Comments about ‘Want to eat local? BYU student's site tracks milk's origins’

This kid's site is pretty cool. I live in Utah and I found out that the organic milk I was purchasing at Target was from a plant just outside of St. Paul Minnesota! So much for going green by buying organic.

As Bryan notes, buying "green" sometimes cancels itself out. How "green" is your milk when that 8-pound gallon jug had to travel by truck for 1,000 miles?

This is one of the reasons I like to buy local. Not only are things fresher, but there is inherently less waste involved in getting the products to me. When I lived in Alaska, I could not for the life of me feel good about purchasing bottled orange juice by the gallon, when the frozen was so much easier and more environmentally friendly to ship 2,000 miles or more.

I hope my milk comes from Happy Cows.

My grandparents were dairy farmers. Milk is milk -- a commodity. Farmers are paid the market price for their commodity, which does not take into account whether or not their cows are "happy" whatever that means.

Just buy whatever is cheapest for the particular milkfat percentage you want. The cost of shipping milk long distances is generally reflected in the purchase price, so buy buying the cheapest milk, you usually are also buying the nearest milk.

Zadruga, you make an interesting point about the potential link between price and environmental impact. This is sometimes the case, but not always, especially if local farmers are operating with higher costs due to smaller scale or specific local conditions.

Unfortunately, environmental impacts and other measures of value (including animal welfare and enabling farmers to make a decent living) are not always captured in price. Informing consumers about their choices (like this website does) is one way of helping the market function more effectively, allowing farmers to capture something closer to the actual value of their work.

Thank you for your work to provide information for the public awareness. I hope you go on to create sites to find where our meat comes from. Good luck on your career.

The mammory gland.

Great web site! It was very interesting to look up some of the things I had in my fridge. Our milk, from a local grocer, came from less than an hour away. My Wal-Mart sour cream came from New York, near the Canadian border, and my ricotta from Kansas! Thank you for using your education and interest in this way. I would also love to see a similar site from meat...

Another snore story out of BYU. Do you really think this is news? Where I think my butter or cream comes from? Sigh. This is why you aren't taken seriously as a NEWS paper. But I guess if you want to be known as a FLUFF paper, cool.

So, seems like you have way too much info.
Isn't there a place to just type in the code and find out where it is from????????

Utah sends a lot of milk out of the State and people in other States should not buy Utah milk because it costs to much to send it to them.

If you live outside of Utah, please do not buy our milk!

What goes around comes around.

Obviously you came here looking for news, so you took it seriously....If you're looking to trash on something, I'm sure there are plenty of forums debating mindless stuff that you could head to.

People who come to the DN to trash the quality of the news illustrate such hypocrisy. You took the time to come, took the time to read, and then commented on how crappy it was. Why did you come in the first place?

I imagine families and kids in elementary schools will have a great time tracing every dairy product in the fridge!

Our group is yanking things out to find the codes right this minute!

(One said this is like, instead of "Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego?"--its where in the world did my cheese come from?! :)

Thanks Trevor!

"Becky Low, a nutritionist with the Dairy Council of Utah and Nevada, stressed that all milk is safe, whether it's coming from down the street or across the country."
I wish this was true but its not ! by law all meat products are injected with harmful steroids and hormones to increase meat and increase milk . under U.N. and U.S.D.A. unless it says organic and has had no kind of steroid or hormone shot.
I don't belive anything anyone from the government says !

Unless it is ORGANIC -- do not drink it! Regular milk is loaded with rBGH (growth hormone to enhance milk production and which raises havoc with the cow and her mammary system), puss from the infections, etc., caused by the growth hormone and antibiotics (to fight said infections of cow's mammary system, etc.). The government isn't protecting us -- we have the responsibility to know, and modern scripture tells us "...In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of bconspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation–"

The milk I buy from the ever evil Walmart and Sam's Club comes from less than 30 minutes away. Oh my, you mean I don't have to feel guilty about shopping there? Horrors!

It is not law that meat animals and dairy animals need to be injected with hormones. It is simple economics. It makes the product more efficient and keeps the price lower for the consumer. If you want to more you can by all natural or organic products. US consumers spend less on food than any other nation. Instead of making fun of producers why don't you thank them for allowing you to buy other things.

There is more estrogen in cabbage than found in a peice of red meat. Look it up.

Knowledge is power - and I am glad that I have the freedom to choose how to use this knowledge!

Emmaline: If and when the brethren ask us to drink only organic milk, I will do so. Until then, I'll take my chances.

Very cool website. I'm glad people are starting to think about where our food comes from. In Germany, each egg has a code on it that idenifies where it comes from and whether it comes from an egg-laying battery or free range chickens.

I've spoken to my doctor about the difference between organic milk and conventional milk and he said there is some evidence that growth hormones given to cows do affect the drinkers of the milk. He said the long-term effects aren't known and doesn't tell patients to avoid conventional milk but he does buy organic milk in paper cartons himself. The plastic milk bottles leach chemicals into the milk that affect the taste and could pose a health risk if enough is consumed.

As for the envirnonmental aspect of buying organic, I think most people know that organic farming has many drawbacks including less output per acre which increases the amount of land cultivated. It is a wash according to most reports.

I buy organic food simply because it tastes better.