I'm so confused right now, and Isaac encouraged me to blog about it.
I usually buy milk for Sofia at Whole Foods - 365 Organic Milk. Why organic? Well, if you're Megan, you first might ask, "Why cow's milk?" My friend Megan thinks (or used to think, we haven't talked about it in a while) that it was weird that we were the only species that drank another species' milk. And she's right. It is weird. To be quite honest, I'm not really sure about the whole drinking cow's milk business, except that Sofia's pediatrician said that she should still drink it for brain development. I'm not sure she's right. There are a lot of opinions out there, and I don't have time to go research every single one, so I choose to trust our doctor. If I didn't trust her, I wouldn't take my daughter to her, wouldn't let her stick my daughters with needles with all sorts of vaccines - oh wait, let's not open up another can of worms.
Back to my milk story... Why organic? Two main reasons, I guess. 1. I don't want all sorts of crap in my milk that is not necessary, like growth hormones, which mess with a cow's ability to conceive and cause an increase in mammary infections. 2. I've driven by dairy farms before and have seen disgusting, sad cows, a million to a square mile, great big piles of poop all around them, and sticking their heads through a tiny whole to get their food. Though buying organic does not assure me of perfect farming practices, it is more likely that a farm that chooses to be organic might also have the kind of values I'd support in regard to how they treat their cows.
But... it's a new school year and Isaac and I just went over our budget, so I started looking for all sorts of ways to cut back. SHOCKER - one of our biggest expenses is food! Not a real shocker if you know us Wiegmans and how we like to eat.
Walking through Aldi today, I noticed a sign in front of their milk fridge that said they had growth hormone free milk. Hmmm. It was $2.89 instead of my whopping $5.99 at WF! I grabbed it but I knew that I'd have to do some serious digging before I felt at peace switching for good.
After a little googling, I found this website which leads you to your milk's farm through some code on the jug. But this is where I got extremely confused. The code is for Pet O'Fallon LLC. I was a little excited to find that the farm is so close to us (40 minutes away!). Who doesn't want to buy local, right? But I still needed to know about their practices. When I googled Pet O'Fallon LLC, a couple of sites came up with a company profile. One site lists barbersdairy.com as the company website and the other lists deanfoods.com as their website. No worries, I figured this one out. Pet O'Fallon LLC is a subdivision or side plant of Dean Foods (processor and distributor of dairy products), and Barber Dairy started as an ice plant (my vocabulary word of the day: dairy - a building, room, or establishment for the storage, processing, and distribution of milk and milk products).
Here's the question, what's up with all these confusing labels? The Aldi milk is labeled Friendly Farms. There is no friendly farm! And you should know, Dean Foods also owns Brown's Dairy, Country Fresh, Land O Lakes, Mayfield, Oak Farms and more. So what, Dean Foods bought them out but kept the names and cute labels for recognition? Where's the actual source!? Where are my cows!?
Well, we're gonna find out. 610 East State Street , O'Fallon , IL , 62269. That's where Pet O'Fallon LLC apparently lives. That's gonna be a fun-filled family drive! I really hope we find some happy cows in big green pastures, but with all this run-around, I'm not holding my breath. Pictures to come, so stay tuned!
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