Golden Hills Elementary School, near Omaha, Nebraska, changed all of its milk cartons to bagged milk this year, citing tests (done in-house) that kids were finishing more of their milk when it arrived in bags than when in cartons. Golden Hills is the latest in a long line of worldwide experiments with bagged milk, some more successful than others.
In the mid-1990s, Philadelphia schools briefly tried out bagged milk. (My elementary school, in the western suburbs of the city, also gave it a shot.) Both regular and chocolate milk would arrive in clear plastic pouches, with no obvious way to open them. Provided alongside the pouch was a short yellow straw, narrower and shorter than a typical straw, and with a sharpened point on one end. It took a bit of practice to figure out the trick; you had to cover the blunt end of the straw with your thumb while stabbing into the pouch, otherwise milk would fly out.
In eastern Canada, from Ontario through Quebec and into the less-populated Maritime provinces, bagged milk is the norm, but not in personal-sized pouches. Canadians buy their milk in a large bag, which contains three smaller bags packed full of milk. All three bags together equal four liters of milk. When you want some, you carefully insert the bag into a plain pitcher and snip off the corner of the bag. There is no way to close it, though I suppose it’s technically possible to fold it over.
This practice is bizarre to Americans. But our own solutions – cardboard cartons and plastic jugs – are fairly new, according to various histories, like The Atlantic‘s nice history of the carton. Up until the late 1960s, milk arrived in heavy glass bottles, which were both easy to use and to reuse. But they were also heavy, which added to transport costs, and prone to breakage, so around the 1960s, alternatives began popping up. In Canada, DuPont introduced bagged milk in 1967, around the same time that other companies introduced plastic jugs and cardboard cartons, but they weren’t very popular until 1970, when Canada began its conversion to the metric system.
Everything in Canada, including milk, had to be rejiggered to be sold in metric units. No more quarts and gallons of milk: liters were the way to go. And it turned out that the thin plastic bags used for DuPont’s milk were extremely amenable to size changes. It was no problem at all to seal the bags in a different spot to make them metric-compliant. Jugs and cartons, on the other hand, had to be redesigned and manufactured from scratch, a significant disadvantage. They never really succeeded in making up for lost time, and bagged milk now reigns in Canada.
The obvious question, though, is why Canadians have put up with the bagged milk for so long. It requires extra equipment (scissors and a pitcher), it can’t be resealed and so goes bad quickly, and it’s prone to spilling if cut or poured incorrectly. There are also environmental downsides; in much of Canada, the bags aren’t recyclable, unlike the jugs or cartons. So what’s the deal?
Bagged milk does, of course, have a few benefits. For one, you’re opening a smaller amount of milk at a time, so even though the opened bag does go bad faster, the remaining sealed bags in your 4-liter three-pack stay good for much longer. For another, bagged milk tends to be a little big cheaper, simply because plastic bags are cheaper to make than cardboard cartons or plastic jugs.
Golden Hills’ experiment is a curious one: The food service director for the school thinks kids drink more of the bagged milk because, unlike with cartons, they can see exactly how much they’ve drunk. I can find no study to indicate whether bags or cartons tend to result in more milk drunk, but sure, why not? I do remember liking the weird little milk pouches.
This practice is bizarre to Americans. But our own solutions – cardboard cartons and plastic jugs – are fairly new, according to various histories, like The Atlantic‘s nice history of the carton. Up until the late 1960s, milk arrived in heavy glass bottles, which were both easy to use and to reuse. But they were also heavy, which added to transport costs, and prone to breakage, so around the 1960s, alternatives began popping up. In Canada, DuPont introduced bagged milk in 1967, around the same time that other companies introduced plastic jugs and cardboard cartons, but they weren’t very popular until 1970, when Canada began its conversion to the metric system.
Golden Hills’ experiment is a curious one: The food service director for the school thinks kids drink more of the bagged milk because, unlike with cartons, they can see exactly how much they’ve drunk. I can find no study to indicate whether bags or cartons tend to result in more milk drunk, but sure, why not? I do remember liking the weird little milk pouches.
The obvious question, though, is why Canadians have put up with the bagged milk for so long. It requires extra equipment (scissors and a pitcher), it can’t be resealed and so goes bad quickly, and it’s prone to spilling if cut or poured incorrectly. There are also environmental downsides; in much of Canada, the bags aren’t recyclable, unlike the jugs or cartons. So what’s the deal?
In the mid-1990s, Philadelphia schools briefly tried out bagged milk. (My elementary school, in the western suburbs of the city, also gave it a shot.) Both regular and chocolate milk would arrive in clear plastic pouches, with no obvious way to open them. Provided alongside the pouch was a short yellow straw, narrower and shorter than a typical straw, and with a sharpened point on one end. It took a bit of practice to figure out the trick; you had to cover the blunt end of the straw with your thumb while stabbing into the pouch, otherwise milk would fly out.
Golden Hills Elementary School, near Omaha, Nebraska, changed all of its milk cartons to bagged milk this year, citing tests (done in-house) that kids were finishing more of their milk when it arrived in bags than when in cartons. Golden Hills is the latest in a long line of worldwide experiments with bagged milk, some more successful than others.
Don’t worry, we will be accepting statements on bagged milk stances while also allowing comments succeeding this piece.
I can only imagine the trauma teachers dealt with when kids came back from recess all sticky and covered in milk — although there are a lot worse things for kindergarteners to be covered in.
There was a time when milk in cafeterias came in cartons and even glass bottles, but what really made elementary lunchtime enjoyable was the flavored milk that came in bags — sacs of liquid with no distinct shape. But, as we move further into the modern age, kids around the country are forgetting what it means to be a part of the “Mini-Sip” pouch community.
The student would get their pouch with a pointed end straw. To insert, you would place your finger over the dull end of the straw, so milk would not fly everywhere. Many kids would stick their straws in and shower their classmates in milk. By kids, I mean myself.
There was no feeling like blowing up your empty pouch, making shapes and twirling it around while socializing with friends. No iPhones as “safety nets” from society— just milk bags. These were simpler times.
Schools replace milk carton with milk bags
FAQ
What is the point of bagged milk?
Why do they give kids milk in school?
Is bagged milk bad for the environment?
Why do schools serve 1% milk?
Why do supermarkets use bagged milk?
The thin, flexible packaging also means that bagged milk takes up less space in the garbage — that is, when the packaging isn’t recycled. For this reason, supermarket chains in the UK such as Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have intermittently tried introducing bagged milk to customers over the last two decades.
Why can I only have some milk-based foods, but others upset my stomach?
There can be a few reasons for this: 1. You could be lactose intolerant. Most individuals with lactose intolerance have a lactose threshold of about 12g of lactose. This means that they can consume up to that quantity of lactose before experiencing any side effects. 12g of lactose is equivalent to a cup of regular dairy milk. If you are lactose intolerant, you will therefore be able to tolerate small amounts of milk and ice-cream but anything in excess can cause side effects. Items like cheese and yogurt are less likely to cause side effects as these have been fermented and contain very little lactose. 2. If you suffer from IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) products higher in lactose are likely to cause more side effects compared to those lower in lactose. 3. Some people are very sensitive to the fat content in dairy products. If this is the case then you may be able to tolerate the low-fat or fat-free version of dairy products but the full fat or double fat alternatives can cause side effects.
How do school districts deal with milk shortages?
Instead of serving cartons, they would purchase milk in larger quantities and pour it into cups. To cope, many school districts will also buy milk in bulk and pour it for students. Others said that once the supply of cartoned milk was used, they would serve the milk in cups with lids or offer students juice or water instead.
Can schools eat milk during a milk shortage?
Milk is required to be served with school meals, but officials with the USDA’s food and nutrition service issued a memo late last month allowing districts to serve different types or sizes of milk during the supply shortage – or to skip milk altogether. It’s not clear how long the carton shortage could last.