Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Propaganda for NSIM

The issue I'm going to rant about today is straight from M's agenda. He gets so worked up about this issue! He asked me to blog about this and I was happy to oblige. It amazes me that this isn't more of a hot button issue. Forget SCHIP. Forget Blackwater.

What our nation really needs is universal milk cap color coding.

I mean, how do they pick? Do they just throw darts? To become a distributor of dairy products, do you have to sign an agreement that you will ensure that your milk cap colors are completely different than everyone else's? It sure seems that way. How can something so important be left to the color choosing whim of the various dairy companies?

Perhaps y'all (I've decided that I've lived in Texas long enough that I claim the right to this superbly useful plural second person pronoun) don't appreciate the gravity of the milk cap color situation. Let me enlighten you to our plight.

First of all, I hate having to actually read the label of the milk every time I reach into the fridge. See, at our house, it is totally within the realm of possibility to have all 4 "grades" of milk in our fridge at one time. You see, Scott is still under two and is a little bean pole (unlike the thunder-thighs that Claire was as a toddler) so he drinks whole milk. Claire drinks 2% most of the time because that's what her pediatrician suggests. M would probably prefer the whole, but for the cost as much as for his health, he usually drinks 2% too. Then I prefer the "unleaded" variety. Skim is so much better for quenching thirst and for cutting through sweets. When you put away the sweets like I do, you really need something that will dilute the the richness and let you plow ahead with your indulgence. But given the fact that we're all milkaholics, we're always looking for ways to cut down on the number of milk jugs in our fridge. So sometimes, milk supply optimization requires that M, Claire, and I drink 1%. So not only do we have all 4 types of milk, but we have to buy milk pretty much every time we find ourselves at a store that sells it. (Is that a sign of addiction? Never mind...) I mean, it is totally normal for us to go through more than three gallons of milk in a week. And when milk is cheap, we try to stock up as much as possible given expiration dates. So at any given time, we could have 6 gallons of milk in the fridge, each with a different color cap. Total chaos. Every time, I have to read the label to find which milk I'm looking for. And when the jugs are stacked three deep, can you figure out what that one in the back is from the cap you can see? No, of course not! You have to pull the other jugs in front of it out, balancing some precariously on shelf edges and juggling others in your free hand, just to see if that one in the back is a red Costco whole milk or a red HEB 2%.

The second problem is that as conscientious as I am, my husband is well, as loathe as I am to say it, absentminded. So everyone in the house ends up being served the wrong type of milk when he's the milktender. Not that this is the end of the world or anything. I mean, a little more or less milk fat never killed anyone. (Well, not as an immediate result...) But I just have to point out the milk cap color inconsistency is more than his sometimes distracted mind can keep track of. He can't help but automatically reach for certain colors based on our usual purchasing patterns.

I did a little searching and determined that there is at least one other person out there who thinks this is an important issue. Credit to them for the following:

This may not be the exact color scheme I would choose, but goodness, who cares as long as it's standardized!

8 comments:

Janssen said...

I would totally pick blue for skim because everyone talks about how skim milk is blue. It makes perfect sense to me.

Unfortunately, Bart and I drink less than a half gallon a week (mostly only used for cooking and the occasional bowl of cereal) so I do not feel quite as strongly about this issue. I apologize.

Kristi said...

Hey, so they must be standardized in Utah. You may not know this, but I come from a long line of dairy workers. WHen he was here he went to get us milk and came back with 2% because aparently Randalls 2% milk cap color is the same as all of Utah's skim milk color. Anyway, he shares your rant. And because of it I had to gag down 2% milk (it's fine in limited doses!)

K said...

Coming from a house of milk-aholics, I understand your frustration. Thankfully, 2 kinds of milk is all we ever have in the fridge at the moment. For the record though, Tom and Andrew normally go through a minimum of 4 gallons of milk a week!

Alison K. said...

Amen sister!! We are all on skim at the moment but i have been there!! I got the wrong kind once because i thought all the stores used the same color caps.

meleah said...

Ok G-you are really funny. I know what you mean though.

Anonymous said...

That is awesome. I am totally on board with this initiative!

. said...

I would happily support or co-initiate a grand protest to create a standard. If we gang up from all corners of the nation, they response may be forthcoming. Unite all mothers to the bane of our existance (Okay that was a little too far!) -Just a reminder, I'm Leann's friend...hope you don't mind the 2cents.

Strong Bad said...

Thanks for the props!
Please spread the word around! :D
I was at one point going to make up stickers to slap on the freezer doors of the supermarkets that do not have any kind of standard.

Seriously though - I think if enough people ask their grocer about NSIM milk cap compliance - we could end the madness!

Thanks! :p
- Kris