I was shopping today with wife at local Meijer. She needed whole milk which she uses for baking. I told her way back to check expiration dates because she doesn't use much to make it last. Well today she gets a quart of their store brand regular milk in a paper carton and expiration date was March 26. Thinking that can't be right but all the other quarts of the same whole milk were marked March 26 too. Being skeptical we bought a half gallon in plastic that expires Feb 02. All of their milk in plastic containers expired within 2 weeks?

Has anyone else seen this? Maybe something has changed with milk processing that I am not aware of? Again it was only their milk in the quart paper containers.

Along those lines I have also noticed that sliced bread and buns can last a really long time these days too compared to not that many years ago. I buy Ballpark hamburger buns and it's not unusual for the expiration to be three weeks out and have eaten some a couple weeks past the expiration date and they were fine. Pepperidge Farm rye bread lasts a good 6 weeks too. Cheap store brand bread I have bought can get moldy after a couple weeks though. Also bought some beef stew meat a while back that was packaged at the packing plant that I found at back of the fridge that was two months out of code that still looked like the day I bought it and smelled fine, but I threw that out not wanting to chance eating it.

Thanks for any info and sharing of experiences.

I first noticed a much longer "shelf life" on the single serving sized plastic bottles of milk that the coffee truck guy at work sells. I thought it might somehow just be those, but noticed it on half gallons bottles in stores too. Don't know what changed, or what they're adding to it...

Was it regular old pasteurized milk or organic? Organic milk has a long shelf life but typically plain old milk doesn’t.

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Originally posted by cas:
I first noticed it on the single serving sized bottles of milk that the coffee truck guy at work sells. I thought it might somehow just be those, but noticed it on half gallons in stores too. Don't know what changed, or what they're adding to it...

Thanks and very interesting.

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Originally posted by gearhounds:
Was it regular old pasteurized milk or organic? Organic milk has a long shelf life but typically plain old milk doesn’t.

Regular pasteurized milk, the cheap stuff.

I did find this about organic milk.

https://www.greenmatters.com/p...0to%20four%20seconds.

According to Scientific American, organic milk lasts longer thanks to the process of ultrahigh temperature (UHT) treatment. The ultrahigh temperature treatment is a process of preserving milk in which milk is heated to 280 degrees Fahrenheit for two to four seconds. This process kills any bacteria lurking in the milk, which believe it or not, is actually the key difference in why organic milk takes longer to expire.

Regular milk is generally not treated with UHT. Instead, most regular milk relies on a process called pasteurization as a preservative. However, unlike UHT, pasteurization does not kill off all the bacteria present in the milk. It kills some, sure; if it didn’t, so many of us would be sick. But UHT is significantly more efficient at killing bacteria.

However, regular milk can undergo the UHT process. Generally, though, it doesn’t because UHT treatments change the taste of milk. If you’ve drank UHT-treated organic milk before, you may have noticed a sweeter taste. This is because the UHT burns some of milk’s inherent sugars thanks to a process called caramelization. The process of UHT also reduces the vitamin and protein content of milk, which according to Scientific American, makes it unable to be made into cheese.

I believe I read before that milk in transparent containers doesn't last as long as milk in opaque ones.

Ultra Pasteurized Milk has been around for several years. I started buying it when I lived in Alaska and I haven't lived there since '14.

Here is what the US Dairy Assoc has to say:

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What Is Ultra Pasteurized Milk?

September 8, 2017

Ultra-high temperature, or UHT, milk is ultra-pasteurized milk that comes in sterilized containers.

It’s real milk, just like the kind you buy chilled in the dairy aisle, but its special pasteurization and packaging process gives it a shelf life of several months.

Milk Ultra-Pasteurization Process
While most milk goes through a standard pasteurization process, UHT milk goes through ultra-pasteurization, which safely heats the milk to a higher-than-usual temperature. This, like regular pasteurization, kills bacteria in the milk that may be harmful or cause the milk to spoil, producing milk with a longer life. It’s then packaged in sterilized containers, also known as aseptic packaging, which helps keep the milk fresher longer.

UHT milk can sit out unrefrigerated for about three months, and this can vary by brand. Once the container is opened, the milk should be refrigerated and has the same shelf life as other milk (seven to ten days).

Rootstock gives some definition of time and temp differences:

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What’s the Difference Between Pasteurized and Ultra-Pasteurized Milk?

...Here’s how the two processes work.

HTST pasteurization heats the milk to 161 F for 15 seconds and then rapidly cools it to 39 degrees.

For UHT, raw milk is heated to approximately 280 F for just 2 seconds and is then rapidly chilled back to 39 degrees.

Both methods result in milk that is 99.9% free of bacteria.

I believe those expiration dates only apply if the product is unopened.

My mom was talking about long expiration date of her almond milk. After reading the package I found it said to use with X amount of days after opening.

Lactaid brand or equivalent will have a 2 month out expiration date and it will last a few weeks after that.

That’s all I buy, Lactaid brand, for daily regular use. I also buy the Lactaid brand Cottage Cheese.

There is also A2 milk that can have a 60 to maybe 90 day shelf live. A2 milk comes from rather special cows. If you are near a Braums they have A2 milk, as well as a lot of A2 cows in their herds. Look for A2 on the label.

A2 milk is easier to digest than regular milk, as well the same for Lactaid.

Braums A2 link
.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OKCGene,

Thanks for the replies! I am going to have to check the other grocery stores around here too and see what they are showing. We have bought that store brand quart milk many times before and it never had a two month expiration date before and I will take a better look at the label to see if any other info on it that might explain such has how it was processed. I don't want to have dear wife open a carton of milk for baking and then it is sour and I would have to make an unexpected trip to the store possibly interrupting a nap.

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Originally posted by iron chef:
I believe I read before that milk in transparent containers doesn't last as long as milk in opaque ones.

That's interesting. I noticed Walmart gallon milk containers are opaque because it's a PIA that I can't see how full the jug is at a glance but maybe they do it for a good reason.

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Originally posted by gpbst3:
I believe those expiration dates only apply if the product is unopened.

My mom was talking about long expiration date of her almond milk. After reading the package I found it said to use with X amount of days after opening.

This. Once opened it’s exposed to all the microscopic creepy crawlies in the air. Usually get about a week after opening.

Organic milk has always had a long expiration date… The reason you’re seeing two month lead times on the expiration date is because the supply chain shortened up significantly. Less supply.

You’re just getting the milk sooner instead of having it sit around for a month or two before you buy it.

Yes, and we’ve been using that type for years. It really does last that long. I don’t use much milk so ours would always go bad before I used it all up, until I noticed this kind with the long term expiration date. Tastes fine, and sometimes lasts past the date. The brand I have currently is True Goodness, 100% organic on the label. I go between that one and another one I can’t remember the name of at the moment, but I always check dates.

A) Absolutely nothing to do with being organic. It’s UHT packaged into irradiated containers.

(Nothing wrong with irradiated containers, they’re fairly common, but that’s what it takes to make milk shelf stable.)

B) Be very careful about switching for cooking purposes. UHT milk has had significant chemical changes, and may not work in the recipes. Anything which needs intact proteins or whipping from the fats, may be affected. (In all fairness, homogenizing also damages the behavior of the fats)

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Organic milk has always had a long expiration date

Yeah, because even the bacteria can't live on that stuff!

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Originally posted by architect:

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Organic milk has always had a long expiration date

Yeah, because even the bacteria can't live on that stuff!

Well, the other stuff doesn’t taste like milk to me. I’m fairly sensitive to milk needing to taste clean/fresh. Honestly however, I had to give up milk. Too much sugar.

Thanks to UHT, there's even shelf stable milk now, which not only has a long expiration but also doesn't require refrigeration until it's opened.

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fair

I switched to Fairlife Milk last year after hearing them on a podcast with Mike Rowe. It also has ~2 month shelf life for unopened containers. I believe the labeling says about 2 weeks after opening a container. Their processing makes 2% taste almost as good as whole milk. I'd still give the edge to their whole milk over anything else I've tried.

Not to be “that guy” but if some of y’all get a chance to have raw/low temp pasteurized milk from a good farm, you really need to try some…

Happy to recommend a good dairy farmer to get milk from in SC/N. GA