A (incomplete) Review of South American Milk

J

j.

Guest
Cows in South America are typically grass-fed. I visited Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and went to their stores to get milk. The summary, detailed below, is that in Argentina it's harder to find good milk according to Peat standards.

In all these countries they seem to sell milk in two types of containers: Tetra pak and plastic containers. They try to make a good plastic container, I noticed that it's black if you look from the inside, maybe that has some protective properties.

Tetra paks always have ultrapasteurized milk. Plastic containers sometimes have pasteurized, sometimes ultrapasteurized.

I buy pasteurized because it can be used for farmers cheese and it's easier to digest, so I look at plastic bags instead of tetra paks.

Uruguay
Conaprole is the main brand. It's pasteurized in plastic bags and seems like a good product.

Argentina
- Every single store I visited only had ultrapasteurized milk. Regardless of the type of container, all had UHT. I couldn't find simply pasteurized milk.
- All milk products seem to have additives of A and D.
- Some products advertise that they remove saturated fats and add omegas! Crazy stuff. They apparently reduce the fat content 50%, and then add the omegas. The word "DHA" is prominently displayed in one product.

Paraguay
Somewhat surprisingly, when it comes to milk they have the best offers. In almost every grocery store you get to see 7 or 8 brands of milk. Almost all of the milk in plastic bags is pasteurized -not ultrapasteurized-, and most tend to have only added A and D, no added omegas. But if you don't want A or D, you can find a product without them, either whole or fat-free.
 

jyb

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In the UK it's not too hard to find organic milk that is fed mostly grass, in winter it's stored forage, wheat, cereal. It's not clear to me if cereal includes grains or soy, it's possible that it does but only as a complement to forage.
 
OP
J

j.

Guest
Edit about Argetina: Previously I wrote that pasteurized milk was available in stores but hard to find. I think I misread the labels, as I looked again in a bunch of stores and all the milk was ultrapasteurized. So there is no pasteurized milk in stores in Buenos Aires, as far as I know.

I contacted Sancor, one of the main brands of milk, and they told me that ALL their milk is ultrapasteurized.

Raw milk is illegal, but it seems this is not enforced, and it's getting more and more popular. Here is an article in spanish asking whether raw milk should be legalized. Link Another Article

Summary: In Argentina you can find UHT milk in stores, legally. You can also find raw milk, which despite being illegal, is getting more and more popular, especially in smaller cities. If you want simply pasteurized milk, apparently you're out of luck. I wasn't able to find it.

A little note about Argentina
So why is it that you can't find simply pasteurized milk in Argentina, considering that you can get it in two of its neighbor countries so easily? My guess is that it's illegal. This is a country that banned incandescent lights. They have a government that loves intruding in people's lives and you can feel its presence everywhere. There are price controls on some products. Stores play recordings saying their prices are agreed with the government. There are huge billboards with a phone number you can use to report someone who sells at a different price.

When you go to a hotel, there is an announcement posted on the door about the hours the government has set for you to check in or out of the hotel. When you go to the grocery store, there are posted announcements by the government saying that if the store doesn't have coins for change, the store must round up the change in favor of the customer.

Another guess as to why there is no pasteurized milk, maybe they didn't declare it illegal, but it's a consequence of the price controls. To move pasteurized milk you have to be more careful about keeping the product cold during transportation. Maybe the prices set by the government make it unprofitable to keep products cold during transportation, which pasteurized milk requires, and costs money, so they turned all the production to UHT milk, which one doesn't have to keep at low temperature before opening.
 
OP
J

j.

Guest
The tap water in Buenos Aires has a reputation of being really good. So if you can't tolerate UHT milk and haven't found a provider for raw milk, tap water with milk powder might be a substitute.

On a slightly related note, I think all Coke and Pepsi sodas are sweetened with HFCS. So are some brands of orange juice. HFCS seems really big in Argentina. And I think labels don't give you enough information. When it just says "sugars", it can be sucrose (table sugar) or HFCS, so you can't tell which is it.
 
OP
J

j.

Guest
The best argentine milk powder product seems to be San Regim. It doesn't have soy lecithin or added vitamins.
 

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