National Milk Day on January 11 commemorates the day that many think the first milk deliveries in glass bottles began in the United States.
Here is some milk trivia that you can share with your family and friends:
- The United States and Australia are the world’s largest exporters of milk and milk products.
- In the Middle Ages, milk was called the virtuous white liquor because alcoholic beverages were more reliable than water.
- Cleopatra, queen of ancient Egypt, was acclaimed for her stunning beauty and radiant skin. Her beauty secret is widely attributed to (although not confirmed) her love for milk baths.
- 1863 – French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur invented pasteurization, a method of killing harmful bacteria in beverages and food products.
- 1884 – American Doctor Hervey Thatcher of New York City, developed the first modern glass milk bottle, called ‘Thatcher’s Common Sense Milk Jar,’ which was sealed with a waxed paper disk. Later, in 1932, plastic-coated paper milk cartons were introduced commercially as a consequence of their invention by Victor W. Farris.
- Modern industrial processes use milk to produce casein, whey protein, lactose, condensed milk, powdered milk and many other food-additive and industrial products.
- Over 554-Million gallons of milk are consumed every day all over the world. That’s enough to fill up 813 Olympic-sized swimming pools!
- A cow turns grass into milk within 2 to 3 days.
- A cow produces an average of 6.3 gallons of milk daily and 350,000 glasses of milk in a lifetime. The average cow produces enough milk each day to fill six one-gallon jugs, about 55
pounds of milk. - Farmers who called their cows by name reported higher milk yields than those who did not.
- Cows eat about 100 pounds of food every day and drink 50 gallons of water.
- To get the amount of calcium in an 8-ounce glass of milk, you’d have to eat one-fourth cup of broccoli, seven oranges or six slices of wheat bread.
- Home delivery of milk (i.e. the milkman) started in 1942 as a war conservation measure.
- It takes more than 21 pounds (2.5 gallons) of whole milk to make one pound of butter.
- Cheddar cheese is the most popular natural cheese in the U.S.
- It takes 12 pounds (1.4 gallons) of whole milk to make one gallon of ice cream.
- It takes more cows to produce milk annually for Pizza Hut cheese (about 170,000) than there are people living in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
- More ice cream is sold on Sunday than on any other day of the week.
- Plastic milk bottles were first introduced in the United States in 1967.
- More than 1000 new dairy products are introduced every year.
Sources:
University of Illinois Extension
