Comment by quietbritishjim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by quietbritishjim | Hacker News Reader

quietbritishjim

> [UHT is used] for most milk sold in Europe.

> A lot of Americans find [UHT] offensive ... Europeans, however, don’t seem to mind.

Here in the UK, this statement is not true at all. UHT milk is certainly available in the supermarkets (not in the chilled section) but the vast majority of milk sold is fresh. I guess this is the risk of generalising a whole continent of people in such a short statement. (Probably the article's claims about Americans don't generalise to every part of that either.)

The most ridiculous thing about this statement is that it is claiming Europeans care less about UHT. Yet it's evident that at least some Americans don't care that much because they needed this article to be written to even notice that some of their milk was UHT. I'm confident that if all organic milk in UK was UHT then its consumers would be furious, without needing it to be pointed out to them.

I suspect part of British preference for fresh milk is due to the tradition of milkmen delivering fresh milk every morning, now almost entirely stopped but still in living memory. I'm reminded of a quote from the excellent British/Irish comedy Father Ted, where Father Dougal becomes a milkman: "You better get going, milk gets sour you know. Unless it's UHT milk, but there's no demand for that because it's shite".

In Germany, the consumer demand for UHT is low as well. Fresh milk is prefered over that, UHT tastes weird for most. No idea where the article gets the idea from that Europeans care less about UHT.

I was going to comment basically the exact same thing but tried to do some reasearch first and came across an article [1] claiming that UHT (H-Milch) has a market share of a whopping 70% which does not match my personal experience at all. But it was the only article naming an actual number that I could find within a 5 minute google search.

[1] https://www.bwagrar.de/Aktuelles/Kuenftige-H-Milch-soll-mehr...

I did a quick search and got a similar trend for Europe overall (although, like that article, there were no serious citations). I wonder if it could be including commercial uses, such as in restaurants or for manufacturers of milk-derived products (but not cheese as it seems UHT ruins the proteins needed for that).

Not sure if true, but it was explained to me once that UHT is more popular in hotter climates as it's easier to transport vs refridgerated lorries (France vs UK)

I noticed in France that UHT was very popular. Here in Germany, seems to be a mix with a preference for normal milk.

It's possible that consumers declare the they don't prefer UHT milk when asked but actually buy UHT milk without realising. In Greece, UHT milk is often sold in similar packaging as fresh milk (i.e. in plastic bottles rather than cartons) and placed in the refrigerated section alongside fresh milk.

To confuse matters further, some UHT milk is sold separately, outside the fridge and in the typical carton packaging that one expects it. So it's very easy to be confused about what is UHT and what is fresh, just by looking at where a product is and how it's packaged.

Of course you'd think that the taste would give the milk away- but I find that if UHT milk is refrigerated, its "burned milk" taste is much reduced and can easily fool someone who only drinks a little milk at a time or mixed with other foods or drinks, e.g. in their coffee or cereals.

I live in Canada (Quebec near the Ontario border) and I buy UHT milk once in a while as some backup milk just in case I run out before the next groceries and I happen to need some for a recipe or something. It was handy during the pandemic, where I tried (and still try) to minimize exposure.

I couldn't really taste the difference.

The Wikipedia article seems to suggest that it's very popular in parts of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_process...

Here in Sweden no one really buys UHT milk. I guess all stores carry it but it's rather a niche product. However, during recent years we have gotten something that's sort of in between UHT and regular milk. I don't know exactly what the process is, maybe they it's just pasteurize it for a bit longer. You need to keep it refrigerated but it will last for weeks. Some people claims it taste a bit different. To me it tastes the same as regular milk. It tastes nothing like UHT though.

I think it is "ultra-filtered" milk. Somehow it's filtered to reduce microbe counts, and pasteurised at a slightly higher temperature than standard.

Yes, definitely better than UHT.

That's microfiltered milk and it's actually much worse than UHT:

Microfiltration (MF) of cheese milk has been proposed as an alternative to bactofugation for removal of bacterial spores. However, while good separation efficiency can be obtained, this technology has some drawbacks. First of all, for an efficient MF process, the milk would have to be skimmed prior to MF, which means that the cream phase, constituting ∼10% of milk volume, cannot be treated with MF and would require a high heat treatment to ensure inactivation of spores. Secondly, the MF retentate will typically constitute a considerably large volume than the bactofugate, again meaning that a large volume would have to be sterilized. Together, this could mean the involvement of a considerable proportion of sterilized materials being included in the cheese milk when applying MF for spore removal, with negative effects on cheese-making and cheese quality.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biolog...

In short, microfiltered milk is taken apart, sterilised or filtered separately, and then put back together again- probably the most processed kind of milk you can find in the market.

Milkman has come back into fashion recently. I’ve a guy delivering milk to my door three days a week now along with some other goodies. Super handy.

UHT doesn't make milk not "fresh". Storing it for a long time before drinking it does. Amd UHT helps milk stay fresh longer.

This is also holds true in Finland. UHT milk is sold in Supermarkets but it's not something that people regularly consume. I personally haven't seen it served anywhere in the past decade.

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