Guide to Dairy

Rich and creamy cheeses, tangy yogurts and kefir, flavorful butter, sweet ice cream--the world of food would be "udderly" boring without dairy products!

Humans have been eating dairy products for thousands of years and from all sorts of animals, not just cows. Authentic mozzarella, for example, comes from buffalo milk, just as authentic feta comes from sheep's milk. Goat's milk is another common ingredient in various dairy products. But have you ever tried camel's milk cheese? Yak butter?

Of course, for a variety of reasons, some people choose not to eat dairy products or choose to reduce their consumption. For those who do drink milk and eat dairy products, it's important today to pay attention to the quality of your milk. Concerns have grown in recent years over the presence in milk of growth hormones, traces of antibiotics and other drugs and pesticide residues.

At Jimbo's...Naturally! we give you plenty of options. We sell only the finest and "cleanest" milk products, including organic milk and raw milk. And, we stock a huge array of dairy alternatives.

What's in Your Milk?
That's a good question. But it's not always an easy one to answer if you're getting your milk and other dairy products from conventional supermarkets.

Let's start with the bovine growth hormone. Available for use by farmers in 1994, this hormone (known as rBGH or rBST) increases dairy farmers' profits by increasing milk output per cow by as much as 25%. Some scientists are concerned about rBGH's effect on human bodies. Plus, there is a vastly increased incidence of mastitis in cows given this hormone. These udder infections are then treated with antibiotics, increasing the chance of drug residues in milk. What's worse is that dairy products are not required to state whether rBGH was used in milk production.

All of Jimbo's suppliers have pledged not to use this hormone. Some even require promissory letters from all their milk producers. And organic milk standards strictly prohibit use of the hormone.

Beyond that, there are concerns about pesticide and drug residues turning up in dairy products. True, it's illegal to sell milk tainted with any antibiotic residues. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) milk monitoring program is supposed to catch any such residues. Yet the program tests for only a fraction of the 60-70 drugs that are commonly administered to cows--either as medicine or in their feed to accelerate weight gain. Plus, the program tests only about one milk sample per state per month. To compensate for that, our largest supplier, Alta Dena tests its milk 17 separate times to make sure it contains no harmful substances.

Another way to avoid pesticide residues is to drink organic milk, which comes from cows fed 100% certified organically grown feed and grazed on organically certified land. Organic milk standards also prohibit the sale of milk from cows treated with antibiotics for at least 30 days, as opposed to the three-day withholding period for conventional milk herds.

The Fat in Dairy
Labeling practices can make the question of fat content hard to decipher. For example, lowfat or 2% milk is often taken to mean that 98% of the fat in whole milk has been cut out. What it really means, however, is that 2% of the milk is butterfat. Whole milk has anywhere from 3% to 4% butterfat. So lowfat milk has less butterfat than whole milk, but nowhere near 98% less! Only skim, or non-fat milk is completely fat-free.

For more complete information about DAIRY PRODUCTS, drop by any Jimbo's location to pick up a free detailed brochure.

Jimbo's....Naturally! San Diego's premier natural foods store serving San Diego with stores in Carmel Valley, Escondido, Carlsbad and 4S Ranch.