Having never had to worry about buying milk, I never even considered that I would some day live in a country, where finding real dairy milk would become my goal in life! That's not to say that there is no milk in this country, because there is and the Filipinos seem to be quite happy with it, but it is nothing like what I would call milk.
Actually, refrigerated, homogenized & pasturized milk, is still relatively uncommon in this country, and most Filipinos still buy milk in powder form, or in liquid form that does not require refrigeration. This is due to the fact that a lot of poor families, do not have electricity, or use it only for night time lighting, since it is so expensive, therefore it would not be practical to have a refrigerator.
Unfortunately, the refrigerated milk they do have is not the same as what we are used to back home. Nestle milk (sold in 1 ltr bottles) tastes something like melted vanilla ice cream, which sounds quite tasty, but try drinking a glass of it, or putting that in your cereal every morning! Not working for me! There are a few other brands, none of which we have ever heard of, but so far our experience with them hasn't been any better.
After going a few weeks without milk at all, we found a dairy that has whole and 2%, however they require a purchase of at least 10 ltrs, and they go bad after 3 or 4 days. Finally we came upon a brand called Dairy Gold, which comes in 1/2 gallon boxes, says it is from Washington state, and has both skim and 2%, as well as whole. Although there is a bit of an after taste, which we have not yet identified, it is pretty much as good as it gets, so I can usually get the boys to drink a glass a day and be satisfied. The odd thing about the milk, that I haven't been able to figure out, is that when the milk arrives at the market, it has an expiration date about 2 months away!
Now, I am no geography expert, but I am relatively sure that we are nowhere close to Washington state, so it can't be that the milk is extremely fresh, and combined with the barely noticable after taste, it makes you wonder.
But now that we have found the only acceptable choice of milk, if I could actually find it, that would be good. I have realized that one of the reasons for the expiration date being so far off, is that they only get shipments about every 2 or 3 months. I have now been looking for milk since the week before Christmas, and have run out of all possible sources! I usually try to buy 10 - 12 quarts when I can find it, but having gone out of the country over the holidays, I obviously missed an opportunity, and of course the only thing I can get out of the store employees is "out of stock"!
