The government is letting our dairy farmers down. I could have been forgiven for thinking it was another April the first joke, but in fact it was another idiotic suggestion, rather than directive, from a government source. They want us to start drinking Long Life Milk instead of fresh milk, to save the planet. They believe that if we buy cartons of Long Life Milk, we won’t need to put it in the fridge, and so will be saving electricity, which will reduce our carbon footprint. Where have they been for Gods sake! Yesterday I was in Laser and discovered the size that television sets have risen to as the norm. I suppose you will be finding them wanting us to go back to the 9 inch screens of the 50s.
On the television news, a spokesman was brought on to tell us that if we had Long Life Milk as a staple as a child, we would prefer it to fresh cream milk. The inference from that of course is that tastes built up in childhood will take precedence for the rest of you life. This of course is absolute nonsense, I used to like Spillers Shapes, dog biscuits, pink in colour, when I was about eight. I haven’t eaten them since, and would probably hate them now.. The presenter demonstrated that while we in this country hardly drink Long Life Milk at all, it is a staple on the Continent. I can’t seriously believe that someone in their right senses could think that adding one particular item, daily, to the contents of the fridge, which even if it’s only half full, is running 24 hours a day, will make any difference to our individual carbon footprint, Even the preparation or Long Life Milk, I am told, uses more electricity in heating, than pasturisation does.
Being of a suspicious nature, I feel that there is more to this than meets the eye. Is it the EU who is pressurising because GB is not an open market for large quantities of Long Life Milk manufactured in the EU? Our dairy farmers have had a rough time recently, thanks to the inefficiency of the running of a government department, although the latter cannot be blamed for bluetongue. I would have thought that the government would be doing the best they could, at this time, to boost the sale of milk to help the beleaguered farmers in this country, rather than opening up borders to a possible upsurge of surplus milk for abroad. Perhaps someone somewhere has a lively interest in selling Long Life Milk.
I remember, in the 20s, that a man delivered milk in a churn, from a two wheeled donkey cart, ladling the milk with a measure into one’s jug. .From then until the late 90s, we had milk delivered to the doorstep daily, in bottles. That milk had anything from three to four inches of cream on it at the top of the bottle, something I have never seen in the milk from supermarkets. I have always found it incredible that while the full cream milk that we buy tastes as if it has cream, the cream never settles out. Why is that, are additives being used? What I have also noticed is that the milk, since the onset of the latest foot and mouth outbreak, has not stayed as fresh, even in the fridge, as it did previously, which leads me to believe that because they can’t sell their milk abroad, or even because the distribution in our own country has been disrupted, the milk is being delayed somewhere in the system.
When government agencies waste their time coming off with the unbelievable rubbish like this, and make us turn off neon indicator lights, because the small amount of electricity required to drive them, taken overall would have some effect, even in the face of the scandalous footprints of the larger countries, it would be more to the point if they transferred their energies to the failure of the Child Support Agency, and similar deficiencies.