Got Milk?

Recently, I found out about the website, 'Where Is My Milk From?', which helps you identify what town, city, or state the dairy items you have purchased come from. It's pretty interesting and to be honest, if I wasn't vegan (with the occasional discrepancy of eating a lemon yogurt to spike up my protein levels), I'd be playing around on this website all day.

I searched around on the website, trying to find out if there was a vegan, or at least organic, motive to the site. Maybe, I thought, the "independent third party" that "owns and operates" the website is trying to subtly communicate to readers that their dairy products can come from anywhere in the world (thus defeating the intention of 'eating locally' and contributing to global warming) and could contain all sorts of additives, hormones, bacteria, antibiotics, etc as consumers really have no idea what farm and what kind of cows their dairy is coming from. But alas, there was none of this.

The information provided on the website is sparse and simply stated, which is similar to what I have now come to believe is the intention behind the site: to satisfy consumers' curiosity, as well as to provide them with a fun, health-related Internet diversion. The website briefly mentions that some consumers like to know where their milk comes from so as to be able to make sure that they are buying locally, but they then tie this to the fact that the same cows and same dairy farm often produce a multitude of different dairy products. This comment, (not to mention the exclamation mark that follows it) only helps to trivialize the purpose of the site, and even the intention of eating locally.

But, food and environment politics aside, this is an interesting site with fairly accurate information as far as I can tell, derived from the IMS List (Interstate Milk Shipper's List) published by the FDA.

And I have to admit that, yes, I did find an old Yoplait blackberry-flavored yogurt nestled in the back of my fridge and I did type in its state and plant code to find out where its from: Methuen, Massachusetts. I've never heard of the town, but, it's apparently 130 miles away from my market in Connecticut-- not close enough to be considered 'eating locally', but then again, not too shabby for this globalized world.