Friday, August 31, 2007

The Mystery of Milk

How does milk know when to go off?

At the moment I am living without parents, Mum has gone to China to visit dad, Jake has gone to china with school so its just Dusty and I left. So being the loving caring person mum is, the fridge was well stocked just before she left including about 6litres of milk. Now Dust and I don't really drink that much milk and the other day I just happened to be looking at and realised that it all went off either that day or the next day, so I madly tried to use as much of it as I could but I just couldn't use it all.

Anyway this got my wondering...as my studies have told me a "used-by" date is used to mark the date after which the product is unsafe to consume and milk has one of these. But...how does the milk know when to go off...is it at midnight the night before the used-by date, is it just casually through out the day that parts start to go bad...can you consume it and still be safe? Has some one just guessed that it might be bad after then? Is it worth risking it? Is there a small...microscopic even...time bomb in the milk that goes off when its time?

I don't know...hence the confusion...if you do please let me know!

Leviticus 20:24 "But I said to you, "You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey." I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations."

4 comments:

Flic said...

It goes like this, once it gets to it's "used by" date, generally it might be okay for another day if your luckily sometimes longer. Just remember to have a smell of it before you use it, it is smells off, don't drink it. Sometimes milk will go off before the "used by" date as well (if it hasn't been stored under optimum conditions all the time, ie you leave it on the bench while you drink your milo in the morning). Also generally if you buy two containers of milk at the same time with the same used by date...open one but don't finish it...the unopened one won't go off as quick.

fee said...

ok, i don't always really care that much for use by dates. if it looks good, smells good, then i'll probably still use it.
so maybe i'm not the best one to ask... or maybe i am.
love ya

fee said...

come on em, i'm waiting for a new blog...

Anonymous said...

I think it's related to how much bacterial contamination they think there is, and then how long it would take that many bacteria to replicate to the level where the milk goes off. And they've got to consider the contamination that happens once you open it too...

A (tragically boring) guess :)