Fat free half & half?

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Half & half is half milk and half cream. Cream without butter fat is no longer cream. This morning at the market, I saw a container of fat free half & half, complete with a picture of a cow on the front. Seems to me, the world has become pretty twisted when folks call something that necessarily contains cream, fat free.

[John K Jordan]

Half & half is half milk and half cream. Cream without butter fat is no longer cream. This morning at the market, I saw a container of fat free half & half, complete with a picture of a cow on the front. Seems to me, the world has become pretty twisted when folks call something that necessarily contains cream, fat free.

You've prompted my Lovely Bride to compare fat-free and fat Half and Half. Now she's going to quit buying it. Yea!

From one link:
The ingredient list on a typical brand of fat-free half and half contains
- fat-free milk,
- corn syrup,
- carrageenan,
- cream,
- artificial color,
- disodium phosphate,
- guar gum
- and vitamin A palmitate.
It has half the calories (20) as regular half-and-half and about twice the sodium (20-30 mg), plus sugar (1-2 grams).

"It typically replaces the milk fat with corn syrup and thickeners"
http://time.com/3814015/fat-free-half-and-half/

My quick search didn't find anyone with credentials who said the fat-free half&half is better for you than normal half&half.

JKJ

[George Bokros]

We cut the fat content of half & half by diluting with some 1% milk. I think my wife does about 50/50 half & half and 1% milk.

[Mike Cutler]

Yeah, I have the same questions???????
Then again I also have issues with coconut, almond, soy, etc ,"milk". Milk comes from a cow! The rest is some type of juice or liquid.
I think I'm in danger of becoming an curmudgeon. ;)

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Yep, never saw an udder on a soybean

[Malcolm Schweizer]

So glad this came up, because every time I go to the store I question how Half and Half can be fat free. By the way, 2% milk is an atrocity. I actually like to pour a bit of half and half into my milk to thicken it up. I am fit as a fiddle if anyone wants to start talking about my health. At my last physical the doctor asked me for advice.

[Art Mann]

People used to eat margarine because it was supposed to be better for you than real butter. That myth has long since been debunked by dietary experts. The real health risk is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is what margarine contains and butter does not. I wonder artificial half and half will be the same way. It isn't legal to call margarine "butter" and it shouldn't be legal to call imitation milk and cream "half and half".

[Mark Bolton]

So the fat free half and half gets you sugar (corn syrup), artificial color, etc.. lol. Just have the real deal from the udder. It kills me when you see corn syrup in virtually everything. The US is drunk on sweetener. Its no wonder disease is rampant and we have a pharma ad on TV every 10 minutes. Stick with stuff thats as close to its natural form as possible. If it has no natural form, dont eat it. Thats my motto.


You've prompted my Lovely Bride to compare fat-free and fat Half and Half. Now she's going to quit buying it. Yea!

From one link:
The ingredient list on a typical brand of fat-free half and half contains
- fat-free milk,
- corn syrup,
- carrageenan,
- cream,
- artificial color,
- disodium phosphate,
- guar gum
- and vitamin A palmitate.
It has half the calories (20) as regular half-and-half and about twice the sodium (20-30 mg), plus sugar (1-2 grams).

"It typically replaces the milk fat with corn syrup and thickeners"
http://time.com/3814015/fat-free-half-and-half/

My quick search didn't find anyone with credentials who said the fat-free half&half is better for you than normal half&half.

JKJ

[Andrew Joiner]

So people will take money out of a "vegan leather" handbag and buy fat free half and half.:)

You'd think "real half and half" would be half cream and half milk. Not true. If you read the labels on various brands the fat content varies a lot. Some are probably closer to 1/4 cream and 3/4 milk.

You really must read labels to see what your buying.

[Jim Becker]

Half & half is half milk and half cream. Cream without butter fat is no longer cream. This morning at the market, I saw a container of fat free half & half, complete with a picture of a cow on the front. Seems to me, the world has become pretty twisted when folks call something that necessarily contains cream, fat free.

Funny thing is that a few weeks ago, my older daughter (who works in a supermarket) was asked to bring home some half-n-half as Professor Dr SWMBO uses it in her iced latté that I make her in the morning. (I use steamed whole milk in my own hot latté) Darling Daughter doesn't read labels...ever...and came home with a carton that was labeled "Fat Free Half and Half". Like you, my reaction was, um..."say what??? Impossible!" And honestly, at this point, I question how much many folks actually benefit from so-called "fat free" dairy products, too, unless they are consuming a ton of them. In moderation, the "real deal" likely is still a good choice. (caveat...if a member of the medical profession insists, than follow their directions for obvious reasons, but ask "why?" to be sure)

[Jim Koepke]

My solution to this came many years ago... Drink coffee black.

My coffee used to be prepared with cream and sugar. After one too many times of getting served curdled cream it was dropped for coffee with only sugar added. After a while dropping the sugar from my coffee wasn't all that difficult.

Now the only time sugar is used if someone offers me a cup of coffee and doesn't tell me it will be instant. To me instant coffee isn't coffee. Since dropping my coffee consumption to one cup a day, it had better be a good cup of coffee or it is just a waste of time.

372486

jtk

PS-it has been so long since my last cup of instant coffee it is barely a memory.

[Art Mann]

(caveat...if a member of the medical profession insists, than follow their directions for obvious reasons, but ask "why?" to be sure)

You are far more trusting of medical professionals than I am. I learned long ago that the variation in education and quality of work of physicians is as at least as big as the variation in education and quality of work of cabinet makers. My wife is not paralyzed from the waist down and my grown up daughter was born because we sought the opinion of someone besides the premier neurosurgeon in the town where we lived.

[Mark Bolton]

So people will take money out of a "vegan leather" handbag and buy fat free half and half.:)

You'd think "real half and half" would be half cream and half milk. Not true. If you read the labels on various brands the fat content varies a lot. Some are probably closer to 1/4 cream and 3/4 milk.

You really must read labels to see what your buying.


Couldnt agree more. I can clearly remember as a kid eating BUCKETS of margirine. Im sure my mom thought it was less fat and of course it was less expensive. Since I grew my own legs, real butter all the way. I have long dreamed of the day when heavily processed foods would come to an end. (vast majority are processed, but when you see an ingredient list 3 miles long and you have no clue what half of it is,.. I pass)

[Wayne Lomman]

Dairy and pseudo dairy product lies drive me nuts. We are retired dairy farmers, well, wife and daughter ran that while I did other things like earn money. (No-one pays dairy farmers a living.) What the hell is wrong with just milk be it from cow, goat, yak or whatever? Use the natural product in moderation like everything else. And as for soy milk, do the believers realise that much of the world's soybeans grow where there used to be Amazon rainforest? Everyone do yourselves a favour and work out how much more fat there is in a cup of coffee made with whole milk vs skinny milk. The contribution to your diet is laughable. Cut one teaspoon of sugar a day and you get more benefit. Enough rant. Cheers!

[Mike Cutler]

Wayne

I guess I need to amend my list to include goats ,and yak's, as being "real milk producers" along with cows. ;)
I've never had yak milk. Goat cheese, yes, but not yak milk.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Even what is sold in the stores as whole milk tastes like water to me. I grew up near a jersey dairy and nearly all our milk came from that dairy. That milk was high enough in butter fat to have a slight yellow tinge and certainly tasted better. We have a Jersey cow now and Mrs. doesn't like me using the milk because it "isn't tested" but it is certainly better than the store crap. Although I rarely ever milk her. She will stand still in the pasture for me to get a pint or so every so often. (We keep her calves on her until the next calf is due. ) One thing that few folks ever had is raw milk. Despite all the health risks, nothing on earth is as good as a tall glass of cold raw milk. Complete with the natural lumps of cream and butter fat. (That makes some city folk gag right there.)

And the other dairy product that bugs the crap out of me is buttermilk. Stores sell cultured buttermilk. To me, butter milk is what is left of the cream when the butter is made and separated out. What does a "culture" have to do with buttermilk? I made some butter growing up and we did drink the fresh buttermilk often right from the churn. It was a lot like skim milk.

[Mark Bolton]

Even what is sold in the stores as whole milk tastes like water to me. I grew up near a jersey dairy and nearly all our milk came from that dairy. That milk was high enough in butter fat to have a slight yellow tinge and certainly tasted better. We have a Jersey cow now and Mrs. doesn't like me using the milk because it "isn't tested" but it is certainly better than the store crap. Although I rarely ever milk her. She will stand still in the pasture for me to get a pint or so every so often. (We keep her calves on her until the next calf is due. ) One thing that few folks ever had is raw milk. Despite all the health risks, nothing on earth is as good as a tall glass of cold raw milk. Complete with the natural lumps of cream and butter fat. (That makes some city folk gag right there.)

And the other dairy product that bugs the crap out of me is buttermilk. Stores sell cultured buttermilk. To me, butter milk is what is left of the cream when the butter is made and separated out. What does a "culture" have to do with buttermilk? I made some butter growing up and we did drink the fresh buttermilk often right from the churn. It was a lot like skim milk.


In the not too distant past we had an old school "milk man" that parked his truck at the foot of our driveway and carried glass bottles of whole milk, half and half, cottage cheese, butter, you name it, up the drive in a wire basket. Pulled the empty glass out of our basket and replaced it with full (in a cooler box in the summer). I use to love opening a gallon glass bottle of whole milk and having to pull out a butter knife to scoop the slug of sheer delight off the top of the bottle before you could pour any milk.

That was perhaps 20 years ago and we have since moved to a land where that is not even a remote option.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

When I was in high school, I had that job. I ran the milk up to the little insulated boxes on the porches. Another guy drove the truck. Did that from midnight to 6 am, four days a week for over a year., back in 1967.

[Jim Becker]

You are far more trusting of medical professionals than I am. I learned long ago that the variation in education and quality of work of physicians is as at least as big as the variation in education and quality of work of cabinet makers. My wife is not paralyzed from the waist down and my grown up daughter was born because we sought the opinion of someone besides the premier neurosurgeon in the town where we lived.
Note that I did suggest asking them "why"... ;)

-----

We had a milk-man when I was a kid...my father later hired him to sell insurance. :)

[Bruce Wrenn]

And the other dairy product that bugs the crap out of me is buttermilk. Stores sell cultured buttermilk. To me, butter milk is what is left of the cream when the butter is made and separated out. What does a "culture" have to do with buttermilk? I made some butter growing up and we did drink the fresh buttermilk often right from the churn. It was a lot like skim milk.Notice that most of the stuff in stores is FAT FREE. They add food starch and other types of gums to make it feel rich and creamy. Because I use buttermilk in baking (biscuits, cakes and pies) I start with a bottle of store bought, and as soon as some is used, I sour whole milk with vinegar and add back to store bought stuff. This way, I adding butter fat to buttermilk. In the RARE occasions we have a jug of milk start to sour, I add vinegar and make "buttermilk." Tomorrow, I will be using some to make two "Buttermilk Coconut" pies to take to a dinner Friday night. Saturday morning I will use more to make biscuits.

[Larry Foster]

Fat is your friend.

And it doesn't make you fat.
Quite the opposite.

Those USDA guidelines that we all grew up with have changed.

And corn syrup is really bad.
Especially since it's made from GMO corn as are most corn products in this country

[Peter Kelly]

Half & half is half milk and half cream. Cream without butter fat is no longer cream. This morning at the market, I saw a container of fat free half & half, complete with a picture of a cow on the front. Seems to me, the world has become pretty twisted when folks call something that necessarily contains cream, fat free.Fat free half & half is Elmer's white glue diluted with water so technically yes, there is some form of cow in it.

[Brian Elfert]

Food companies don't add ingredients to food like fat free half & half for the heck of it. They add ingredients to make the final product taste as close to the real thing as possible. Naturally, they want to use the cheapest ingredients possible so they use corn syrup instead of sugar.

My mom bakes all the time. I remember her using corn syrup instead of sugar in some baked goods to make it taste right.

[Mark Bolton]

People and companies use corn syrup because its cheap and because of corporate and government sponsored campaigns to get people at the time to move in a consumer direction they feel is right, profitable, healthy, at the time. Unfortunately individuals (more often than not mothers who are providing for their families as best they can and know how) get stuck in a routine that was put in their heads.

You can't walk into a field and get corn.syrup. You can walk into a field and get cane surgar. You can walk into the woods and harvest honey.

Avoiding things that are extremely far from their natural form (i.e. you need a lab and a chemist on staff to achieve production) is simply the smartest route. Pharma is rampant, health issues that simlly are so rare 50 years ago that they may well have not existed are rampant,... It's in the food. In the water.

Eat all the corn syrup and 10 sylalable food additives you want.

[John K Jordan]

You can walk into the woods and harvest honey.

From my perspective as a beekeeper more people are using more honey now. This year I had a bunch of requests for honey in 1/2 and 1 gallon sizes from people who a few years ago had bought just a few pounds. Before, people were using it mostly for flavor, now more as an ingredient. We are as well - had some cushaw pie with honey, banana nut bread, salad dressing, sweetener for yogurt and granola, in various cooked dishes like carrots. We use a lot as sweetener in hot tea.

Corn syrup is evil in honey. Honey "blend" you buy at the supermarket is probably "watered down" with corn syrup. Some unscrupulous honey producers cheat and mix in cheap corn on the sly to extend profits. Some feed corn syrup to the bees to bump up their production - they don't have to mix it that way. Best bet is to get local honey from a small-time beekeeper!

JKJ

[Dave Lehnert]

Our Doctor says " If it has a label.don't eat it" His point is to eat more fresh produce.

[Andrew Joiner]

Our Doctor says " If it has a label.don't eat it" His point is to eat more fresh produce.

I agree Dave. As long as you can wash the crap out of it (literally). Organic spinach and leafy vegetables have killed people even after washing the fresh produce.

[Mark Bolton]

From my perspective as a beekeeper more people are using more honey now. This year I had a bunch of requests for honey in 1/2 and 1 gallon sizes from people who a few years ago had bought just a few pounds. Before, people were using it mostly for flavor, now more as an ingredient. We are as well - had some cushaw pie with honey, banana nut bread, salad dressing, sweetener for yogurt and granola, in various cooked dishes like carrots. We use a lot as sweetener in hot tea.

Corn syrup is evil in honey. Honey "blend" you buy at the supermarket is probably "watered down" with corn syrup. Some unscrupulous honey producers cheat and mix in cheap corn on the sly to extend profits. Some feed corn syrup to the bees to bump up their production - they don't have to mix it that way. Best bet is to get local honey from a small-time beekeeper!

JKJ

That is one of the most refreshing posts Ive read in a long time John. Its really great to hear that you are selling honey in those quantities. The corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup, thing is simply ridiculous. Food producers have put that crap in anything and everything they can possibly squeeze it into. And they have gotten the majority of consumers drunk, and addicted, to "sweet". I couldnt eat a jar of commercial pasta sauce if you paid me. Full of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup, to make up for dead flat flavorless tomatoes and cheap spices and seasonings (if any at all in favor of artificial flavorings).

But kids are drunk on the sweet thing. Its insane.

I listened to a podcast a long while back that said something to the effect of the U.S. population has been fed corn, corn sweeteners, corn derivatives, for so long, that its basically detectable in the entire populations DNA. We are now basically partly made of corn.

[John K Jordan]

...I couldnt eat a jar of commercial pasta sauce if you paid me. Full of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup, to make up for dead flat flavorless tomatoes and cheap spices and seasonings (if any at all in favor of artificial flavorings)....

You are probably like us then - we eat as much as we can from the garden. We grow tomatoes, carrots, corn, beans, cucumbers, bell peppers, cushaw, rhubarb, onions, potatoes, squash, greens, and herbs, fresh eggs, peaches, apples, pears, blueberries, strawberries - can't remember what else! I buy meat off the hoof from friends.

A lot goes in the freezers for off season but a pot of vegetable soup made from fresh garden produce - to die for. (I do the garden and orchard, my Lovely Bride invents recipes, we eat like kings!) Truely, we are blessed beyond comprehension.

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Thinking about all this is making me hungry. :)

JKJ

[Pat Pollin]

+1 to earlier poster-

coffee is black only from now on for me

rarely when i need something creamy- Coconut creamer

[Bill Jobe]

Double post

[Bill Jobe]

My mom once told me that when oleo margarine first came out the makers were not allowed to add yellow food coloring to it due to complaints from the dairy association, so they added a packet of coloring to the margarine package that you could mix in to make it look like butter.

I was raised on goats' milk from birth until about the age of 2 due to a severe reaction to cow's milk. My folks kept a goat in the back yard.

All these new food ingredients hit the dairy business hard. As a result dairy is highly subsidized. Think government cheese give-aways.

[Cary Falk]

I had a realtor that swore off dairy because it was unhealthy. His reasoning was that no other animals drink the milk from a different animal so it as unnatural unhealthy. I remember thinking "When was the last time you seen a wolf cook a steak?" but I didn't say anything.

[Bill Jobe]

Interesting analogy, Cary.
God put animals here for us to, not only drink the milk from, but also to eat.

Having said that, I haven't eaten meat for about 25 years.
A video shot inside a packing house without the management knowing and later used as a documentary made me so sick to watch I haven't been able to bring myself to eat meat since. I do eat dairy, though.
It wasn't til a few years ago that I learned buttermilk has almost no fat in it. I still don't understand that, what with its thickness.