Uniformity... It can be a very good thing.
If you buy a pair of pants, you want them to be exactly the size that they claim to be so that you can count on them fitting. It ensures predictability.
When you have grown up eating food from the supermarket, you are used to it being the same exact thing, every time.
The brand of sandwich bread you like. Exactly the same week to week. Same with the cereal, the cookies and crackers, fruit, vegetables, the dairy, the bacon...
Chances are, you could buy the same foods you are used to in Vermont across the country in Texas--or at least a very similar version of them.
The modern industrial food chain has taken seasonal and regional variability out of our diets.
When you eat locally grown food, you need to get used to changes. Asparagus won't be available in December, any more than winter squash is available in June.
The foods will not all look the same, either, as if they had all been stamped out of the same mold. If they were grown or crafted on a small scale, each individual piece of food is going to have unique characteristics. Sometimes even "imperfections". That's because food that was grown by local farmers was grown for taste and nutrition, not for uniformity or long shelf life.
Eating with the seasons brings vibrancy and variety to your table. It gives you the nourishment that nature is providing for that moment.
What Did the Cows Eat Today?
Cows who live in factory farms eat basically the same thing year round, mostly corn and soy. Those farms have so many cows in all different stages of lactation that the milk is very uniform. Then, it is processed to have a standardized amount of milk fat, and gets pasteurized and homogenized, which remove whatever unique qualities it may have once had.
When people begin drinking raw milk, naturally they expect it to be the same week to week because that is what they are used to from store bought milk.
A small herd of cows on pasture are not eating the same thing every day. One of the beauties of pasture is that there are dozens of types of plants growing out there, and they change over the course of the growing season. In early May there will be an abundance of dandelions, which will give way to a flush of clover. Different parts of the pasture will be wetter or drier, and those patches will have unique communities of forage. It's always changing, offering new plants to nourish the cow.
The cows will be at different stages of lactation over the course of the year. The protein and butterfat percentages in her milk change during her lactation.
A predictable change happens twice a year when cows transition on- or off- of hay.
Therefore, each jar of milk is going to be unique. Things such as:
color
amount of cream
flavor
how easily the cream churns to butter
will not be the same every week.
Embracing Diverse Foods
The French have a name for the unique qualities that foods from various regions and seasons have: terroir. A wine connoisseur can tell you what year and region a bottle of wine came from just by tasting it.
The definition of terroir is: the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate.
Not just wine has terroir. Any locally grown food has unique qualities. A cabbage from my garden will taste different than a cabbage from a garden in Ohio.
Unique, local foods offer rich diversity in taste and nutrition.
A principle of herbalism is that whatever part of the plant is actively growing at a given moment is the part that has the most potency. For example, in spring, the leaves are growing and they have the most vitality; as summer progresses and the plant flowers, its flowers hold the vitality; then as fall comes and the plant sends its nutrients down to its roots, the roots become the most potent part of the plant.
This same principle can be applied to eating seasonal foods. If dandelions are abundant and the cows are eating them, then dandelions are going to make the most nutritious milk right now, and so on. Aren't you glad they aren't just eating corn and soy year round?
When you get your weekly milk, if it tastes a little different than you are used to, this might be why. I welcome you to call me and tell me if the milk tastes different, because if there is an "off taste," I want to know about it.
In many cases, though, flavors that you initially perceive as "off" are simply indications that your palette has not been educated to the seasonality of milk. I can chat with you about changes going on with the cows that may have caused it, and that it might not be bad at all. You might even find that you really like the milk once you get used to it!
Expect that there will be variations in raw milk, there SHOULD be variations...
Because nature has variations, and my milk is a product of nature.
Comments