Gold Top, Anyone?

Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 24 May 2006

How many here have their milk delivered, and of those who have the stuff unadulterated apart pasteuraisation? Personally I prefer it straight out of the bulk tank, but this is supposed to be dangerous from the TB angle. How many rural folk dye of TB? It is a nonesense of course, if the stock of cows is clean...

Fred
Posted on: 24 May 2006 by Stephen B
Personally, I wouldn't risk it with non-pasturised.

I have only channel island milk (gold top, non-homogenized)) delivered 3 times a week.
Posted on: 24 May 2006 by Earwicker
Heheh , thought you were starting a vintage Les Paul thread for a moment...!
Posted on: 25 May 2006 by nicnaim
Full fat, straight to the doorstep. None of that semi-skinned crap here. Also get a weekly conversation with our terrific milkman when he comes for his money. Plastic cartons from the supermarket, just do not feel right and the conversational possibilities are limited.

Nic
Posted on: 25 May 2006 by Bob McC
TB is not the only thing that green top drinkers risk!
Posted on: 25 May 2006 by Derek Wright
I used to have milk straight from the cow (via a jug) when I was young. Later on when I had the TB test at school it showed that I did not need to be vaccinated.
Posted on: 25 May 2006 by Bob McC
rather a large jump there Derek! You could have been exposed to TB in any number of ways. By the way the TB vaccination doesn't work. Even the guy who developed it won't let his grandchildren have it now.
Posted on: 25 May 2006 by Rasher
quote:
Originally posted by Earwicker:
Heheh , thought you were starting a vintage Les Paul thread for a moment...!

That's exactly what I thought..but no...Milk! Frown
Black tea, black coffee, orange juice on my cornflakes. Milk intended to ween the new-born, not drinking as an adult - and then, not even our own species! Just plain pervy. Yuk yuk yuk. The Japanese say as a race, we smell of milk. How revolting. I'm gonna heave....
Posted on: 25 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
As a child we used to have milk straight out of a churn as it was in those days, before the advent of bulk tanks, and the cows were milked in an abreast parlour, which is certainly rather old fashioned, by today's high-tech standards.

As for TB testing, well I missed that at school, so I have no idea if I was ever exposed. You would think that the first people to get mad cow's disease would have been the knacker men who dealt with casualty farm animals. Not one case has shown up in this group. I think these risks are over estimated. Far more likely I will have a fatal motor accident, of get knocked down as a pedestrian. Twice I have been knocked off a push bike.

But then some of the farm chemicals we used to use in the seventies on crops have rightly been banned, but what of those like myself, who handled such terrible stuff in blyth ignorance of the risks posed! I guess I have a time bomb inside by now entirely without deserving it. I say 'Sieze the day! The truth is tomorrow never comes...'

Fredrik
Posted on: 26 May 2006 by Roy T
Fredrik, someone I know suffered from Potts disease. The doctors at London (teaching) hospital were adamant that it was not caught via the pulmonary route and as the patient can not recall being bitten by a badger it has been assumed that TB was contracted as a result of drinking unpasteurized milk many years ago while living on a farm. The drugs given to combat this flavour of TB iirc were continued for twelve months after leaving hospital, the patient is now free of the disease but they still carry the damage to the lower back that to this day restricts their ability to walk for more than 15 mins without a rest. The lower back pain will be with them for ever.

Be careful Fredrik as not all fresh milk stories have such a happy ending as your's.
Posted on: 26 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Roy,

The thing is that my last fresh milk was drunk in 1983, when I lived on a farm in Shropshire for 12 months. Before that the whole familly drank fresh milk from 1961 till 1967 when our herd was wiped out in the 1967 Foot and Mouth Disease episode.

When I saw reference to Pott's disease I thought you were teasing about my recently killed off Moka Pot! [Another silly Thread].

In fact the risks of living on farms were considerable, years ago, such as mixing Red Mercury with seed corn, by hand in the corn drill, just for one example. On came in red from hair to toes, and it came out in sweat for days, so I should get a fine rate of annuity if I ever get to retirement age! The noxious things we handled in complete ignorance were legion, and then there is the ongoing scandal or Organo Phosphates (nerve agents developed at Porton Down by the War Dept) used in sheep dip to kill sheep scab. This nerve agent is completely effective at controling scab, but is a toxin that builds up in those who handle it over the years, and destroys the nervous sytem and can have effects on the brain, producing a form of listless depression. The stuff should be banned. Considering what it was developed for, one wonders to what extent the agricultural communinty was a ground for WD experiments on a grand scale!

Interestingly BASF used to manufacture a chemical used to kills aphids on corn called metasystox, which was half the agent used in the gas chambers. It transpired that there was a considerable stock in 1945, and this was used with great success against insects, so it remained in production.

Another really hateful herbicide was Super Sevtox, which simply builds up and kills opperators! It was banned in the 60s, and the last patch I sprayed was in the mid seventies. It would kill docks in clover. We used to grow Wild White Clover (S184 strain as purified by Aberystwith University), and as dock seeds are ungradeable from clover, it was necessay to kills or rogue out all docks from an intended patch grown for seed. One dock, and the whole patch would be rejected before the harvest! The plant bredding men spend days walking through it, and we spent even longer hand rogueing first!

All the best from Fredrik

PS: Another horrid thing that was not heard of much beyond the veterinary and agricultural world was getting Brucelosis off cows. This is spontaneous abhortion and is very serious. Unfortunately if caught by a human, it can cause seriopus effects including a sort of mental illness! I knew a vet who had it, and I am not sure he did not eventually comit suicide, when in one his periodic attacks...

Oh, and Weil's disease...
Posted on: 26 May 2006 by Roy T
quote:
Oh, and Weil's disease...


Been their done that. Turned a bit yellowish for a while, quite painful, not at all nice.
Posted on: 26 May 2006 by Earwicker
Posted on: 26 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
In Norway Weil's Disease is all too common. People who know no better assume that any water course that looks clean in the mountains will be safe. This is not the case. Just as rats carry the disease here, Lemmings do, and they urinate everywhere. Horrid little creatures!

Fredrik
Posted on: 26 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear EW!

Gold Top! Nice and topical! Fred
Posted on: 27 May 2006 by Rube
Hi i used to use raw goats milk for quite a lomg time i quite got used to the taste but never for coffee or tea only straight or on cereal i think it came from an organic farm .
Those chemicals used on the farms sound quite scary I have a friend who was badly affected by a chemical called gluterhalderyde it was used in hospitals to sterilize instuments one of her coworkers died of cancer who had a very long exposure to this chemical its since been banned .
Posted on: 27 May 2006 by Rasher
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by Earwicker
quote:
Originally posted by Rasher:

Euuuughghh, I prefer the Gibson!
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by Roy T
Gold Top . . don't you mean Goldfrapp? I'd settle with Alison and her libidinous Air Hostess look anyday.
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Frends,

Note the post two above. Isn't it odd what the modern conception of a good young female's conformation is nowadays? Were I selecting this potential candidate I would reject her as being too thin (this lowers fertility) and having dull hair, which goes against the premiss this a a bright, shiny eye and sleek hair are indicators of health...

Where she would ever be a producer of Gold Top is open to doubt in my mind. [Smiley].

Fredrik
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by Chalshus
Delivered milk?

Hey, it's 2006. Winker


I think they stopped with that some 50 years ago here...
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Christain,

Delivered milk is a very satisfactory method on every level, though most people seem content to fire up a car to go to a shop to buy it, and then pick up pther groceries on a grazing basis, without a secon's thought for the consequences...

I still have my milk delivered specifically as the producer bottles it in the standard pasteurised forms (no unpasteurised Green Top now, as this outlawed), and it allows me to support a producer rather than some unacountable share-holders in a supermarket chain, or some huge dairy company...

It also means that I have fresh milk daily, at relatively less environmental damage, and no more cost once one factors in the cost of firing up the car to go and collect it.

It is a sort of Fiar Trade idea, nowadays, where the producer with all the financial risks of production, gets properly paid for taking those risks, rather than capital rich but unenterprising share-holders creaming off the profit with far fewer risks.

All the best from very old fashioned Fredrik

PS: Another big advantage is that my milk never travels more than four miles from origin, the local Dairy actually being within the city limits of Hereford. Sanity or what? [Smiley]. Food miles are already and will become more of an envirionmental issue. The significance of this was last realised in 1939 for very different reasons I do grant, but the reasons of environmental damage (Global Warming), and the costs of fuels will re-focuss attention on this issue from now on. Milk and Bakery deliveries may again become the norm, I suspect.
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by Chalshus
I fully understand your thoughts, Fredrik, and I share them with you. Smile

But I think that dilivered milk is a little bit strange, perhaps because I never have experienced it. As far as I know, there are just two dairys in Norway that sells milk. I don't know if the milk-quality is better on your small island, but i like the milk they sell here.


I usally drink this every day:

Posted on: 28 May 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Christian,

My late [Norwegian] grandmother told me of the days went the milk cart brough freshh milk daily, and even then that was at the cottage in the mountains [at Skurdalen near Geilo], as well as in Grini in Oslo. The sitaution is different in UK, being a densely populated small island, with a perfect climate for milk production. Only New Zealand is better blessed, but without the population to take advantage.

It seems that the way things are going, within five years we shall be a long way from self sufficient in UK in Diary produce, and this will be made up from France, which has never made any effort to curb overproduction brought on by distorting EU subvention of the over-production. Hence they have an industry searching for a market, whilst we have an industry strangled by the fact that the supermarkets view milk as a loss leader, and they force the price down to the producer. The only people making a respectable living out of milk production in UK today are those that deliver milk to the door. Hence my support.

When we have eliminated our dairy industry, we can import it from France at their price, like Gas from Russia, at their price, but the infrastructure to produce will have been lost.

If this is clever then I am a Dutchman, but it will happen, through appathy, and ignorance on the part of the careless consumer, who will no longer have any conception of what fresh milk is. The same happened with eggs, and most people now don't know what a fresh egg is in UK. It is mad, and ppeople do not care, so I wonder whether it matters. Probably not, except to a few old fashioned ones like me!


All the best from Fredrik
Posted on: 02 June 2006 by u5227470736789439
Dear Friends,

Given the gnashing of teeth over leaving electrical components powered up, I wonder if people might salve their conscienses just a little by considering the ecological advantages of have milk door-step-delivered given the case I made in the posts just before this one.

Food for thought I would think...

All the best from Fredrik
Posted on: 02 June 2006 by Chillkram
Dear Fredrik

You may well be right. And if delivered milk all but disappears then we may all be driving around in the redundant milk floats as they are electric and eco-friendly!

Regards

Mark