local milk

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

In the past few months there have been several threads on this community about local milk and/or milk delivery. It has been pointed out that Crescent Ridge Dairy delivers local milk to towns all around Somerville but not to Somerville itself (see their delivery map which conspicuously omits our entire beloved town from existence).

I emailed Crescent Ridge a while back to ask about the chances of them adding a Somerville delivery, and got back a typically wishy-washy answer from a sales-type person (you know, "we are always considering new opportunities" or something vague like that).

I also did a little looking into other options for acquiring locally-produced milk in the area, and found that:
* Shaw Farm milk is sold at Kickass Cupcakes. However, since most of my shopping would be done with kids in tow, it just isn't feasible to be going into a cupcake store on a regular basis. ;) Also, it's inefficient for me to have to buy four quarts when I want a gallon.
* Shaw Farm milk is also sold at Wilson Farm in Lexington. This is a bit far for me to justify going on a regular basis just for milk.
* Shaw Farm's website does not list Kickass Cupcakes on its list of stores that sell its products, which leads me to wonder where else it might be available that isn't on the website.
* I heard a rumor that Dave's Fresh Pasta carried local milk, but this turns out to be incorrect (at least according to the somewhat confused person behind the counter there this evening).
* I also heard a rumor that McKinnon's Meat Market in Davis Square carried local milk, but have not investigated this yet since I'm a vegetarian and the place intimidates me.
* You can also get Crescent Ridge milk at Whole Foods, which is an okay option but still not really convenient for me (and again only available in quarts, at least at the Central Square location).
* Hood delivers, but the milk is not necessarily local and (from what I can see) is factory-produced.

Anyway, with the foregoing in mind, my questions to you are:
* Do you know of anywhere else in the immediate Davis Square area where locally-produced milk can be purchased?
* Do you know of any other establishment, besides Crescent Ridge and Hood, that delivers milk to Somerville?
and finally,
* Would you be interested in signing up for regular milk deliveries from Crescent Ridge if they added Somerville to their delivery area? I was thinking that it might work better if a bunch of us banded together to approach them saying "here are x people representing y gallons per week who really want to give you their money." If you would be interested in that, please post here (or email me at this username at gmail) and let me know.

Thanks everyone! Now let the flaming begin. :)

Comments

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

to your second question: yes.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

I am curious as to why, and where the trade off occurs?

I do always try to buy organic, and as far as I am concerned, the more local the better. I am very thankful to places such as Whole foods who go out of their way to list where the food is coming from.

However, I cannot see how it would be preferable to buy milk from a dairy that, for example, was using hormones, if there was a more "organic dairy" within n miles.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

organic milk is better for you, but not necessarily the environment. trucking in milk or produce is bad for the planet. hormones are super bad, but AFAIK aren't polluting waterways and killing beneficials the way chemical fertilizers and pesticides are. smaller farms also tend more toward organic (or act organic even if they can't afford the certification) because it is their own land and because it helps their bottom line (the chemicals are expensive and a farmer may rather go out and pull weeds for just the cost of his time than have one more expense). they're probably consuming the product as well, rather than being workers in a factory, money-making enterprise. given the number of farms within the 100-mile radius, eating local isn't that hard and gives the consumer the choice of which farms to eat from--so you'll quite often get the choice of local AND organic, which is great! unfortunately not all dairy farms will process their own milk into the final product (be it milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.)--the middle man picks it up and takes it for processing--which is why local milk and eggs may be hard to come by.

as for where the trade off occurs, that's a good question. I could make an educated guess, but it's really not a clearcut answer. maybe some outfit has done the actual research and theorizing to give a precise answer.

[attackpenguin.livejournal.com]

I think the animal treatment has to be put in there as well. Sure hormones/antibiotics don't kill the environment but I'd rather not drink milk than inflict a life of suffering on an animal just so I can enjoy my fruit loops.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

agreed, but again, I was just answering her particular question, not examining every ethical angle. I don't even drink milk.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I'm a tree hugger, but MY health wins out over the health of the environment every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I don't want hormones in my milk. If this means my milks has to be trucked in from a little further away until someone local catches on, so be it.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Neither of the two farms that I mentioned in my original post, Shaw Farm and Crescent Ridge, use growth hormones. It's right there on both their websites (in fact the Shaw Farm website includes a glorious rant about the illogic of the state's labeling regulations).

I understand your sentiment but I think that in the VAST majority of cases, if you buy your milk from a small, local, non-factory-using, independent-businessman farmer, you're going to be getting hormone-free milk. The small farmers just don't use that stuff because they care about their cows and understand all the complex reasons why hormones are bad. The only place you really find growth hormones being used is in the huge "factory" dairies, where they care more about profits than the health of the cow OR of the consumer.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my comment wasn't meant to say that those two dairy's use hormones. Rather, it was a response to people saying that buying local milk was preferable to buying growth hormone riddled milk.

I'm glad to hear those two do not use growth hormones. My wife does the shopping and we usually end up with Organic Valley, Stonyfield Farm or something like that - not really local, but it's at least organic. I got a couple glass bottles of Shaw Farm (I think) chocolate milk at Wilson Farm... my goodness it was yummy.

[jadelennox]

It's a huge balance. Organic implies better treatment of the environment and the animal. Local means less travel, less carbon footprint in transport, and support of local farmers -- and 100 miles of Greater Boston almost by definition means small farm instead of multinational megafarm. Whole Foods over your local mom and pop, if you're near one, means a good selection of organic and labelled locations, but they're a union-busting megacorp. Buying direct from the farmers when possible (CSA, farmer's market, Crescent Ridge) often solves all of these problems, but is often inconvenient, seasonal, and expensive. I shop at the Harvest Co-op when i can, but often have to take a cab home because it's so far, which is expensive and gas-guzzling.

In other words, pick what makes sense to you and won't drive you crazy, and run with it. I find local farmer's market and CSA food in the summer to be miles above anything else I've ever eaten.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Just some more info: The reason dairy "farms"/CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) use so many antibiotics is because the animals are so packed in that they're extremely susceptible to disease. All that concentrated waste runoff is quite damaging to the local environment, not to mention that high use of antibiotics leads to the evolution of resistant strains -- and people get those antibiotic-resistant diseases, not just animals.

As jadelennox says below, "farm within 100 miles of Boston" pretty much means "small-scale and following the general principles of organic, even if they haven't spent the money to get officially certified." So the choice isn't so either-or around here. Lucky us!

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the other reasons CAFOs use antibiotics are
a) they are feeding the cows corn, which is not a natural food for the cow, and which is difficult for the cow to digest and causes internal bleeding/infections
and
b) they are using artificial hormones to make their cows produce more milk, which causes mastitis (inflammation of the mammary glands) which requires antibiotics to treat it.

having had mastitis myself once or twice, I gotta say I wouldn't wish it on anyone, human, bovine, or what have you.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Yup (about the corn)! And I didn't know the mastitis bit, but that makes sense.

In summary, CAFOs are a Bad Scene, for just about everything and everyone concerned. Switch to local/organic animal products! *gets down off soapbox...for now :) *