Rant away. :) I have opinions but I want to wait and see what everyone else says. ;)

Neither. ;) Buy local. Actually some farms near here contribute to Organic Valley. But I'm not a fan of industrial organic and I hear that they were lobbying to the FDA that organic milk can have vague pasturing requirements. I am all for "beyond organic" - knowing your food producer personally so you can judge for yourself whether the operation is one you'd like to support.

I'm guessing there is something with these 2 companies I don't know about? I honestly don't buy either of their products...our milk when we get it is from Strafford Creamery in Strafford Vermont, cream from Butterworks Farms in Westfield, Vermont, though I'd like to start local raw (also available nearby). But we don't drink milk or cream too often (cream in coffee though ;) ).

Then I make yogurt and ice cream from those milks...but we don't eat those often either.

Cheese...I get local cheeses, there are many. Butter...local Amish non-bgh butter.

I agree with Lauren that the best choice is neither. We haven't been able to source local organic dairy products, but we can buy Organic Pastures which is produced 250 miles from us, and it is raw, which is important to us.

In a pinch, I prefer Organic Valley to Stonyfield. Stonyfield is owned by Danone, enough said. They have to import dried organic milk from New Zealand, they source fruit from China, etc.

If we're talking about yogurt...well, I think people should make their own and stop the package pollution.

Organic Valley is still big organic (although they claim to be lots of small family farms, any company that can put organic milk in nearly every supermarket is big according to my standards), but I think they try harder. I don't buy their milk, but do buy their cheese, as I think it is a far better choice than Horizon, which is the other option at the HFS (DS doesn't like the Organic Pastures cheese). Right now we're following a lead to buy local raw cheese; however, from what we can tell the milk is not organic and the cows are not pastured, so it may not work out. Honestly, we may just find a way to take cheese out of our diets rather than compromising our values (or going to the expense of making it ourselves).

I'd love to know the dirt you have on these companies!

I have no big dirt on either. I got an email from both today and wanted to hear others big dirt. lol... I knew that one was owned by a larger co (I am guessing Danone was what I was thinking) and I knew it wasn't Organic Valley... but most of my grief is the marketing. I really like Organic Valley as opposed to StoneyFeild when it comes to the marketing. StoneyFeild just feels more corporated.... does that make sense? Organic Valleys writer sends pictures he drew of the wild life on the farm he lives at. He writes letters about the change is nature that are very similar to things I would write on my blog. Not to say that he can't truly believe what he does and still be wrong... he could. It is just less likely than a corporation when he has to write each month about how much he loves his farm, animals and his job. KWIM?

We have beef farms around here, very few milk farms. In light of the dirt you gave me though Kimberly, I won't be buying StoneyFeild again. Even in a pinch (which is all we ever bought it in anyway... their milk tastes bad IMO).

I am all for "beyond organic" for most things. I get Tillamok cheeses, which are simi local/within 100 miles of us but not organic. They don't use BGH though. So I am ok with their products. As far as icecream, I have never bought it much, but when we do, we just buy whatever. Sarah found a really wonderful dairy (actually I think it was Aphrodite too) that makes their own icecream in Tacoma, and it is wonderful stuff! So I may start having to go their too... They have milk by the gallon too... again, not organic, but big feilds where cows can roam, no BGH and local.

Sorry for the letdown.

If you look at their websites:

StoneyFeild (http://www.stonyfield.com/)

Organic Valley (http://www.organicvalley.coop/)

Can you see what I mean? One is aiming for the market of people who are coming from mainstream and want to go organic. One is aiming for people like us. At least that is my estimation.

One is aiming for the market of people who are coming from mainstream and want to go organic. .


my mom started her journey eating stonyfield yogurt and has since made many strides towards buying local and/or organic. You can teach and old dog new tricks but sometimes that new trick has to be sitting next to the old trick in the supermarket cooler.

If those two are my only choices, I'll take OV. I bought Stonyfield recently b/c it's not convenient for me to buy OV, anymore. It's not bad, but I rarely buy cow milk, so *shrug*.

I am in Wisconsin, so OV is "local" for us...we prefer them for certain items over others, but still do buy as much milk/cheese from an actual face to face farmer as we can.

I have heard only good things about them, that I recall. I have heard in general that they pay fair prices to farmers, work to improve their "green" corporate footprint, work to maintain standards in the industry of organic so that the animals do actually have quality of life and so on (whereas a few other "organic" dairy companies should not even be able to call themselves organic, really), etc. And in the big picture it is a network of small family farms that are a part of their co-op, and they are not one big megacorporate gargantuan thing...

Thats so good to hear Scorch. I was hoping it was what it looks like... and that is exactly what they put out. Very nice to hear. Thank you for putting your $.02 in. :)

Val

The dirt, though, is that OV is getting bigger, and that they along with Stonyfield and others, lobbied the FDA to loosen requirements for organic milk so that cows could be kept confined and fed grain and still qualify for organic. That doesn't gyve with their "we're so organic" marketing scheme, does it?

I really am into looking beyond the marketing. You'd be surprised how much writers get paid to put words together for corporations to create an image. In the end - it is just that, an image. I'd rather look beneath and beyond the glitz to see what practices the company really has in place. For example, Horizon Organic has the pictures of the cows out in the field on their carton...what a lovely image. But it has nothing to do with their practices - they're awful and about as far from organic as you can get and still have the label.

Now, I think Organic Valley *is* one of the better companies *if* you must buy industrial organic. But it's still that - industrial organic - which is a whole other category of "organic" to me. Local is better.

I'm so surprised you don't have organic local dairies. Really?? With it being such a crunchy area, I am really really surprised.

nm

Isn't that odd? We have some really great dairys, but none that I have found are organic.

There are SO many organic and local places for everything else. There are even some O meat places starting to sell at the Farmers Market! But not an organic dairy in sight. I honestly have been thinking about asking at the market. Maybe I will do that next week when I get my first CSA share.

Val

For us, our raw milk resource is not listed anywhere since it is not ok to sell it "retail" in WI. We looked up resources via our local chapter of the Weston Price Foundation, and contacted the farmer from there. He has only a few cows, each family owns a "share" of the cow, and we pick up what we need weekly. So we would not have ever found this resource through "normal" channels. That is also how we get our nitrate/additives free sausages/brats/bacon, our unprocessed (not washed in a solution) eggs, and our raw milk cheese!

Here is the listing of chapters:
Local Chapters (http://www.westonaprice.org/localchapters/index.html#locallist)

Wow! Thanks for that link! There are two listed there with in 20 miles of me. I will write them and see what they say. :)

Val

Oh, and I forgot to post this link too (if you are interested in raw).

Where Can I Find Real (Raw) Milk? (http://www.realmilk.com/where5.html#wa)

There is a great article on organics (and Walmart) in the most recent Audubon magazine. While I agree that raw and direct sourcing are better, as someone else mentioned just getting the organic is a stepping stone in the right direction.

OV and Stoneyfield seem to be fine. Not absolutely ideal, but better than Horizon by A LOT and better than non-organic by a whole lot. The article in Audubon had interview tidbits from the founder of Stoneyfield and I found his philosophy to be a good one. Basically, get the info out there about commercial dairy practices, teach people about nutrition and let organics spread. I also like that Stoneyfield has a huge recycling program. But I also like that OV is small, family farmers.

But still, I'd rather have raw. FWIW we're dairy free. If we could find raw around here (there's nothing to be found) we'd consume dairy.

Does anyone else not like raw milk? I just can't acquire a taste for it. I am not a milk drinker anyway but use some for coffee, etc. I would like to use it for cereal but just don't like it. My kids did like it for awhile but now won't drink it and won't eat the yogurt I make from it. Dh won't even try. My compromise is to buy Strauss organic pasturized but not homogenized milk and yogurt. I make as much yogurt as I can but buy it sometimes too. I love that the milk is in glass and you return those to the store. It isn't local but is in our state (California) so better than other options. It is a good farm to support. I buy raw cheese from our local coop. Sometimes it is organic and sometimes not depending upon what they get. The coop is pretty picky about what they use and support. I also started buying my eggs from a local farmer. We are trying to get a coop going for grass fed beef that is in California. We are looking for a good poultry one to do a coop with but haven't found one yet. I wonder if anyone in my group has contacted the WAP contact person. Thanks for reminding me of that. They may be of some help for the meat.

I do agree that organic factory farming isn't the worst thing. I am glad that they are getting things more into the mainstream. Ideally we would all buy from local small farms w/ good practices but that just won't happen.

OK, so thinking out loud and rambling now, so I am off.

Does anyone else not like raw milk? I just can't acquire a taste for it. I am not a milk drinker anyway but use some for coffee, etc. I would like to use it for cereal but just don't like it.

This is my dh's problem with it. He says this is his main problem with getting a cow when we have our land. He doesn't want raw milk... like at all. I have to figure out how to make that workout... I doubt we will ever have raw though. Perhaps from a local dairy, but probobly not raw. I understand the benifits, but we don't drink enough milk to bother. We only use milk in things, we don't use milk for drinking at all. In my mind, milk isn't for drinking. Milk is for making food and other things. An ingredent, not a food. Does that make sense? We eat cheese and yogurt and things, but none of us ever have a glass of milk, and with my kids nursing till 3 years old, well Cyan has never had a glass of milk. Alex gets it with his dad, but not with me. And he doesn't miss it. lol...

This is my dh's problem with it. He says this is his main problem with getting a cow when we have our land. He doesn't want raw milk... like at all. I have to figure out how to make that workout... I doubt we will ever have raw though. Perhaps from a local dairy, but probobly not raw. I understand the benifits, but we don't drink enough milk to bother. We only use milk in things, we don't use milk for drinking at all. In my mind, milk isn't for drinking. Milk is for making food and other things. An ingredent, not a food. Does that make sense? We eat cheese and yogurt and things, but none of us ever have a glass of milk, and with my kids nursing till 3 years old, well Cyan has never had a glass of milk. Alex gets it with his dad, but not with me. And he doesn't miss it. lol...

This is our philosophy w/milk as well. We don't drink it plain. We use it for baking, and we eat cheese and yogurt and ice cream. Which is why, for us, I don't think it makes sense to raise/milk dairy ourselves. I'd rather trade other products for it.

We do fine w/raw though, don't have an issue w/the taste at all.

If you do end up getting a milk cow, or even raw milk from someone else, what you can do is simply pasteurize it yourself. It's really easy. You just gently heat it up to the proper temp.

I agree... I may just get a milk cow as a pet and not breed her. lol... I will have an entire farm of miniature animals that do nothing.

No, I am way too practical for that. But it is a funny thought.