Milk . . . and Bread and Peanut Butter and Cookies

I grew up on a farm. A dairy farm of Jersey cows.   My parents raised six children. Our refrigerator always held several gallons of fresh milk, just waiting for us to pour a glassful for breakfast, lunch if at home, after school, and of course for dinner.  My mother kept the freezer stocked with homemade bread.  If the current loaf was more than half gone, it was your job to pull another loaf out of the freezer.  There was always a jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.   I usually ate school lunch, but I grew up on homemade bread and milk and peanut butter and homemade cookies after school and after meals if I was still hungry.  I grew up drinking milk, and I still need milk every day to feel satisfied. I no longer drink it at every meal, but try at least to have milk every morning and every night before I go to bed.


As a young adult, I spent almost a year and a half as a missionary for my church in the country of Colombia, in South America.  At that time fresh milk was not widely available throughout the country, and was fairly expensive.   If we had milk, it was usually powdered, or pasturized and sold in plastic bags.  The flavor of the bagged milk was very different than what we are used to here in the US.  Most of the places where I lived provided board and room, and we didn't often cook for ourselves.  We did drink a log of jugos, or drinks made with fresh fruit and milk, somewhat like smoothies.  We also drank a lot of yogurt, which seldom was firm like the yogurt here in the US.  One of the things that I missed most during that year and a half in Colombia was drinking fresh milk.

It seems that lately milk has gotten a bad rap in this country and is named as one of the culprits for our tendency to be overweight.  This makes me sad, and while I know that drinking a quart of whole milk every day isn't a good way to lose weight, I think that low fat milk in moderation is an excellent balance of many nutrients.  Besides, I love milk.  I can't have a cookie or a piece of cake or bread and butter without wanting a glass of milk.  It's actually the cookies and cake and bread and butter that are the cuprits for my excess weight.  Definitely not the milk! 

While raising my own family we've gone through countless gallons of milk over the years. In fact, I just calculated that we've probably used over 8100 gallons of milk in the past 28 years.  My kids have had plenty of bread and peanut butter and milk and cookies while growing up.  To this day, if we have bread and milk and peanut butter in the house, I feel safe and secure. If we were to ever run out . . . then I would start to worry.

PS:  I understand that many people suffer from allergies and/or lactose intolerance, or just plain don't care for milk.  I don't mean to push my love for milk onto anyone, and don't judge anyone who can't or doesn't want to drink milk!