Re: Milk tastes different

[Guest guest]

Wren--

I've got Good News and Bad News....

The Farmer you've found sounds like he really knows his stuff, so you're ahead of most of us with him being so close to you, and at such a reasonable price.

Sometimes it really is what the animals are eating, (Soy Chickens really are tasteless) and stuff just doesn't taste very good, and the meat is so tough nothing helps much.....

BUT

You state your picky genius kids aren't complaining? Soo... This means it's You. You could try some Molasses in the milk, but I bet you'd still taste Fish....

Remember how you were feeling like Crap? This is Stage 2.

Men have not complained of this, to my knowledge, but Women often do. It's just like some women can't stand certain foods near them while they are pregnant, or even while menstruating.... Same thing here. Exactly what causes this, I cannot say, but you sure are the Poster Girl for every possible symptom.... lol. Bless you for sharing all of it. We need to know the worst too.

This happened to me with the Beef, and then it went away. Thank God, since I had a freezer full of it....

--Terry

Milk tastes different

It's me again. I know that purely grass fed beef is supposed to be the ultimate, but I've tried it on several occassions from a couple of different sources and I don't like the flavor - to me it tastes like fish-beef. Is that normal? Does anyone else equate the taste to that? I know it will taste diff, but does it tase bad to others too? On a related note: Last week I got my raw milk from a new farm. The guys was hesitant at first, but in the end we have some mutal acquaintences where I grew up. We had lots to talk about and he's a friendly fellow. Milk is $3.25 a gallon. I've been to the farm and looked around. It is not much different from the others I've ever visited. Smells like poop, cows look fed and happy and clean and plump. The herd mix is a couple of Jeseys, a couple Dutch Belted, 1-2 Gernsey and the rest Hols. They milk about 25-35 a day - have +/-50 total. They pasture most of the time, some hay sometimes (winter and drought) and some grain while milking, but no hormones, antibiotics (if they give them they're culled from the milking herd for a longer time than normal before rejoining the milking population). Not sure about soy, forgot to ask specifically. The milk was clean and the cream was thicker than I got at my other farm, so I even made some butter this time. BUUUUUUUUUUTTTTT it tastes like fish!!! All of it!! Smells like fish!!! Just like the pastured beef!!!! My kids haven't said a thing, but I can't even drink a glass of it plain. I've had to make kefir and yogurt and ice cream with just about all 5 gals because I can't stand the taste/smell! Am I nuts? The ice cream is even marginal for me - thru the vanilla and chocolate chips and cocoa and half dozen eggs I can still taste the fishy taste!! I am assuming it's because he feeds the cows like the pastured beef cows I"ve eaten???? Any thoughts on this??? I don't think I can buy fish-milk again. UGH!! So frustrating! And the farm's only 20 minutes from my house! Thanks for your thoughts..................~wren

[Guest guest]

This is what I was trying to find an answere to on an earlier post.

We have 7 cows. and We have 3 that taste that way fishy/cowey/

(iodine)my sons says).

The first one was an older Jersey so I made her into a nurse cow(2

calves on her) than the next one that calved was my daughters blind

heifer Jersey, we thought she was eating a lot of weeds so we made

sure that she was in the grass area. It didn't straighten up. So

she became a nurse cow. Than the 3rd a hol/jersey X had the same

taste. No more calves so The chickens get her milk. The other 4

have great tasting milk. I am thinking that they, 1. either aren't

eating as much mineral (because the milk just isn't sweet) or to much

kelp or 2. The things that were the same with all three cows were

that they all had a lot of edema pre calving. Maybe that has

something to do with it. The other cows didn't seem to have as much

edema.

And if you mix the milk it doesn't really matter it still tastes the

same.

My son, daughter and I won't drink it, but my husband will. He did

say it tastes different, but not to the extreme as we notice. All 3

cows CCC are very low. So its not that. I was thinking about

getting it tested for there compontents.

We have had great grass fed beef/ and some not so good. They do have

different taste, so If cows milk and the beef have this off flavor. I

am thinking its Mineral defficency. What do you think.

Bountiful Blessings,

Barb

> It's me again.

> I know that purely grass fed beef is supposed to be the ultimate,

but

> I've tried it on several occassions from a couple of different

> sources and I don't like the flavor - to me it tastes like fish-

beef.

> Is that normal? Does anyone else equate the taste to that? I know

> it will taste diff, but does it tase bad to others too?

>

> On a related note:

> Last week I got my raw milk from a new farm. The guys was hesitant

> at first, but in the end we have some mutal acquaintences where I

> grew up. We had lots to talk about and he's a friendly fellow.

Milk

> is $3.25 a gallon. I've been to the farm and looked around. It is

> not much different from the others I've ever visited. Smells like

> poop, cows look fed and happy and clean and plump. The herd mix is

a

> couple of Jeseys, a couple Dutch Belted, 1-2 Gernsey and the rest

> Hols. They milk about 25-35 a day - have +/-50 total. They

pasture

> most of the time, some hay sometimes (winter and drought) and some

> grain while milking, but no hormones, antibiotics (if they give

them

> they're culled from the milking herd for a longer time than normal

> before rejoining the milking population). Not sure about soy,

forgot

> to ask specifically. The milk was clean and the cream was thicker

> than I got at my other farm, so I even made some butter this time.

>

> BUUUUUUUUUUTTTTT it tastes like fish!!! All of it!! Smells like

> fish!!! Just like the pastured beef!!!! My kids haven't said a

thing,

> but I can't even drink a glass of it plain. I've had to make kefir

> and yogurt and ice cream with just about all 5 gals because I can't

> stand the taste/smell! Am I nuts? The ice cream is even marginal

for

> me - thru the vanilla and chocolate chips and cocoa and half dozen

> eggs I can still taste the fishy taste!! I am assuming it's

because

> he feeds the cows like the pastured beef cows I " ve eaten???? Any

> thoughts on this??? I don't think I can buy fish-milk again. UGH!!

So

> frustrating! And the farm's only 20 minutes from my house! Thanks

> for your thoughts..................

>

> ~wren

[Guest guest]

My last raw milk source had an older milking cow that started tasting weird toward the end of her lactation. They told me it was elevated somatic cell count that made the milk taste funny, and they had mistakenly given me that milk. They said it was the last year of milking that cow. I got the impression that it tends to happen to older cows as their health is weaking. And perhaps grain in their diet causes them to get to that stage earlier than without.

Tonio

This is what I was trying to find an answere to on an earlier post. We have 7 cows. and We have 3 that taste that way fishy/cowey/(iodine)my sons says). The first one was an older Jersey so I made her into a nurse cow(2 calves on her) than the next one that calved was my daughters blind heifer Jersey, we thought she was eating a lot of weeds so we made sure that she was in the grass area. It didn't straighten up. So she became a nurse cow. Than the 3rd a hol/jersey X had the same taste. No more calves so The chickens get her milk. The other 4 have great tasting milk. I am thinking that they, 1. either aren't eating as much mineral (because the milk just isn't sweet) or to much kelp or 2. The things that were the same with all three cows were that they all had a lot of edema pre calving. Maybe that has something to do with it. The other cows didn't seem to have as much edema. And if you mix the milk it doesn't really matter it still tastes the same.My son, daughter and I won't drink it, but my husband will. He did say it tastes different, but not to the extreme as we notice. All 3 cows CCC are very low. So its not that. I was thinking about getting it tested for there compontents. We have had great grass fed beef/ and some not so good. They do have different taste, so If cows milk and the beef have this off flavor. I am thinking its Mineral defficency. What do you think.Bountiful Blessings,Barb

[Guest guest]

"And I DO know the flavor you are talking about with grassfed beef...although again to me it wasn't fishy, it was more metallic. I would attribute this to just a difference in our tasters. I was pretty unhappy when I tasted my first grassfed hamburger. I called a friend who had the same steer as me, and asked her opinion. She was used to the taste and said to her it was delicious."

I can honestly say that I can't taste the difference between grassfed beef and grain fed. I do notice that the ground beef is more lean. Does anyone else not taste a difference. Maybe my taste buds are dead. ;-)

I do have to say that one day we made hamburgers out of regular ground beef from the store, and those did taste funny. It was the cheap stuff though, and prior to that, any store bought ground was either ground chuck or ground sirloin.

-Olif

[Guest guest]

Way back in the mid-1960s, we moved from a town south of Tulsa to a

town north of Tulsa.

Growing up in the first town, I remember getting milk delivered to

the house in glass bottles, and on really cold days the little

cardboard tops would pop out as the milk froze. I don't really

remember having to mix cream back into the milk, so I guess it was

pasteurized/homogenized.

In the second town, both the milk and the " Golden Glow " margarine

that Mom started using tasted B*A*D! >-P The milk was in these

large plastic-bag-in-a-cardboard-box things, with a spigot. We had

never gotten it that way before. I don't know if it was from the

same company or not.

Since both the milk and the (aack!) margarine tasted weird, I

remember thinking it was just me. But I think we changed the way we

got our milk, perhaps because I was so insistent that it tasted nasty.

The second town was larger and more upscale than the first town, so

perhaps the cows in the area were on less pasture? The second town

was known more as a town with a petroleum-based economy, so perhaps

the groundwater was contaminated?

Looking back, I wonder if the tanks/containers the milk was run

through had something to do with the difference? Perhaps the dairies

used different cleaners on their equipment? The milk had a chemical

taste...not metallic, per se. It was overpowering to me. I think my

siblings also thought it tasted strange, but perhaps they didn't

think it was quite so objectionable as I did.

I wonder if you could taste the milk straight from the cow and find

out if it still has the fishy taste?

Maybe the water they use to clean their equipment is from a source

that tends to have a fishy flavor?

What kind of water source do the cows drink from? Ponds? Tanks?

[Guest guest]

A friend in New Zealand offers these possible reasons for milk

tasting fishy:

1. High somatic cell counts (ours are way below US ones).

2. Not cooling soon enough (ours by law has to reduced to within two

degrees Celsius (4 F) of the farm water immediately after coming

from cow by going through a heat exchanger and then cooled with a

chiller.

3. Picking up cow barn smell. Air comes in through milking machines.

4. Feeding concentrates containing fish meal.

5. Mouldy grains, silage or hay.

6. All the above causing milk to go off.

I wonder if the farmer whose milk tastes odd would consider checking

into these possible causes?

If the cause can be found and eliminated, I hope someone will let the

list know.