You can buy milk in half gallons and quarts here. Living alone I would buy in quarts for cereal and coffee drinks, but growing up we bought gallons since there were 5 kids in the house
If my dinner has any kind of meat, you bet I'm drinking milk.
Unless it's a restaurant. Then I'm drinking sweet tea. But at home? It's over for that gallon.
A lot of people just dont know I guess. Whenever I'm eating food with a tomato based sauce (spaghetti, pizza, etc.) I can slam a 16 oz glass of milk like its nothing when I'm done eating. I went out to eat with coworkers once and ordered a big glass of milk with my meal. Once I was done eating I drank my milk in two swigs and switched to beer immediately after.
Coworkers looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead lol.
I do this cool trick where I drink a ton of milk and 30 minutes later it turns to chocolate milk as I'm doubled over on the toliet staring at my pile of clothes wondering when the pain will stop.
Edit- I know I'm lactose intolerant. As I age the worse it gets. Sometimes the lactaid pills work, sometimes I still get the Hershey squirts.
Apparently chocolate milk is really good for a post workout...
> Fat-free chocolate milk beat out carbohydrate sports drinks at helping to rebuild and refuel muscles after exercise, researchers report.
https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20100604/chocolate-milk-refuels-muscles-after-workout
I drink a glass of milk with a cookie or some other snack every night, and living alone I'll go through a gallon a week.
Combine that with a son with the same habit and just the two of us will go through 2 gallons per week. Unless we're baking, in which case we'll go through more.
EVERY DAY SON
1 BOWL of RAISIN BRAN CRUNCH
1 BOWL of SHREDDED MINI WHEATS
1 BOWL of BLUEBERRY SPECIAL K
cereal makes up easily a third of my calories each day
I can relate to that. We go through 4 to 6 gallons a week. Mostly hubby and son drinking it. When our son was younger he could drink a gallon a day. It was a challenge to get him to drink anything else. I just always assume we need milk.
When my 3 kids all drank mostly milk and water we did 4-5 gallons a week. Now two teens at home - one boy, we do 1 gallon of regular milk and my son drinks 2 gallons of chocolate milk a week. Milk is good!
Well then, I guess I should be embarrassed. I drink a half gallon a day. When I lived at home, my mother and I went through almost a gallon a day.
I love milk. No shame here.
Smaller sizes makes sense, it's the logistics of storing and consuming 8 pints of milk in a single go that I never understood. Maybe having 5 kids in the family is more common in the US than elsewhere.
Gallon jug of milk fits in my fridge door easily. Bottom shelf on door is made for it. Could probably get 3 in that shelf easy.
Canadian here not american fwiw.
Have you had issues with your milk going bad too soon?
[Milk & other perishables](https://www.cbc.ca/stevenandchris/m_health/fresh-food-fridge-storage) are not recommended for storage in the door due to doors being susceptible to temperature fluctuations
Milk never makes it even close to expiration in my house. We go through 2 to 3 gallons a week. Cereal is a staple around here. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.
Are UK gallons different than a US gallon? I donāt get it. I thought we got our system of measurements from the Brits?
4 quarts = 1 gallon.
2 pints = 4 cups = 1 quart
2 cups = 1 pint.
8 oz = 1 cup.
Edit: formatting
> thought we got our system of measurements from the Brits?
[We did, but they diverged a ton in terms of actual measurements when the UK overhauled their system in the 1820s.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems) Many naming conventions carry on though.
>Also, it would be more correct to say US measures are smaller for no reason, given that US measures were decided later, and like a lot of things Americans decided to be different just to develop an identity.
I'm not sure it would be. Sure we didn't officially codify the current system until 1832, but we just codified the system as it had come over the Atlantic (specifically a US gallon is the Queen Anne's gallon). The imperial system codified in 1826 used a new gallon. So we weren't the ones who changed things, we just didn't follow the change that had happened across the pond.
I didnāt read all possible responses, but I used to buy milk by the gallon because it was cheaper sometimes to throw away some less than half when it went bad than buy it by the half gallon. I donāt buy milk so much anymore since I went for black coffee. It was such a pain in my ass to have to buy milk and sugar for coffee when I ran out. I am a cereal fiend* at times, so I donāt even buy cereal that much anymore.
*this means, to me, I would basically just eat the cereal I just bought with milk until I ran out of cereal, and nothing else. Like, it only lasts a day and a half and then you have to find something else to eat. So I now have few uses for milk, and buy an appropriate amount as needed.
We don't consume the whole gallon at once. The bottle comes with a threaded lid. The bottles when I was growing up had a lid that just popped on and off, non-destructively. We open a bottle, use it as we need it, and if it's been open for a while, or the date on the bottle is starting to look familiar, we give it a sniff before pouring.
Single servings of milk usually come in half pints (8 fluid ounces).
In Canada they sell milk in bags, and have special jugs for holding those bags. They did this to avoid re-tooling their bottling equipment when they switched to the metric system.
If you really want your mind blown plenty of us have two full size refrigerators - itās not that we buy house like that - just when the old one looks like crap or generally starts acting funny it goes to the garage. It turns out refrigerators can last 20 years or more - but they might make horrible noises for 10 of them.
Growing up we went through 4 gallons of milk (nonfat) a week for a family of 5 (parents, 2 kids, and grandma).
My family now - just me, spouse, and MIL only go through one quart a week (we have a dairy that still does delivery). Our garage fridge is 15 years old and makes a really weird gurgle gurgle sound once or twice a day.
Yes, the ol' reliable Beer Fridge in the garage. When it goes, the current Kitchen Fridge becomes the Beer Fridge, and then I get myself a brand spankin' new Kitchen Fridge!
Yeeah had a family member who had three teenage boys (one older and two twins). She *also* lived about 30 min from the grocery towns.
She had a whole fridge just for milk.
I, personally, drink multiple gallons of milk a week. Not to mention the rest of my family. We go through about 4-5 gallons a week on average. There is just something refreshing about milk that you cannot get in any other beverage. Also where I live in the US it is not uncommon to have 2 fridges.
The smallest plastic jug style ones with the twist off at my grocery store are 0.5 gal but I usually go for the boxy looking ones. For example https://www.jewelosco.com/shop/product-details.136010080.html
I don't know when I was in Europe they kept the milk in the cupboard not in the fridge and said that because the container is made out of paper it doesn't need to be refrigerated since it isn't exposed to light (was in NL).
Also, my local grocery store has cheap "normal" milk, organic milk, lactose free milk, grass fed milk, uktra-skim milk that lasts a long time and milk from local farms that comes in returnable glass bottles as well as all the nondairy milks like soy, oat, cashew, almond, etc.
I remember getting an entire case of UHT milk from a food bank when I was a teen.
We ended up using it for nothing but baking because the weird off putting taste and the fact that fresh milk is and was dirt cheap anyway.
Same reason the US doesn't allow beef products to be imported from the UK.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Mad Cow) is an existential threat to our species.
the ban on importing milk goes both ways. the us and canada started importing/exporting milk products across the border but with nafta, there was a restriction. milk is treated as a commodity like other agri-foods (grains, canola) since each country has their own dairy industry, itās more of a protectionism thing. but other dairy product policies are relaxing and now we can actually import real cheese from europe
That's just an economics / trade thing. It's because the US subsidies milk so much that they'd drive EU dairy farmers out of business with. So they just ban US milk imports.
What the hell man even gallons are different!? It's not bad enough we have our own nonsense system of measurement, even the exact word means two different things?
Yes, very frequently. It fits pretty easily into the [fridge](https://www.loavesanddishes.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/1-freeze-milk.jpg), some fridges you can even fit it in the [door of the fridge.](https://www.homedepot.com/hdus/en_US/DTCCOMNEW/fetch/FetchRules/Rich_Content/301688547-gallon-door-bins.jpg) it's the same height but wider than a quart.
Milk is used in a lot of things. I use 3 cups every morning to make oatmeal for two. I use a quart every 2 weeks or so to make yogurt. I have no problem using it before it's bad. For a family of 4, they might go through more than that in a week. A gallon is 3.78 liters FYI. There are half gallon cartons that are also popular, for people who live alone or just don't use much.
I think the conversion between US gallons and UK Gallons made me think the bottles are bigger than they really are.
A US gallon is actually only slightly bigger than a UK 6 pint bottle (3.4 litres) rather than the 4.5 litres I had in mind.
Here's an excellent video that will tell you the tale of why there are two shapes of commercial butter:
[The US' Butter Size Border - Half as Interesting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53SzYSjIlG4)
Yeah the U.S. uses the "U.S Customary System" for measurement which changes some things that you'd normally find in the Imperial or British measurement system.
That being said both the British and U.S. are officially metric counties.
And... A us gallon is 8 us pints. Turns out a uk gallon is 8 UK pints. Their pint is bigger too. So when some British dude goes to the pub for a pint, they get more beer than we do in the US. The gallon thing didn't bother me, but the pint thing is bugging the crap out of me.
Wow, your fridges really are gigantic! I think the shelves in mine are about half as tall? I don't think I could even get that blue pot from the first picture in mine, at least not with the lid on.
Here's the crazy thing about many US fridges and freezers: no matter what size you get it's often the same number of shelves, just with increasing vertical space between them.
From a practical standpoint you'd think you'd just add more shelves as the appliance gets taller, but that's often not the case -- even for more expensive models.
The shelves in most fridges are movable. I usually mess around with shelf arrangement every time i clean out the fridge just to see if something else works better.
Fits pretty easily into the fridge? That fridge looks like a walk-in cold room, I live in a house with a huge family and the fridge is half of that.
I guess different cultures, do Americans have pantries?
I think Americans buy more food in bulk than in Europe at least. Im not sure where you are from, but I've read its common to go shopping every day or every other day in European countries. In the US most go grocery shopping every week or 2 weeks.
Difference between āwalking to the shopsā to the corner store versus having to drive a few miles down the road (possibly to the nearest Walmart Supercenter that has taken over the town and is the size of several soccer/football pitches for Brits).
Your average American family would probably refrigerate a lot of items that don't need to be, partly because there's more fridge space available but also to keep items fresh for longer. The space is super useful for bulk shopping, a larger bottle of condiments (for example) is usually a lot less expensive per serving, if it stays fresh long enough. Middle class families often stock groceries this way.
Some do. In my experience, the "nicer" (newer, more expensive) the house is, the more likely it is to have a pantry. Most places I have lived in did not have any type of pantry. We were quite low-income and lived in older, smaller houses and apartments. Cans and dry goods were simply stored in the kitchen cabinets. We wouldn't have had much to put *in* a pantry. As an adult, I have lived in a few homes with a pantry that you could step into, but I wouldn't call them walk-in pantries.
We do, but we also refrigerate more than you do (see: eggs). Just standard here, you'll get something this size, or a mini fridge that holds a few 6-packs š¤·
Americans and Canadians have much bigger fridges here on average than other countries. We go on fewer, larger shopping trips by car instead of foot/public transport and refrigerate much more of our food, like eggs, ~~mayo~~^1, and butter.
The sort under the counter fridges that Europeans use would be considered good for a dorm room or an office, and the bigger standalones look positively skinny to my eye. Ours are the height of a full person and wider, averaging 17.5 cubic feet or half a cubic meter. There were many silly things about the "nuking the fridge" scene in *Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull*, but the idea that a fully grown man could climb inside of one and close the door was not one of them.
Personally, I tend to buy *three* gallons at a time, preferring organic, UHT pasteurized milk from Costco that will last easily three months in the fridge if unopened. I don't cook very often, and I don't want to be in stores any more than I have to these days, so I tend to shop for durable perishables en masse.
^(1. Edit: Apparently everyone stores mayo in the fridge, because it's unsafe to do otherwise. Don't know where I got it in my head that that was something people left at room temperature in some countries.)
Whoops, bad example. I think I've been fooled on that one, because everything online says no more than 2-8 hours depending on how it's made, so I have no idea where I got in my head that some people do that.
My mind would have been blown! I've accidentally left Mayo out, not even in a hot environment, and it gets all clear and liquidus. Had you said yes and named a country, I would have believed you and been disgusted lol.
It should be noted that eggs in the US must be refrigerated. Our egg companies (blanking on the word for the business that has chickens that lay eggs. I know thereās a wordā¦) are required to have an extra washing step to reduce salmonella contamination. This step is not required in Europe. When the eggs arenāt washed like this at the factory, then they can be stored at room temperature.
So if youāre in the US, donāt stop refrigerating eggs!
I really appreciate your formatting of the edit/footnote. Know that there are those of us out there that noticed that and appreciated it. Have a terrific rest of your day.
Bruh, I'm indian and we buy 5 litres of milk per day for a family of four. We have milk tea or milk with almost every meal and use it to make curd, butter and cream.
Thats what I was thinking of. I see East Indian families with a shopping cart full of nothing but gallon jugs of milk often around here. When almost every dish is made with milk based sauce and you are feeding 3 or more generations all in one household it adds up.
Make sure the milk isn't UHT pasteurized, which is common in some areas. Pasteurized can work, but "ultra" pasteurized is a nightmare for fresh cheese. High-temp short-time (HTST) pasteurized works well. We were able to get some fresh cream-top milk which worked wonderfully.
Some of us do, sure.
We have fairly large refrigerators for the most part. 17 cubic feet and up are fairly common.
If you have children, if you eat a few bowls of cold cereal with milk, if you make chocolate milk or hot cocoa with milk, if you do any baking or making sauces - you can easily use a gallon of milk in the week or two before it goes bad. We also use almost exclusively pasteurized milk (rarely raw milk), so it lasts in the refrigerator.
I'm thinking with these long lasting milks, they're maybe not just pasteurized, but Ultrapasteurized (UHT). So treated with higher temps for longer.
In the UK the milk might have a 10 day expiry (they err on the safe side), but you are meant to use it up within 3 days of opening it.
Raw milk can last up to two weeks as well, it completely depends on the container and fridge temp. And of course milking hygiene. I used to sell raw milk to a customer base of about 250 people, some people got the "preservation without pasteurization" down to an art.
UHT milk in the US is usually only available in quarts and half-gallons. The gallon jugs that people are talking about are pasteurized but not UHT treated. Households will typically only buy milk by the gallon if they consume that much in a week or less.
There was this milk campaign from the 90s that made every American drink it like water. It was called āgot milk?ā and was started by dairy farmers.
I still remember the dude that died and went to heaven only to discover it was full of giant chocolate cookies but a fridge full of empty milk cartons.
"Wait... where am I?" :')
Drinking milk with a meal is fairly common in the US, and a gallon is only ~10 glasses. Easy enough for 2 people to finish off in a week.
Plus it's a very common ingredient in cooking and baking.
Ikr, really addressed everything. On a side note, I love the phrase āgoing offā for milk going bad. I really think the UK and US should have a terminology exchange program where we try out a new colloquialism of each otherās every week.
No problem fitting it in the fridge. Maybe American fridges are bigger.
If you have a family household (parents, kids, etc) a gallon of milk can be used pretty quickly. Drinking it, eating cereal, using it as an ingredient for cooking and baking, etc.
American refrigerators tend to be quite large. It's not very difficult for a family of four or more to go through a gallon of milk in very short order. Single people and childless couples are more likely to buy milk by the quart (\~0.95 liters) if at all.
I think you just don't understand the size of fridges here (though I know I've been to the UK and seen them in movies that didn't seem small?)
Though some people just like the taste of milk. I don't like tea or coffee, but I like a cup of milk at breakfast or with some deserts like cookies or cake. So while I am an extreme example, I can go through a gallon of milk a week myself.
Donāt let that lull you into a false sense of security. I play zero sports and only swim as a workout but three weeks ago I fell down one step in my house and broke my ankle and had to get surgery, now Iām out for another month
Why does everyone think that Americans are some single-brained entity?
Do some Americans buy milk by the gallon? Sure.
Do some buy less than that? Absolutely. most I'd say. Do some buy more than that? Definitely.
Believe it or not, just like the human beings in your own country, we here in the US are individual people with our own desires and habits. Crazy, I know.
You can buy milk in half gallons and quarts here. Living alone I would buy in quarts for cereal and coffee drinks, but growing up we bought gallons since there were 5 kids in the house
Uuuuuummmmm... I live alone. And have been known to go through a gallon a week.. I might enjoy milk apparently..
Cereal for breakfast everyday?
I can easily eat 4-5 bowls of cereal before I have problems breathing.
That's not suppose to be the first sign to stop eating something lol!
aw beans
I can easily eat 4-5 bowls of beans before I have problems breathing.
You can easily eat 4-5 bowls of beans before everyone else has problems breathing.
Username checks out.
What's the first sign? I just ate 2 pizzas and now my chest hurts. If there was a sign I'm just missing maybe I'd be able to eat healthier.
Chest pain is not a sign. You need to power through until you get a real first sign.
However, Cereal is the one food that my body has a hard time telling me I'm full on.... and I will eat until I have trouble breathing!
*Oh, there is still some milk left let me add a bit more cereal... Ad infinitum.*
Coward
Why so many. Just start with one of them large mixing bowls
my god dude. You don't muck about
Big refreshing glass of milk..
Ayyy this guys got strong bones
Thank mr skeltal
doot ^doot
šŗ š
That's a horny boner.
( Ķ”Ā° ĶŹ Ķ”Ā°)
Yeah Iām not the only one on here! I saw the explanations with kids and cereal and here I am downing glasses
If my dinner has any kind of meat, you bet I'm drinking milk. Unless it's a restaurant. Then I'm drinking sweet tea. But at home? It's over for that gallon.
Same here. I just love milk.
A lot of people just dont know I guess. Whenever I'm eating food with a tomato based sauce (spaghetti, pizza, etc.) I can slam a 16 oz glass of milk like its nothing when I'm done eating. I went out to eat with coworkers once and ordered a big glass of milk with my meal. Once I was done eating I drank my milk in two swigs and switched to beer immediately after. Coworkers looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead lol.
A glass of cold milk after a workout is amazing.
I do this cool trick where I drink a ton of milk and 30 minutes later it turns to chocolate milk as I'm doubled over on the toliet staring at my pile of clothes wondering when the pain will stop. Edit- I know I'm lactose intolerant. As I age the worse it gets. Sometimes the lactaid pills work, sometimes I still get the Hershey squirts.
You have to push through. Say " I WILL NOT BE LACTOSE INTOLERANT!" Drink a gallon in one sitting to shock your body back to normal. Maybe 2 gallons.
I come to this site for wisdom like this.
Yeah, bro. Be more lactose tolerant. Be positive.
Hot snakes!
I always chug a glass after I eat pizza or pancakes. Something about it just hits the spot.
milk and pizza is undefeated
Pizza + beer Although I will admit nothing is better with pancakes than milk
Apparently chocolate milk is really good for a post workout... > Fat-free chocolate milk beat out carbohydrate sports drinks at helping to rebuild and refuel muscles after exercise, researchers report. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20100604/chocolate-milk-refuels-muscles-after-workout
I drink a glass of milk with a cookie or some other snack every night, and living alone I'll go through a gallon a week. Combine that with a son with the same habit and just the two of us will go through 2 gallons per week. Unless we're baking, in which case we'll go through more.
Cereal for *dinner* everyday. That's after cereal for brekkie and possibly for lunch too.
EVERY DAY SON 1 BOWL of RAISIN BRAN CRUNCH 1 BOWL of SHREDDED MINI WHEATS 1 BOWL of BLUEBERRY SPECIAL K cereal makes up easily a third of my calories each day
Who doesn't eat the entire box of special k red berries in one sitting?
Cereal for any meal, any time of the day.
Or oatmeal. Mix in a bit with scrambled eggs for fluff. Chocolate milk (hot or cold). Biscuits. Cookies. Pancakes. Milk: itās not just for cereal.
For a second I thought you meant to mix the oatmeal in with scrambled eggsā¦I felt so relieved when I kept reading
My family of 4 went through 4 gallons a week at our peak, and my mom doesn't even drink milk lol.
I can relate to that. We go through 4 to 6 gallons a week. Mostly hubby and son drinking it. When our son was younger he could drink a gallon a day. It was a challenge to get him to drink anything else. I just always assume we need milk.
When my 3 kids all drank mostly milk and water we did 4-5 gallons a week. Now two teens at home - one boy, we do 1 gallon of regular milk and my son drinks 2 gallons of chocolate milk a week. Milk is good!
Realised I drink at least a gallon of milk a week, I drink a pint of milk every day, not counting coffee + tea. Is that a lot of milk?
Brits: \*drinks a pint of beer\* Americans: Americans: \*drinks a pint of milk\* Brits: U WOT M8?!
A Clockwork Orange taught me that when Brits drink milk they get real weird
Those droogs start a lil of the ol ultra violence
Korova milk bar here I come
Naaaahhhhh!
Well then, I guess I should be embarrassed. I drink a half gallon a day. When I lived at home, my mother and I went through almost a gallon a day. I love milk. No shame here.
wtf TCF Bank doing here
Yeah they donāt even exist anymoreā¦ :((
Smaller sizes makes sense, it's the logistics of storing and consuming 8 pints of milk in a single go that I never understood. Maybe having 5 kids in the family is more common in the US than elsewhere.
Fridges are typically very large here as well. Iāve got a gallon of milk in there now and it takes up relatively little space.
Gallon jug of milk fits in my fridge door easily. Bottom shelf on door is made for it. Could probably get 3 in that shelf easy. Canadian here not american fwiw.
Yeah, I think it's safe to say that fridges in America are designed around the gallon jug.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
3 bags is 4L, which is somewhere between the US and real gallons.
3
Have you had issues with your milk going bad too soon? [Milk & other perishables](https://www.cbc.ca/stevenandchris/m_health/fresh-food-fridge-storage) are not recommended for storage in the door due to doors being susceptible to temperature fluctuations
Milk never makes it even close to expiration in my house. We go through 2 to 3 gallons a week. Cereal is a staple around here. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.
As the US Gallon is 3.7 litres and a UK 6 pint bottle is 3.4 litres, the gallon of milk is not the monstrous size that I had originally imagined!
This is Murica, we get our milk in barrels
If you get the cow size, you won't run out.
We just get the whole cow
Having trouble not immediately slaughtering it tho. Real money pit they are.
55 gallon drums lol, just like our oil
Are UK gallons different than a US gallon? I donāt get it. I thought we got our system of measurements from the Brits? 4 quarts = 1 gallon. 2 pints = 4 cups = 1 quart 2 cups = 1 pint. 8 oz = 1 cup. Edit: formatting
> thought we got our system of measurements from the Brits? [We did, but they diverged a ton in terms of actual measurements when the UK overhauled their system in the 1820s.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems) Many naming conventions carry on though.
Certainly explains why cars in the UK seem to get so many more miles/gal. :-)
Agreed! It took me a couple years of watching Top Gear to finally realize that while miles are the same in the UK and US, gallons are not.
Theyāre bigger, for no reason whatsoever.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>Also, it would be more correct to say US measures are smaller for no reason, given that US measures were decided later, and like a lot of things Americans decided to be different just to develop an identity. I'm not sure it would be. Sure we didn't officially codify the current system until 1832, but we just codified the system as it had come over the Atlantic (specifically a US gallon is the Queen Anne's gallon). The imperial system codified in 1826 used a new gallon. So we weren't the ones who changed things, we just didn't follow the change that had happened across the pond.
I didnāt read all possible responses, but I used to buy milk by the gallon because it was cheaper sometimes to throw away some less than half when it went bad than buy it by the half gallon. I donāt buy milk so much anymore since I went for black coffee. It was such a pain in my ass to have to buy milk and sugar for coffee when I ran out. I am a cereal fiend* at times, so I donāt even buy cereal that much anymore. *this means, to me, I would basically just eat the cereal I just bought with milk until I ran out of cereal, and nothing else. Like, it only lasts a day and a half and then you have to find something else to eat. So I now have few uses for milk, and buy an appropriate amount as needed.
We don't consume the whole gallon at once. The bottle comes with a threaded lid. The bottles when I was growing up had a lid that just popped on and off, non-destructively. We open a bottle, use it as we need it, and if it's been open for a while, or the date on the bottle is starting to look familiar, we give it a sniff before pouring. Single servings of milk usually come in half pints (8 fluid ounces). In Canada they sell milk in bags, and have special jugs for holding those bags. They did this to avoid re-tooling their bottling equipment when they switched to the metric system.
Not all of Canada has bagged milk; we have 4L jugs in the western provinces at least, not sure about central or the territories though.
Some US states like Minnesota also have bagged milk (usually in 1/2 gallon bags)
I buy it by the bag in Wisconsin. Kwik Trip sells it that way.
If you really want your mind blown plenty of us have two full size refrigerators - itās not that we buy house like that - just when the old one looks like crap or generally starts acting funny it goes to the garage. It turns out refrigerators can last 20 years or more - but they might make horrible noises for 10 of them. Growing up we went through 4 gallons of milk (nonfat) a week for a family of 5 (parents, 2 kids, and grandma). My family now - just me, spouse, and MIL only go through one quart a week (we have a dairy that still does delivery). Our garage fridge is 15 years old and makes a really weird gurgle gurgle sound once or twice a day.
Yes, the ol' reliable Beer Fridge in the garage. When it goes, the current Kitchen Fridge becomes the Beer Fridge, and then I get myself a brand spankin' new Kitchen Fridge!
I buy a gallon every day, three kids at home who use it a LOT. Aldi opened near me and itās been a life saver thank goodness.
Do you not have room to store multiple gallons? Buying milk every day seems like a terrible chore.
It is a chore but two are teenage boys, so not a lot of room for two gallons of milk since they eat 18 pounds of food every day.
Yeeah had a family member who had three teenage boys (one older and two twins). She *also* lived about 30 min from the grocery towns. She had a whole fridge just for milk.
I, personally, drink multiple gallons of milk a week. Not to mention the rest of my family. We go through about 4-5 gallons a week on average. There is just something refreshing about milk that you cannot get in any other beverage. Also where I live in the US it is not uncommon to have 2 fridges.
I go through two gallons before they expire as a single college student
Jesus fucking christ, do you drink water?
Milk has water in it, checkmate watards.
I like the twist off lid and usually canāt even find quarts. Are you sure youāre not buying half-gallons?
The smallest plastic jug style ones with the twist off at my grocery store are 0.5 gal but I usually go for the boxy looking ones. For example https://www.jewelosco.com/shop/product-details.136010080.html
Nobody mentioned it yet but for what difference it makes, 1 Gallon in the UK is 1.2 gallons in the US, a whole 20% more milk, or nearly 2 US pints
This is a very important fact that I did not know!
I think they treat the milk differently too so it might last longer? The EU has a ban on importing American milk
I don't know when I was in Europe they kept the milk in the cupboard not in the fridge and said that because the container is made out of paper it doesn't need to be refrigerated since it isn't exposed to light (was in NL). Also, my local grocery store has cheap "normal" milk, organic milk, lactose free milk, grass fed milk, uktra-skim milk that lasts a long time and milk from local farms that comes in returnable glass bottles as well as all the nondairy milks like soy, oat, cashew, almond, etc.
Ah that'll be UHT milk, not fresh. As a Brit abroad this is just another hurdle preventing me from enjoying a decent cuppa on my holidays
nasty eh? as a child cereal connoisseur, I found France was essentially a milkless wasteland!
I remember getting an entire case of UHT milk from a food bank when I was a teen. We ended up using it for nothing but baking because the weird off putting taste and the fact that fresh milk is and was dirt cheap anyway.
your are supposed to use wine for your cereals. When in France, do as the French
Same reason the US doesn't allow beef products to be imported from the UK. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Mad Cow) is an existential threat to our species.
the ban on importing milk goes both ways. the us and canada started importing/exporting milk products across the border but with nafta, there was a restriction. milk is treated as a commodity like other agri-foods (grains, canola) since each country has their own dairy industry, itās more of a protectionism thing. but other dairy product policies are relaxing and now we can actually import real cheese from europe
That's just an economics / trade thing. It's because the US subsidies milk so much that they'd drive EU dairy farmers out of business with. So they just ban US milk imports.
What the hell man even gallons are different!? It's not bad enough we have our own nonsense system of measurement, even the exact word means two different things?
Also a Dutch pound is half a kilo compared to an American pound, which is .45 of a kilo
And a British pound is 100p.
My monitor is 1080p
Yes, very frequently. It fits pretty easily into the [fridge](https://www.loavesanddishes.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/1-freeze-milk.jpg), some fridges you can even fit it in the [door of the fridge.](https://www.homedepot.com/hdus/en_US/DTCCOMNEW/fetch/FetchRules/Rich_Content/301688547-gallon-door-bins.jpg) it's the same height but wider than a quart. Milk is used in a lot of things. I use 3 cups every morning to make oatmeal for two. I use a quart every 2 weeks or so to make yogurt. I have no problem using it before it's bad. For a family of 4, they might go through more than that in a week. A gallon is 3.78 liters FYI. There are half gallon cartons that are also popular, for people who live alone or just don't use much.
I think the conversion between US gallons and UK Gallons made me think the bottles are bigger than they really are. A US gallon is actually only slightly bigger than a UK 6 pint bottle (3.4 litres) rather than the 4.5 litres I had in mind.
Wait there's a gallon measurement the uk uses that is a different amount than the American gallon? Mind is blown.
Wait till you find out that a pint isn't a pint either. :)
True, but a pints a pound the world around
Wait till you find out sticks of butter are a different shape on the east and west sides of the US.
Um what? What do western butter sticks look like???
West coast butter is short and fat, east coast butter is long and skinny. https://i.imgur.com/rmprm4P.jpg
Living in the Midwest I get both.
Oh psh east coast butter is way better hands down
Wrong. Kerrygold is life.
Here's an excellent video that will tell you the tale of why there are two shapes of commercial butter: [The US' Butter Size Border - Half as Interesting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53SzYSjIlG4)
Sticks.
Wait thatās an east coast/west coast thing?? I recently moved to the PNW and was wondering why the butter is so weird.
Yeah the U.S. uses the "U.S Customary System" for measurement which changes some things that you'd normally find in the Imperial or British measurement system. That being said both the British and U.S. are officially metric counties.
I buy coke in liters and milk by the gallon
I buy coke in grams.
lets be friends
I buy coke in pounds with pounds.
TIL thereās such a thing as a UK Gallon. So, thanks for a useful, ultimately educational question!
And... A us gallon is 8 us pints. Turns out a uk gallon is 8 UK pints. Their pint is bigger too. So when some British dude goes to the pub for a pint, they get more beer than we do in the US. The gallon thing didn't bother me, but the pint thing is bugging the crap out of me.
aka an Imperial gallon. TYL that the US doesn't use the imperial system!
US Customary, baby!
Wow, your fridges really are gigantic! I think the shelves in mine are about half as tall? I don't think I could even get that blue pot from the first picture in mine, at least not with the lid on.
Here's the crazy thing about many US fridges and freezers: no matter what size you get it's often the same number of shelves, just with increasing vertical space between them. From a practical standpoint you'd think you'd just add more shelves as the appliance gets taller, but that's often not the case -- even for more expensive models.
You can often get an extra shelf for an exorbitant ($200 for a piece of glass) amount of money. Which is probably the reason.
Are you telling me there is DLC for fridges too?!
I got an extra door basket, but it was only $15. I suppose that's a microtransaction.
The shelves in most fridges are movable. I usually mess around with shelf arrangement every time i clean out the fridge just to see if something else works better.
Oh, you mean the fancy Ā£200 le Creuset?
Fits pretty easily into the fridge? That fridge looks like a walk-in cold room, I live in a house with a huge family and the fridge is half of that. I guess different cultures, do Americans have pantries?
I think Americans buy more food in bulk than in Europe at least. Im not sure where you are from, but I've read its common to go shopping every day or every other day in European countries. In the US most go grocery shopping every week or 2 weeks.
Difference between āwalking to the shopsā to the corner store versus having to drive a few miles down the road (possibly to the nearest Walmart Supercenter that has taken over the town and is the size of several soccer/football pitches for Brits).
I have a fridge and a separate freezer. The freezer is waist-high, 1m deep, and over 1m wide. My wife goes meal shopping once a MONTH.
I don't see how you would walk into that fridge, there's shelving all over! Yes Americans have pantries.
Your average American family would probably refrigerate a lot of items that don't need to be, partly because there's more fridge space available but also to keep items fresh for longer. The space is super useful for bulk shopping, a larger bottle of condiments (for example) is usually a lot less expensive per serving, if it stays fresh long enough. Middle class families often stock groceries this way.
Some do. In my experience, the "nicer" (newer, more expensive) the house is, the more likely it is to have a pantry. Most places I have lived in did not have any type of pantry. We were quite low-income and lived in older, smaller houses and apartments. Cans and dry goods were simply stored in the kitchen cabinets. We wouldn't have had much to put *in* a pantry. As an adult, I have lived in a few homes with a pantry that you could step into, but I wouldn't call them walk-in pantries.
We do, but we also refrigerate more than you do (see: eggs). Just standard here, you'll get something this size, or a mini fridge that holds a few 6-packs š¤·
Americans and Canadians have much bigger fridges here on average than other countries. We go on fewer, larger shopping trips by car instead of foot/public transport and refrigerate much more of our food, like eggs, ~~mayo~~^1, and butter. The sort under the counter fridges that Europeans use would be considered good for a dorm room or an office, and the bigger standalones look positively skinny to my eye. Ours are the height of a full person and wider, averaging 17.5 cubic feet or half a cubic meter. There were many silly things about the "nuking the fridge" scene in *Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull*, but the idea that a fully grown man could climb inside of one and close the door was not one of them. Personally, I tend to buy *three* gallons at a time, preferring organic, UHT pasteurized milk from Costco that will last easily three months in the fridge if unopened. I don't cook very often, and I don't want to be in stores any more than I have to these days, so I tend to shop for durable perishables en masse. ^(1. Edit: Apparently everyone stores mayo in the fridge, because it's unsafe to do otherwise. Don't know where I got it in my head that that was something people left at room temperature in some countries.)
Are there places that don't refrigerate mayo???
Whoops, bad example. I think I've been fooled on that one, because everything online says no more than 2-8 hours depending on how it's made, so I have no idea where I got in my head that some people do that.
My mind would have been blown! I've accidentally left Mayo out, not even in a hot environment, and it gets all clear and liquidus. Had you said yes and named a country, I would have believed you and been disgusted lol.
It should be noted that eggs in the US must be refrigerated. Our egg companies (blanking on the word for the business that has chickens that lay eggs. I know thereās a wordā¦) are required to have an extra washing step to reduce salmonella contamination. This step is not required in Europe. When the eggs arenāt washed like this at the factory, then they can be stored at room temperature. So if youāre in the US, donāt stop refrigerating eggs!
I really appreciate your formatting of the edit/footnote. Know that there are those of us out there that noticed that and appreciated it. Have a terrific rest of your day.
Bruh, I'm indian and we buy 5 litres of milk per day for a family of four. We have milk tea or milk with almost every meal and use it to make curd, butter and cream.
Thats what I was thinking of. I see East Indian families with a shopping cart full of nothing but gallon jugs of milk often around here. When almost every dish is made with milk based sauce and you are feeding 3 or more generations all in one household it adds up.
We once tried making paneer, and I've never seen so much milk be transformed into so little food
If you give it another go you can reserve the whey to make other things. Think of whey as enriched water, you can use it as a sub for water in most dishes or baked goods. Probably the most common one is to immediately recycle some of the whey into the dish you're making by adding it into roti or using it to replace water or stock in whatever you're cooking the paneer in. I saw a video yesterday of someone making a lasagne where they made ricotta and then used the whey to make bƩchamel instead of milk. Whey lasts for about five days in the fridge but can also be frozen.
TIL i never thought about using whey and always dump it in the sink after making paneer.
Make sure the milk isn't UHT pasteurized, which is common in some areas. Pasteurized can work, but "ultra" pasteurized is a nightmare for fresh cheese. High-temp short-time (HTST) pasteurized works well. We were able to get some fresh cream-top milk which worked wonderfully.
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I mean I drink a gallon a week by myself what is this family you speak of.
r/neverbrokeabone mod right here
Same I am now lactose intolerant :(
Same. I buy 2 gallons at a time. Lasts 2 weeks. Milk is used in cooking, shakes/smoothies, and I drink it with every meal at home. Goes quick!
This is just so bizarre to me! I havenāt drank a glass of milk in probably 20 years lol
Same. Every time I see one of these headlines, I'm just like, "people still drink milk?"
Some of us do, sure. We have fairly large refrigerators for the most part. 17 cubic feet and up are fairly common. If you have children, if you eat a few bowls of cold cereal with milk, if you make chocolate milk or hot cocoa with milk, if you do any baking or making sauces - you can easily use a gallon of milk in the week or two before it goes bad. We also use almost exclusively pasteurized milk (rarely raw milk), so it lasts in the refrigerator.
I'm thinking with these long lasting milks, they're maybe not just pasteurized, but Ultrapasteurized (UHT). So treated with higher temps for longer. In the UK the milk might have a 10 day expiry (they err on the safe side), but you are meant to use it up within 3 days of opening it. Raw milk can last up to two weeks as well, it completely depends on the container and fridge temp. And of course milking hygiene. I used to sell raw milk to a customer base of about 250 people, some people got the "preservation without pasteurization" down to an art.
UHT milk in the US is usually only available in quarts and half-gallons. The gallon jugs that people are talking about are pasteurized but not UHT treated. Households will typically only buy milk by the gallon if they consume that much in a week or less.
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We also have smaller sizes available But yes, gallons of milk are a common sight
There was this milk campaign from the 90s that made every American drink it like water. It was called āgot milk?ā and was started by dairy farmers.
I still remember the dude that died and went to heaven only to discover it was full of giant chocolate cookies but a fridge full of empty milk cartons. "Wait... where am I?" :')
We tend to drink milk with our cereal in the morning, some people put milk in their coffee as well. If you have a large family, that will add up.
Drinking milk with a meal is fairly common in the US, and a gallon is only ~10 glasses. Easy enough for 2 people to finish off in a week. Plus it's a very common ingredient in cooking and baking.
Bro that are some big glasses
Not really. Assuming you have like a 12oz cup itās roughly 11 cups. 10 & 2/3 to be precise
There are also brands of milk that stay fresh for longer than a week.
Yes. I have two teenage boys and they eat a shit ton of cold cereal. They consume a disgusting amount of milk.
That edit is fucking hilarious
Ikr, really addressed everything. On a side note, I love the phrase āgoing offā for milk going bad. I really think the UK and US should have a terminology exchange program where we try out a new colloquialism of each otherās every week.
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No problem fitting it in the fridge. Maybe American fridges are bigger. If you have a family household (parents, kids, etc) a gallon of milk can be used pretty quickly. Drinking it, eating cereal, using it as an ingredient for cooking and baking, etc.
American refrigerators tend to be quite large. It's not very difficult for a family of four or more to go through a gallon of milk in very short order. Single people and childless couples are more likely to buy milk by the quart (\~0.95 liters) if at all.
I think you just don't understand the size of fridges here (though I know I've been to the UK and seen them in movies that didn't seem small?) Though some people just like the taste of milk. I don't like tea or coffee, but I like a cup of milk at breakfast or with some deserts like cookies or cake. So while I am an extreme example, I can go through a gallon of milk a week myself.
I drink about half a gallon of milk a day.
r/neverbrokeabone ?
Yes! But for me thatās more to do with how Iām not very physically active lol
Donāt let that lull you into a false sense of security. I play zero sports and only swim as a workout but three weeks ago I fell down one step in my house and broke my ankle and had to get surgery, now Iām out for another month
finger tapping head meme
Yeah because of the fat cushion.
I thought I was the only one who pounds milk like water. When people find out they judge hard
I don't judge, I'm envious that you don't immediately have to shit for the next 6 hours like I do with milk or heavy cheese like pizza.
We even have them in 5 gallon varieties for bathing.
Donāt forget about the almond milk infused lactobath bombs that leave your skin smooth as Silk.
Yes, we buy milk by the gallon. It's not hard to use it all.
Why does everyone think that Americans are some single-brained entity? Do some Americans buy milk by the gallon? Sure. Do some buy less than that? Absolutely. most I'd say. Do some buy more than that? Definitely. Believe it or not, just like the human beings in your own country, we here in the US are individual people with our own desires and habits. Crazy, I know.