often anymore, but when I do, I used commercial, pasteurized milk from the grocery store, or from the organic dairy down the road, which is very clean and well organized. Hobby farmers are not under the same standards as commercial dairy farmers and even they have a reason to pasteurize their milk...bacteria can take hold in a barn very quickly and heating the milk can help eliminate that bacteria in their final product.

Oh and BTW...just so ya know...Half and Half is not half milk, half cream. It is a milk product that is made up of milk, along with various other ingredients such as thickeners and emulsifiers. I don't think that there's any cream in it, but I suppose that depends on the brand. Same goes for coffee creamers...there's no cream in those either.

OK...I'm off to visit other parts of the forum. Love you all!

~ Cynthia

Raw milk was in my house while raising my two children. We purchased four gallons a week for years. Once a week I would go to the farm and pour it from the big vat, into my gallon jars, that was of course after I ran it's cycle to agitate it. After the kids moved out and DH and I were down to just one gallon a week, we decided to stop running out to the farm and went back to commercial milk. It was harder for DH for this change then for myself, but now we are used to it. I remember having to keep track of the milk truck schedule to he sure we didn't go on a pick up day, it was frustrating to go, open the vat, only to see it empty. 🫣

I just replace whatever water is in a recipe with whey, whether from making cheese or making yogurt. Sourdough ciabatta is one we like very much. I don't make bread often as it is too easy to eat much more than we should. If I am going to visit my mother or brother, I make a cinnamon raisin bread that they like; it makes 3 loaves at a time, so everyone gets one. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/67...aisin-bread-i/

My husband is lactose intolerant, so for a while, I made ricotta. It's very easy to make. I made it from lactose free milk and he could enjoy it. He grew up eating ricotta from a dish, like I would eat cottage cheese. Ewww.... Most hard cheeses do not have lactose, so I never needed to make those. Now, Galbani makes a lactose free ricotta (although it can be difficult to find), so I've stopped making ricotta as well, unless I am going to make bread. I guess it boils down to sometimes I feel like hanging around the kitchen and sometimes, I don't!

Yup, livestock is pretty filthy in general, lol. Ugh, the memories of having to bathe cows prior to showing them. They are not lovers of baths. Laundry detergent is the soap of choice, for Holsteins, anyhow. The whiteners in the laundry soap also whiten their hair.

Even the smallest of farms that ship milk via hauler have the tanks tested every time milk is picked up. For my brother, being a tiny farm, this is every other day. Dairies do not tolerate bacteria and must be able to pinpoint where it enters the system. It quickly becomes costly for any farmer who does not properly clean teats, milking equipment, tanks or store milk at appropriate temperatures. Still, it's in the nature of the beast to be dirty; flies everywhere, etc. While I certainly would have access to raw milk, I don't want it at all!

Wonder how many people actually are aware of all the steps involved with getting foof from their sources to the grocery store shelves?

Then we fuss about how much effort it is to go grocery shopping and put the food away after we get home.

I'm more unaware than I should be. For one example - I have no idea of how pineapples and bananas are grown.

The one I buy has the ingredients "Milk, cream." Plus disodium phosphate. Maybe you are thinking of the "creamers"? or "fat-free half & half"?

That's so true. We really are far removed from how our food is made, or grown.

I can tell you a little about growing pineapples and bananas. I lived in Hawaii for many years when I was young. We would go out into the pineapple fields and "borrow" a pineapple, or two. I felt guilty and finally learned how to grow them myself. It's easy if you live in a tropical environment. Bananas are also easy to grow.

Unfortunately, commercial banana growers use pesticides to keep away the critters. I don't know what pineapple growers use.