Milk

January 8, 2008

We are sick. Noah has a sore throat and fever. Camille has the runniest, snottiest nose I have ever seen and she is more than happy to share her excessive snot with anyone and anything within close range. I have a sore throat and I am very grumpy as a result of extreme lack of sleep. The van is still full of stuff from our trip and I just can't bring myself to tackle it since it is hard enough to just get one load of dishes done with two sick kids clinging to my legs. Camille loves medicine and has spent most of the day "drug seeking"...coming up with all sorts of reasons why she needs meds. Noah on the other hand refuses to take medicine despite his raging fever and his chills. I have to bribe him with Hershey's kisses. And in the midst of this all I want to do is curl up in my bed and sleep. But that isn't possible.

So instead I spent part of this morning venting to myself about the rising costs of milk. Why aren't more people talking about this? (perhaps they are, but I have been too caught up in our little domestic bubble). Seriously. The cost of a gallon of milk (over $4) is more than a gallon of gas. And I am not even talking about the organic stuff (over $5). Just plain old regular whole milk. It used to be more expensive to buy soy milk but that isn't the case for us since we became fans of Costco's soy milk which we buy in bulk and especially not with the recent cost of cow's milk. I did a quick on-line search and came across this article. Turns out feeding kids and feeding cows are both becoming expensive endeavors. And the funny thing is that around this time last year I was thinking/blogging about milk, but from a different angle. Perhaps we should get our own cow...
Tisra said...

This may not solve anything if something similar isn't available in your area, but our family is now part of a milk co-op to buy, direct from farmers, unprocessed organic milk from grass-fed cows. Health benefits led us down that road, but cutting out the middle man has its perks- we pay only $2/gallon for it!

I'm a big fan of Costco, too, and their prices can't be beat!

Tisra

Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish said...

Tisra,
Is it raw milk? I have a few friends who do raw milk but we haven't ventured down that path yet. I'll have to do some searching for a local dairy farm...good suggestion. I would prefer to buy local anyway and how wonderful it is also saved a few pennies. Thanks for the idea.

Kellie said...

I hope everyone feels better soon. I have a dairy that delivers all sort of milk and other locally-produced good stuff, but in the D.C. metro area, the market will support prices at the luxury-item level. I splurge on a few items, and it does feel good to buy local, but the milk is about 6 dollars a gallon.

Tisra said...

Yes, it's raw milk. Let me know if you ever wanted information on it. Otherwise, everyone just has to make their own decision and some people are a bit nervous about unprocessed milk.

Jessica said...

Hope you are all feeling better soon! I was laughing about the "drug seeking"--Audrey also loves medicine. I think it's so odd. ;)

And yeah, milk is sooo expensive. It's killing me (we are HUGE milk drinkers). Add to that, next month we have to start buying Hunter whole milk.

Corinne said...

YUCK! Sickness is SO MUCH HARDER when I feel sick myself. I'm so sorry.

And I'm with you on the milk - I wish I had some kind of option. I shop at BJs where it's up to about $3.25 - but I remember last year when it was a dollar less than that!!

Anonymous said...

Oh, so sorry everyone is sick. I hated those days of mass illness. Hope it passes quickly.

Luckily, we aren't a big milk drinking family (I was the only one until I found out I was lactose intolerant), but I still buy Lactaid milk and some regular milk for cereal for the others and it is astounding! Interesting article. Really shows the relationship between things in our society. No easy answer.

morninglight mama said...

Hi there! It's Dawn from over at the nook-- just checking out your blog and I can TOTALLY relate to the crunch from rising milk costs. We are a family of five (well, the 2-month-old doesn't really count in regards to store-bought milk just yet!), and we go through four gallons of skim milk a week- and that's just me, hubby and 7-year-old. The 1-year-old gets her own gallon of whole milk. Suffice it to say, we LOVE milk. Costco is our only option right now (even though I HATE their newly designed gallon jugs that always spill when you pour!), and even that's over $3.00 a gallon, ugh...

Heather said...

This is so timely. We've been in the WIC program for several years while Oswaldo has been in school, so I haven't paid much attention to milk prices, since the gov't was taking care of that detail for us. But today I ventured out to buy some milk with my own money, and it was a shock. We have a pretty robust dairy industry here in the NW, and I'm pretty sure a good portion of it is grass-fed. I think I'm going to price local grass-fed dairies and see--who knows, maybe they'll break even soon!

Anyway, I hope you're all feeling better soon. That's no fun at all.

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