Virginia Green Grocer

The Virginia Green Grocer is a certified organic farmer who produces a wide variety of vegetables and herbs year-round. The species are selected for flavor, scent, color, and productivity....

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IMPORTANT NEWS

The Virginia Green Grocer purchased 7 Jersey Cows three years ago. In the meantime we have learned the challenges of managing a herd of cows and the nuances of feeding and especially the difficulty of finding organic hay. And we have spent two years building our milk plant where we milk, pasteurize and bottle our milk the old fashioned way. Our milk is the closest thing to straight from the cow milk that we can legally sell you in Virginia. We process the milk at the lowest possible temperature, 145 degrees, for 30 minutes. This is not like the ultra high temperature pasteurization process used by major dairies. UHT milk is what I call Frankenmilk because the 240 degree processing causes all the bacteria in the milk to die, even the beneficial bacteria. Pour it on the table and leave it there for a week, it will be the same. No bacteria will grow in the UHT milk because it is not milk anymore. You cannot make yogurt or cheese with UHT milk because it is not milk. So, our milk turns sour in about a week to 10 days. We recommend for best taste, that if you have any milk left from the week before that you make yogurt with it. It is not dangerous, but the natural probiotic lactobacillus bacteria which are still present in our milk might make it taste funny, i.e., sour. Our milk is high in fat, but it has not been homogenized, so if you like a lighter taste, you can pour the cream off the top and use it for whipping cream, add it to the baby’s food or whatever. At some point, we will also offer light milk in addition to our whole creamline milk, likewise we will offer butter, yogurt, cheeses and the like. Our animals eat a diet of grass and hay, plus organic corn and flax. Grass and flax are part of their diet to insure the fats in our milk are in the healthy balance our bodies need for optimal health, and are getting more and more scarce in our diets. These are the fats that are associated with fish, but in fact are present in very small quantities in farmed fish. Cows eating a healthy diet are a safer source for Omega 3 fats than wild or farmed fish. Wild fish are high in mercury. Farmed fish are low in Omega 3 but high in dioxin, antibiotics and other chemicals that they naturally concentrate from their polluted chemically saturated environments. This is an issue with most milk as well since most dairy operations confine cows in a barn at a density which requires antibiotics. For this reason, one of the primary tests among milk producers as a measure of quality is the antibiotic level in the milk. Our milk has no antibiotics or other chemicals. Our animals spend their time outside in the sun, where they produce Vitamin D, and do not need antibiotics to stay healthy.

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