Anchor Milk, lightproof containers, and consumer - can you notice the taste difference?

Forums › Off topic › Anchor Milk, lightproof containers, and consumer - can you notice the taste difference?

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#1845073 11-Aug-2017 11:45

A2 milk was interesting phenomenon in NZ. It exploded onto the market with some seriously dodgy technical / nutritional claims, got ridiculed, and faded away. I'm not even sure if it's still stocked at my local supermarkets - if so then not prominently.

Last couple of trips to Aussie, A2 seems to be a major player, as well as prominently displayed in supermarkets, it seemed to be the default premium brand in corner store etc. Was the milk in every fridge in every home I visited too.

Perhaps aussies are gullible.

coffeebaron

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#1845094 11-Aug-2017 12:14

When I run out of real milk (organic direct from my farmer friend's vat), my next choice is Anchor. In my many years of making great coffee, Anchor has been the most consistent at not landing me a bad batch of milk.

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Paul1977

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#1845096 11-Aug-2017 12:18

trig42:

...for every 20 minutes a milk bottle is left out (not in a dark place) it lost a day off it's best before..."

That sounds wrong, 12 hours in the lit fridge at the supermarket would shorten it's best before by 36 days!

trig42

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#1845098 11-Aug-2017 12:20

Paul1977:

trig42:

...for every 20 minutes a milk bottle is left out (not in a dark place) it lost a day off it's best before..."

That sounds wrong, 12 hours in the lit fridge at the supermarket would shorten it's best before by 36 days!

Agreed, it does sound wrong.

There is a little bit to back it up:

http://shelflifeadvice.com/content/what-effect-if-any-does-light-have-milk

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/06/consumers-sour-milk-exposed-led-light

My memory of the 20 minutes figure may be wrong (could be an hour for a days loss, but it was something like that).

sbiddle

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#1845099 11-Aug-2017 12:24

surfisup1000:

As far as I am aware the main reason for using lightproof containers is to protect the flavour. And in my experience this is true, milk from transparent containers often has an 'off' taste.

But because Anchor made claims about vitamin levels, Consumer compared vitamin levels in lightproof containers against levels in transparent containers and found no difference.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/95671921/anchors-claim-its-bottles-keep-milk-fresher-called-out-by-consumer-nz

Anchor removed the claims regarding vitamin levels, even though there is research that shows light degrades vitamins in milk.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26874418

The comments in the stuff story are interesting. It just seems that so many people cannot tell when milk has an 'off-taste'.

This used to happen quite often when we bought transparent containers but never since we started using the light proof containers.

Pretty much Consumer NZ's own testing doesn't match up with 30+ years of testing by external sources including Cornell University who have researched this extensively.

I certainly don't believe Consumer NZ.

Bung

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#1845110 11-Aug-2017 12:34

When I'm in the supermarket I can rewind the memory video that tells me that the container was under half full with the usual brands. Any light proof bottle won't taste better if it turns out to be empty.

Geektastic

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#1845125 11-Aug-2017 12:40

I drank milk delivered daily in glass bottles more or less until I moved here.

It never went off except when left on the doorstep for too long because I was away and forgot to cancel the milkman.

Whilst I doubt light does milk much good (it certainly turns butter rancid quickly) over long exposure times, I would think most people drink it fast enough that it isn't likely to be an issue.

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Fred99

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#1845148 11-Aug-2017 13:15

Huh - this is a little surprising - https://phys.org/news/2015-03-sunlight-flavour.html

"Surprisingly, at Nofima in Ås we have shown that orange and red light actually causes a stronger off-flavour in milk than blue light. And we have found out why," says senior scientist Jens Petter Wold in the norwegian food research institute Nofima.

Milk contains minute amounts of chlorophyll and its breakdown products. These substances end up in the milk since the cow eats green grass. Chlorophyll is extremely sensitive to light, and will also initiate oxidation in the milk. These newly discovered light-sensitive products are most sensitive to violet, orange and red light, and this is the cause of the strong off-flavour that arises when milk is exposed to red light.

I wonder if this means that NZ (mainly grass-fed cows) milk is more susceptible to development of off-flavours than in countries where the cows may be grain-fed.

Of course it doesn't always correlate, but we've evolved to reject certain "off" flavours as unhealthy. It'd be nice to know what these off-flavour by-products of oxidation actually are.

Edit: I note from cursory glance at one of the research papers linked to above, that one of the compounds formed is dimethyl sulfide. That - in my opinion - makes sense - it's the kind of smell I'd associate with sun-exposed milk.

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#1845151 11-Aug-2017 13:18

Geektastic:

I drank milk delivered daily in glass bottles more or less until I moved here.

It never went off except when left on the doorstep for too long because I was away and forgot to cancel the milkman.

Whilst I doubt light does milk much good (it certainly turns butter rancid quickly) over long exposure times, I would think most people drink it fast enough that it isn't likely to be an issue.

I have horrible memories of milk from glass, I guess it maybe why I am a very, very low consumer of milk.

surfisup1000

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#1845175 11-Aug-2017 13:45

lokhor:

It's a scam. Milk in the fridge is not exposed to light most of the time. How long do you honestly leave your fridge door open for?

So, your view is that the fridge light is the only source of light that might affect milk ?

I'm interested in your thought process here.

Why do you only account for the fridge light and ignore light exposure through the entire distribution chain?

surfisup1000

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#1845180 11-Aug-2017 13:50

gehenna:

i can't notice the difference between top shelf supermarket milk and service station generic brand milk.... because it all comes from the same cows!!!!!!

Have you never tasted milk that has 'gone off'?

Milk that has gone off comes from the same cows but tastes different. How can you explain that?

kryptonjohn

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#1845181 11-Aug-2017 13:50

MikeB4:

Geektastic:

I drank milk delivered daily in glass bottles more or less until I moved here.

It never went off except when left on the doorstep for too long because I was away and forgot to cancel the milkman.

Whilst I doubt light does milk much good (it certainly turns butter rancid quickly) over long exposure times, I would think most people drink it fast enough that it isn't likely to be an issue.

I have horrible memories of milk from glass, I guess it maybe why I am a very, very low consumer of milk.

I know what you mean - an experience-developed aversion is powerful. The faintest whiff of mezcal tequila still makes me gag after all these years!

scuwp

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#1845182 11-Aug-2017 13:52

Milk doesn't last that long in my household to even begin to worry about this.

I have no doubt that based on a scientific test there is evidence of a measurable difference. Will the average human notice, or would it make any perceptible difference to my quality or length or life?...seriously doubt it. It does however make a difference to my expenditure. Cheapest is best.

Science for science sake that doesn't make a jot of difference in reality IMO.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

MikeB4

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#1845184 11-Aug-2017 13:53

kryptonjohn:

MikeB4:

Geektastic:

I drank milk delivered daily in glass bottles more or less until I moved here.

It never went off except when left on the doorstep for too long because I was away and forgot to cancel the milkman.

Whilst I doubt light does milk much good (it certainly turns butter rancid quickly) over long exposure times, I would think most people drink it fast enough that it isn't likely to be an issue.

I have horrible memories of milk from glass, I guess it maybe why I am a very, very low consumer of milk.

I know what you mean - an experience-developed aversion is powerful. The faintest whiff of mezcal tequila still makes me gag after all these years!

Or Drambuie but that's a whole other story

surfisup1000

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#1845185 11-Aug-2017 13:55

Geektastic:

I drank milk delivered daily in glass bottles more or less until I moved here.

It never went off except when left on the doorstep for too long because I was away and forgot to cancel the milkman.

Whilst I doubt light does milk much good (it certainly turns butter rancid quickly) over long exposure times, I would think most people drink it fast enough that it isn't likely to be an issue.

I don't like 'off milk', I sometimes wonder if I have some extra sense of taste as some people don't seem to mind it.

I can taste when cafe's use off milk in their coffee. Our 'Z' station uses the transparent milk bottles and their coffees are disgusting. I never buy from there.

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