Lactose Factos...

This morning I forgot to bring milk with me to work for my coffee (I have a coffee maker in my office, and a fridge...but no milk). So I decided I would explore the communal fridge and see if by chance there was any milk in there. I was delighted when I found almost an entire container. The only problem was that the date on the milk said "Jan. 10" which would mean that the jug is about a week past the best before date.

So my question is...how do you tell if that milk is any good??? I'm no expert on this, so I basically did what I've seen other people do:

First I smelled it...unfortunately, in my opinion it smelled like milk, which doesn't smell that great to begin with. So since I had no real baseline of smell to compare this against, this approach was inconclusive.

Next, I looked at it...I wasn't totally sure what to look for...although I did scan for lumps, and luckily there were none. It wasn't black, it didn't have green moldies floating in it, and no lumps...in my opinion it looked like milk and therefore past that test.

These are the only things I've really seen people try...but I still wasn't convinced this milk was safe. So I decided maybe I needed some more tests. The question was, what would they be??? Then it hit me...these are all based on senses...I used my vision and my sense of smell...so maybe I should attempt to use my other senses.

So, next I tried my sense of hearing. Which, for those who know me isn't exactly good to begin with. Anyway, I got my ear in close to the milk and listened for some sign of sourness...I'm not sure what that would sound like...a strange bubbling perhaps? Maybe the sound of milk having a bad attitude (sour...get it...wow, bad joke). Unfortunately, once again this test didn't return any incredible results...and to be honest I felt a bit foolish.

Touching seemed to be the next obvious step...but I wasn't keen on ACTUALLY touching the milk. Partially because I didn't want to be covered in milk and partially because I certainly wouldn't want to drink milk that had been all over me. So instead I used a spoon to stir it. Not only did the spoon move safely through it, but when I pulled it back out it looked fine. The milk had not become acidic or anything.

After all these tests, I decided I would just take a chance and use it in my coffee. And it was at this point that I realized I had missed one test...the taste test. Needless to say that this one probably would have saved me...because my coffee tasted HORRIBLE. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that milk was bad...