As part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” project, HuffPost Taste will focus the entire month of July on simple ways you can reduce food waste in your own home.
If you find yourself cursed with never being able to finish a carton of milk before it spoils, we have good news for you: scientists have discovered a new technique that could keep milk good for up to seven weeks longer than usual. They’ve now discovered that if they take one more step after using the standard pasteurization process, they can make milk last much, much longer.
Most conventional milk purchased in the refrigerator section of grocery stores is pasteurized to kill off enough pathogens to make it safe to drink. After this process, the milk stays fresh for 15 to 17 days (as opposed to organic milk, which lasts longer thanks to UHT processing). Typical pasteurization heats the milk to 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds. Adding one more step ― increasing the milk’s temperature by about 50 degrees F for another second ― can kill 99 percent of the bacteria left in the milk after standard pasteurization. This new method is called the low-temperature, short-time (LTST) method.
So why is LTST better than the UHT method? The UHT method heats milk to 280 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 to 4 seconds. The problem with this is that it caramelizes the natural sugars found in milk, changing the way it tastes. The LTST method actually does not change the taste of milk, but still gives us that bigger window for when it’s good to drink.
Talk about a great victory for food waste ― and milk lovers.
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