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Comment by RandallBrown | Hacker News Reader

Milk in the US is only a couple days old by the time it's in the grocery store.

Unless most people in Europe are buying direct from the dairies, I can't imagine it's appreciably faster. Even then, I grew up having milk delivered direct from the dairy and definitely don't notice any difference between what I grew up with and what I typically buy in the grocery store.

I would guess most of the flavor difference comes from pasteurization differences, since Ultra High Temperature pasteurization appears to be the norm over there.

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> Milk in the US is only a couple days old by the time it's in the grocery store.

Same for me. It took me a bit to figure out what was going on with this discussion and then suddenly I realized ..

The US is not a single system and actually the quality does vary a lot. I remember being in Florida and thinking why is the milk so weird.

In Denmark you can get milk at the grocery store that was inside the cow less than 24 hours ago. Ultra High Temperature pasteurization is not really normal in Denmark, but I think it is in Germany.

Its unusual for milk not to be UHT here in Spain.

I wonder if it's due to Spain being a warmer country and the milk spoiling more quickly.

Yes, that's the reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_process...

They have fridges these days....

I miss UHT and homogenized milk since I moved to Denmark :( I loved being able to buy a six pack of milk bottles back in France and keep it in a closet for weeks, now I can barely drink a carton of milk before it goes bad.

While most milk in Netherland is pateurised and therefore keeps only a few days, there's also sterilised milks which keeps for months. Doesn't taste as good, though.

That really depends on the supply chain, but many stores do occasionally need to throw out old milk so you really need to consider how long the sell by date gives them to work with. Then add 2 days before pasteurization though this can legally be up to 5 days or in theory as little as 24 hours.

Just remember they moved to Ultra High Pasteurization because 2 weeks was simply not long enough.

UHT Milk is not normal in the USA outside the grab & go bottle sizes (1/2 liter): https://www.fredmeyer.com/search?query=milk

What is concerning is the high fructose corn syrup, kelp & skim milk blend that Darigold, Kroger and other US milk producers are advertising as Fat Free Half n Half: https://www.fredmeyer.com/search?query=fat%20free%20half&sea...

All the milk that are sold at my grocery store, no matter the size, is ultra-pasteurized. It's not unusual at all, in my experience. They sell common East Coast brands like Organic Valley.

(According to various sources I can find when googling this, there's no difference between ultra-pasteurized and UHT.)

Backing up the other comments, this also isn't true from anything I've seen in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, or Pennsylvania. Seems like an issue specific to places where the demand for milk far outstrips the regional creamery supply.

But "not normal" is not correct, either.

Perhaps ultra-pasteurized is common on the East Coast? Its definitely not common for 1 gallon or half gallons in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho or Michigan (in my experience).

UHT is only for warm shelf milk here in Virginia, and maybe for some of the really expensive organic stuff that's shipped all the way across the country.

Many organic milks are UHT, but here in the Midwest most milk is not UHT.

> Just remember they moved to Ultra High Pasteurization because 2 weeks was simply not long enough.

That wasn't the idea. It was supposed to sit unrefrigerated on normal shelves. They haven't had great success with the product in the US as people don't trust non-refrigerated milk.

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