Milk

WASHINGTON BORO, Pa. - Twenty years ago, John Harnish was happy if his cows each yielded 17,000 pounds of milk a year. These days, his 145 black-and-white animals are veritable dairy queens - producing a hefty 27,000 pounds each. He credits most of the increase to breeding, more frequent milking, and better feed. Another factor comes straight from the biotech lab: biweekly injections of synthetic growth hormone. If you don't like that, you won't like this: As of Feb. 1 in Pennsylvania, consumers won't be able to tell the difference between milk from farms that inject their cows and milk from those that don't.

Dear Polly: Could you tell me if milk and powdered eggs have any cholesterol? I have to watch my cholesterol intake. - Tana Dear Tana: If the powdered milk were whole milk, yes, it would contain cholesterol, as do powdered whole eggs. However, powdered non-fat milk, which is the kind normally found in the supermarket, does not contain cholesterol. Powdered egg whites (as opposed to powdered or dried whole eggs) also do not contain cholesterol. Dear Polly: Here's a quick dish: Heat a can of chicken-and-rice soup (don't dilute)

Q. A friend of mine buys two or three gallons of milk and puts them in the freezer. I heard that milk shouldn't be frozen because that's where the watery taste comes from. True or false? Mrs. Eddie Parsons Shreveport, La. A. When I was a child and we forgot to bring the delivered milk inside in the winter and it froze, we had to throw it out. Nobody would drink it. So recently when I read in the University of California's Wellness Letter that milk can be frozen and kept in the freezer for about a month, I assumed that since all milk is now homogenized, which it wasn't when I was a child, it could now be effectively frozen.

Milk is the perfect food. Not. That's the message from Dr. Benjamin Spock and several colleagues, whose concerns about cow's milk vary from a warning that it can be harmful to infants to a demand for a flat-out boycott of the white substance by people of all ages. Spock, 89, once a proponent of milk, now says that "breast feeding is the best milk feeding for babies. I want to urge parents, especially with subsequent babies, to use breast milk. " "This does not mean that every child that's been on cow's milk is doomed," Spock said yesterday.

It seems schools are always under fire for the food they serve, but here's one of the many things the Philadelphia School District is doing right for our children - it serves milk free of rBGH, an artificial hormone that increases milk production but is also linked to colon, breast and prostate cancer in humans. Most of the industrialized world has banned rBGH. The U.S. not only allows it, but also serves it to our children. School boards from California to Wisconsin have passed resolutions making their districts officially rBGH-free.

With an eye toward saving precious landfill space, two Montgomery County dairy farmers are selling some of their milk in bags and discouraging consumers from buying bulky plastic containers. The milk bag, once emptied of its contents, collapsed and disposed, requires much less landfill space than plastic or carton milk containers, the dairy farmers say. "We've been telling our customers for eight to 10 years, if you stack a truck full of those plastic jugs, it takes up a lot of room," Steve Quigley, a manager at Merrymead Farm in Lansdale, said, "but if you would stack the bags in the same truck it wouldn't take up a fraction of the space.

A small milk-distribution center in the Matlack Industrial Park was approved unanimously this week by the West Goshen Board of Supervisors. Rosenberger's Dairies Inc. plans to move into the 4,700-square-foot office and warehouse from its plant at 700 S. Bradford Ave. in East Bradford Township. Each night, one tractor-trailer will drop off the milk from the company's Hatfield plant; route drivers will pick up the milk early in the morning. The new office will be built on a 2-acre lot at 209 Carter Drive, the last lot to be developed in the industrial park.

Dear Polly: I make ice cubes out of milk and add them to my child's milk thermos in his lunch box. This keeps the milk really cold and fresh without watering it down. - Mom Dear Polly: An electric blanket makes a wonderful heating pad if you have a sore back. Just spread the blanket on a bed or the floor, plug it in and lie down on it. Very soothing. - Marian Dear Polly: To keep natural peanut butter from separating after stirring it up the first time, just put it in the refrigerator.

Dear Polly: I read many food magazines containing recipes for custards or puddings that specify "do not use low-fat or skim milk. " Why is this? I cannot make these recipes since I can only drink skim milk. - Mrs. V.S. Skim or low-fat milk can tend to make custards a bit watery, but I have made all manner of puddings and custards using skim milk and 1 percent milk, and they turn out fine most of the time. I'd say go ahead and make the recipe using your low-fat or skim milk so you can judge the results for yourself.

In a red stucco building along the rail siding at the edge of Kennett Square recently, Bob Bada was hand-packing his latest batch of Gelati di Capri, slamming each half-filled pint on the stainless steel table to burp out the air, creating a racket - like goats doing flamenco. This is Bada's newest venture, two years now in the refining (though he's still not taking a salary), finally getting traction - in the freezers in two Whole Foods Markets in Philadelphia, and in health-food stores from Kimberton to his sentimental favorite, Spring Run Natural Foods, his first customer, in Kennett Square.

1 can regular coconut milk (13.5 oz.) 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons agave syrup 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/8 teaspoon sea salt 1. Whisk ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Let chill in refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight. 2. Add to ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's directions. When done, transfer to container and let freeze for a minimum of 2 hours before serving. From Ross Olchvary, Sprig & Vine Per serving: 334 calories, 2 grams protein, 35 grams carbohydrates, 3 grams sugar, 23 grams fat, no cholesterol, 98 milligrams sodium, 2 grams dietary fibers

A New Jersey cheesemaker made its ricotta cheese from tainted milk that was on its way to a landfill, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Philadelphia. The raw milk from Pennsylvania had been condemned because of high levels of antibiotics, authorities said. No injuries or illnesses were reported. Lebanon Cheese Co. of Lebanon, Hunterdon County, and its president, Joseph G. Lotito, were charged Monday with a misdemeanor interstate shipping charge. The company paid cash for the discounted milk from D.A. Landis Trucking Inc. of Lancaster, in 2008, although dairy farmers had pledged to dispose of it, prosecutors said.

After 17 years in the music business, Craig Finn thought he'd try doing things like a pro. That's not to say the Hold Steady front man is some kind of amateur. Over the course of five albums, leading up to 2010's Heaven Is Whenever, the Hold Steady have wooed both critics and audiences with Finn's Beat-poet lyrics and the band's fist-pumping anthems. But after the lackluster response to Heaven 's glossier sheen, Finn felt it was time to step away from his familiar Hold Steady collaborators and try his hand at the industrial grind of the songwriter-for-hire.

A 3-year-old boy and a 27-year-old man from South Jersey became ill recently from drinking raw milk from a Pennsylvania farm. New Jersey health officials are warning residents about the risks of drinking unpasteurized milk in wake of the illnesses. The state Department of Health and Senior Services says the two became sick after consuming the milk from Family Cow Dairy in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The department does not specify when the two became sick. Currently 78 people from several states have fallen ill with Campylobacteriosis, a gastrointestinal illness, from the consumption of raw milk contaminated with bacteria traced to the farm.

WASHINGTON - An outbreak of bacterial infections on the East Coast illustrates the popularity of raw, unpasteurized milk despite strong warnings from public health officials about the potential danger. Even presidential candidate Ron Paul has joined the cause of consumers looking to buy unprocessed "real foods" straight from the farm, saying government shouldn't deny them that choice. An outbreak of campylobacter illness is a reminder of the potential hazards, however. Raw milk from a dairy in Chambersburg, Pa., is now linked to 38 cases in four states, and the farm has temporarily suspended sales.

PITTSBURGH - Picture a boxy old delivery truck with a huge pink breast on top. The nipple is a flashing red light. It's the Milk Truck, spreading the message that nursing mothers have the need and right to feed their infants in public. Jill Miller, an artist and mother, said she got the idea after the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh asked her to do a project of her choice last year. "I really wanted to make a piece that appealed to the wider community here, not just to the art audience," she said.

After a tumultuous 2011 in which they opened a new Center City coffee-and-music venue amid a nasty labor dispute, no one would have faulted rising entertainment entrepreneurs Jamie Lokoff and Tommy Joyner for taking it easy in the new year. But that's not how they roll at MilkBoy, a blend of java- and music-brewed business ventures that seeks to reinvent itself in 2012. Joyner and Lokoff are focusing on Center City after a decade running a recording studio and their now well-known coffee house in Ardmore (and a smaller one in Bryn Mawr)

Question: For years, I've had a glass of warm milk to help me fall asleep. I think it works as well as a sleeping pill, but it's a lot safer and is natural - which I like. Is it the tryptophan in the milk that causes me to feel sleepy? Answer: Warm milk at bedtime definitely can have a calming effect, but despite popular belief, it's probably not caused by the effect of the amino acid tryptophan on the brain. In order for tryptophan or any sleep-promoting drug to work, it must cross the "blood-brain barrier" and get from the bloodstream into the brain tissue.

At 6 a.m. Monday, Tommy Joyner and Jamie Lokoff finally swung open the doors to their long-awaited, one-of-a-kind, java-and-booze-with-music MilkBoy Coffee emporium in Center City and encountered something that has largely eluded them for much of the last 10 months: labor peace. It lasted roughly one hour. By 7 a.m., carpenters' union members, furious that the new MilkBoy outlet at 11th and Chestnut Streets had been rehabbed by nonunion workers, were picketing outside the main doors - just as they had done at the original MilkBoy in Ardmore.

About a year ago, after months of investigation complete with undercover purchases, a posse of federal agents made a predawn move on a Pennsylvania farm and discovered a sizable stash of pure, unadulterated . . . milk. The government's pursuit of Daniel Allgyer, an Amish dairy farmer in Lancaster County, continued last month with a federal complaint seeking to stop his hustling of unpasteurized milk, which has long been popular among the crunchy set but illegal to sell across state lines.