Organic Valley Milk apparently has not been forth coming regarding their radiation detection process (if any). Given the apparent lack of openness on Organic Valley's part to further address the issue, the only safe assumption one can make is that Organic Valley is not capable of keeping radioactive materials out of their supply chain and milk products.
Until the situation improves I have removed Organic Valley from the Amazon widget on the POTRBLOG webpage. As an alternative, I suggest purchasing "NIDO" whole powdered milk which was manufactured before the Fukushima crisis. The only way to make sure the product was manufactured Pre-Fukushima is to check the dates for yourself at your local grocery. As of 5/29/11 Pre-Fukushima "NIDO" is still available in the Hispanic grocery aisle of several Saint Louis area Walmarts.
The standard NIDO whole milk powder has an expiration date set 2 years after the date of manufacture; hence if the date is past Feb 2013 the contamination risk increases. The exact date of manufacture may be found below the best by date. That date will be a string of numbers that starts with the 1 digit year + 3 digit day of manufacture, followed by more numbers. For example 1069xxxxxx, would indicate the product was made in 2011 on the 69th day; that equates to March 10, 2011.
----ORIGINAL POST BELOW-----
Christine asked in a comment to the previous blog post -- "I have a question.....I would like to buy dry milk from Red Mills Farm in Oregon. Do you know the time line for processing/packaging dry milk? I'm trying to figure out of dry milk sold on Amazon from Red Mills would be from cows milk after the radioactive fallout? Red Mills is ogranic but that doesn't mean anything with this radioactive rain. Any help would be appreciated. "
The response >>> updated 4/13 with corrected info on date codes
Christine,
Red Mills would be the best source of info to directly answer your question about the risks with their product. Our family decided to go with Organic Valley dried organic milk.
We purchased Organic Valley Nonfat Dry Milk from Amazon last week (it was sold and delivered by Amazon) It was marked with the following code
10351BEXP1111.
That first digit appears to be the year, the next 3 digits are the day of the year made. That means made in 2011 on the 35th day (Feb 11 2011) and best by November 2011. The expiration dates appear to roughly 8 months after the manufacturer date. As of 4/13/11 my local grocery stores are carrying Organic Valley dried milk with the following codes 02951BEXP0611 and 10351BEXP1111
I have a link up to purchase Organic valley dried organic milk on the left side of the screen. My experience indicates that the supply line is roughly 2 months. If you purchased right now you might get stuff made in Jan or late Feb. Fortunately Organic Valley has added radiation detection equipment to their operations, and they are testing pre-Fukushima milk to establish base lines (another strong indication that what is currently in the supply chain is pre-Fukushima) see their statement here.
Your best bet would be a local grocery store that does not do a big business in dried milk.
We picked up from the local grocery store some Flavorite Instant Nonfat dried milk with an expiration date of Feb 28 2013.
Here is the other thing to consider is that even with the best case scenarios the fallout is going to be going on for at minimum MONTHS, if you want dried milk buy it now while the contamination risks are at their lowest.
Things will get worse as monsoon season kick up, and there is still of a risk of an 8.0 aftershock and ten 7.0 aftershocks (Bath's law and Japanese history). More damage to the site is not out of question, so buying dried milk is not a crazy idea.
But what ever you do make sure the dried milk is USA produced, the FDA has released an import alert on Chinese made dried milk.
No comments:
Post a Comment