Great inexpensive substitude for powdered milk!

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Powdered milk has a shelf life of only one year. I have some that has turned hard as a rock. Instead of powdered milk, I have been buying powdered coffie creamer. I put some in a tupperware glass with a lid and shake it and put it on our cereal and it is delicious! In fact it tastes better than milk or powdered milk, because it has a creamy taste. I have put in in mashed potato's and other things that require milk and I just love that creamy taste!

I bought 15 large plasic containers at #2.15 each. That is the Rainbow brand. I have experimented and bought the most expensive and the least expensive. The ingredients are the same and the taste is the same! Try it, you'll like it! A big bulk bag of powdered milk runs about $70. The coffee creamer should rum about half that amount! Plus it has a much longer shelf life!

-- old sailor (old@sailor.com), March 20, 1999

Answers

Old Sailor,

What are the ingredients in coffee creamer?

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 20, 1999.


It is made from Corn syrup solids, soybean and canola oils, sodium caseinate which is a milk derivative, lecithin which is good to prevent heat attacks and flavorings. Nothing that would hurt you. If it was bad stuff, the FDA would have never approved it. It has not hurt many millions of It sure is delicious on my morning cereal!

-- old sailor (old@oldsailor.com), March 20, 1999.

Hi, Watchful! I found this info that might answer your question...

http://food.epicurious.com/db/dictionary/terms/n/nondairy.html

This might =not= be an option for people who must restrict their fat intake, but there are other 'creamers' made with soy which =are= lower in fat. I hope Old Sailor will jump back in with the ingredients in his...

\/\/illis in OKC, OK

-- Willis (justforthe@record.net), March 20, 1999.


Old Sailor, just be careful with that powdered creamer it is HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. A news station in our area did a story on this and had the fire dept. run a test on different powdered food things, like flour and such. When they got to the powdered creamer the tiny bit they used ignited like a torch.

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), March 20, 1999.


I guess we need a definition of the word substitute. If you want to just drink something that is white you can use ground up chalk. If on the other hand you are looking for something of the equivalent nutrition coffee creamers are a far cry. Corn syrup solids are just sugar. Partially hydrogenated oils is a varition of Crisco.

The reason I store dry milk is for the amino acids, ie. protein content. *IF* that is the reason for storing dry milk, coffee creamers don't even come close. Example, if you are going to improve your baked goods by using the Cornell Bread formula of 1 tsp wheat germ, 1 tsp soy flour, 1 Tbps dry milk, with the rest of the cup filled with wheat flour, coffee creamers won't cut the mustard.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 20, 1999.



Sailor, I love creative workarounds, and this forum is the perfect place to post your ideas. This is not to discourage that! So sorry to be a wet blanket on this one however....

Coffee creamers contains "partially hydrogenated oils" which are industrially engineered fats, which much research has demonstrated are harmful to health. This research has been out there for decades but generally ignored (or suppressed, as I see it). These links are to some articles and discussion. I would love to post more, but time flies when Y2k is drawing near. For those interested, search the web and usenet (easiest via DejaNews) for "partially hydrogenated" oils, "trans fats" and "trans fatty acids". Or read Fats That Heal, Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus.

Health Issues and Trans Fats, by Mary Enig, Ph.D.

Hydrogenated Oils Health Effects Research (...scroll down to see the searches)

In hydrogenation, the oil molecule is altered at high heat so it becomes a mirror image of what it was (becomes a "trans" version of a formerly "cis" molecule, for chemists out there). The purpose of the hydrogenation is to increase shelf life and hardness. The body uses this defective, biologically distorted molecule in our cell membranes (which are mostly made up of fats). The danger here is not the more familiar danger of "eating lots of fat" but of eating "damaged" fats or "fake" fats.

It is hard to avoid trans fatty acids completely as long as we eat any processed foods, because they are in almost everything. They are in some items of food storage, for sure. While survival is the #1 priority, Y2k is not the time to have health problems if you can avoid them, and while you still have a choice in the matter (laying up food stores).

The best you can do is keep fake fats to a minimum and make sure you get essential fatty acids as well. I use fish oil, eat fresh non-farmed fish (farmed fish are fed trans-fats), and use expeller pressed refrigerated flax oils from the health food store, as well as eating fresh ground flax seeds. But I'm not counting on being able to do any of this after Y2k, except for the flax seeds, which I'm stocking up on. Also, sprouts (any fresh sprouted seeds) will have essential fatty acids in them.

IOW yes the coffee creamers taste good (all that heavily funded food engineering research to get the perfect "mouth feel"), but watch out. Especially don't feed them to growing children.

The FDA made a statement that if partially hydrogenated oils were up for approval today, they wouldn't be. I wish I had the source for this statement; since I don't you are welcome to discount it. But these oils are banned for food processing in many European countries!

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 20, 1999.


Why not combine the powdered milk with the powdered dairy creamer and then storing it in a cool, dry place? Cutting the powdered milk with high quality creamer would still provide nutrients and that delightful creamy taste. Or would this produce a disasterous chemical reaction?

jhollander:

Sounds like powdered dairy creamer would make an excellent fire starter! Will that be one teaspoon or two? :)

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), March 20, 1999.


Sorry. Two bad links in the usenet message. Corrections:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov /PubMed/ (Medline - Pub/Med search engine)

http://igm.nlm.nih.gov/ (Medline - Internet Grateful Med search engine)

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 20, 1999.


Old Sailor,

Many thanks for ingredients info.

Please use less and keep well.

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 20, 1999.


Old sailor ... from another ' ole sailor ' .. Take a look at the PRESERVATIVES; every time you have fats as a ingredient ( which can go rancid) you will find the words " Preserved with BHA and/or BHT . Ran into this in the sixties one summer on side of wheat chex box. Wrote letters to the government AND Ralston Purina Co. . The government responded to my question of why Bulated Hydroxy Anisole and Butalated Hydroxy TOLUENE were being used in cereals with the same garbage that the ceral companies listed on the box; "To preserve fressness ". They preserve it O.K. !! NOTHING CAN LIVE ON IT !! Ran my own THREE year test for my science students; first expose the cereal for a week to any mold, bacteria, etc. that might fall from the air. Put same in Petri dishes (several brands of cereal) for three years. NOTHING GROWS ON IT !!! The FDA admited the "a test" (ONE !!) was done one the produce with mice; BY THE CEREAL COMPANY who said it did no harm. Any chemist knows that one tablespoon of Toluene will probably kill you and use of BHA in feed for turkeys in England that killed 10,000 was finally identified as the chemical that caused their death !! It was subsequently outlawed there (1960s). Check the major preservative for dry dog food that has fats added, and you'll find one or both listed. THEN ask your vet what 80% of dogs die from and you'll be told CANCER !! My dog died of same at barely 7 years, even though I tried to read all labels and keep it from her. Watch what you eat and feed to others !! Eagle

-- Harold Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), March 20, 1999.


Dinosaur: just a pinch will do! Sprinkle it on that kindlin' and zowie! you've got yourself a FIRE.

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), March 20, 1999.


False premise alert.

Powdered milk, if bought in boxes with those small individual foil-and-plastic packages, DO NOT last one year - they will last *several years* - I know, as I used some that was over four years old this past summer. Tasted fine... can't comment on what vitamins were left, but it was a damsite better than powdered crisco and sugar.

Now if you are trying to save money and buy the 20-quart packages, then yes, once it's opened, you've got to use it within a year or less... but the individual packages are good for at least two years. I bought a 10-quart box of Pathmark store brand last week, and the "sell by" date - not the "use by" date, mind you - was February of 2001.

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 20, 1999.


Hi Old Sailor. Let's change the topic to LIMEIES(sp?). This is not meant to be a joke!

As far as creamer, I hate it! I hit the 7-11 on the way to work, so I can have real milk in my coffee. It's just not the same, for many reasons as noted above. My $.02 <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 21, 1999.


Dr. Enig's transfat page ; much newer than above. and I'll lay off it now, I promise.

Coffee creamer=fire starter!?! Who'da thunk it? Gotta try it, good tip

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 21, 1999.


I snorted some up my nose, then sneezed and lit a match at the same time and burned all my wives hair off..BRAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ;-)

-- Tman (Tman@IBAgeek.com), March 21, 1999.


LOL, Tman, and how many wives IS that? Gotta be at least three...

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplane.tnet), March 22, 1999.

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