If you are concerned about the fat levels in full cream milk, the most cost effective solution is to dilute whole homogenized milk 50/50 with water, rather than buying semi-skimmed. This means that you get twice the amount of milk for the same money.
You can buy a big container and dilute half of it, saving the rest for children, who need the full fat version. If you prefer, you could also buy from Fairtrade sources which share more of their profits with farmers. The initial purchase will cost more, but you will still save money once you do your dilution.
1) Save the empty bottle from your most recent milk supply.
2) Sterilize it by pouring in boiling water to 1-2 cm depth, screw on bottle cap firmly, invert bottle once, turn right way up, unscrew cap and pour out hot water.
3) Cool by rinsing with cold tap water (or if you want to keep it as sterile as possible, put empty bottle in fridge for 30 minutes)
4) Half-fill bottle with full-fat milk and add cold water to top.
5) Refrigerate and use as normal.
Source: Experience
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This method would dilute the fat by half, but it would also dilute the protein, calcium and all the other nutrients we get from our milk. I believe skim and 2% have a full amount of all the other nutrients except fat.
Skim milk is not watered down whole milk, the fat is taken out (skimmed of the top) of the whole milk. You still get the fat of whole milk if you water it down.
First off I don't like watered down milk. For people that don't like milk may go for this, but not a true milk lover. For me, I buy the skim for the reduced fat.
For the powered milk, that may be OK for cooking, but being a milk lover, could never like the taste for drinking.
Syd's 2 Cents
I'm sorry, I don't think this is a good idea. Skim milk may look "watery", but it is all milk. It merely has the butterfat - the cream - removed. If you had non-homogenized milk, you would see the cream rise to the top, and you could "skim" it off - hence the name! The resulting skimmed milk has zero butterfat, but all of the nutrients that are in the milk itself.
I originally compared my diluted version to UK semi-skimmed (2% fat), but the title was edited by Thrifty Fun for an American readership.
What you'd lose by dilution would be half of the 3.5% protein content and half of the water soluble B vitamins. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat soluble, so diluted whole milk would be a better option for these than skimmed milk. And Calcium needs vitamin D for optimal absorption. Full fat milk is 3.7% fat, so diluted whole milk would give you 1.65% fat, as compared to 2% in semi-skimmed milk.
I agree, my whole family has full fat milk, all of us are at our correct weights. Its refined sugar thats the problem, not milk fat. Like the previous poster said, you need the vitamins in the fat to process the calcium in the milk, and even then latest studies are showing that the calcium in cow milk isnt even that useful for us.
Whole milk as per FDA Standards, is a minimum of 3.25% milk fat, but can be higher, 5% or more. The calculation to make a gallon of 2% milk from 3.25% is - (2x128 "ounces in a gallon")/3.25 = 78.8 - meaning to dilute 3.25% milk to a gallon (which is 128 ounces) of 2% milk you need to pour 78.8 ounces of cold water into an empty gallon milk container and fill the remaining with 3.25% milk.
I have been doing this for years and nobody notices. As well as saving money as a large family, it reduces the amount of times I need to shop as we get through so much milk.
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