Garelick Farms is a milk that's available at most supermarkets in Boston, and it emphasizes that it is local without claiming to be organic. It's not as expensive as organic, but not as cheap as name brand (Market Basket brand goes for $2.99/gallon). Since it's a bit more expensive without necessarily being better, I've never bought it. I recently saw a small store near us selling Garelick 1% for $2.99/gallon (the regular price at Shaw's is $4.99), and so I decided to try and see what they were like by researching them online. There's no increase in transportation cost to pick it up because the little store is on the way to the library.
The Garelick farms website didn't help me terribly. It's a beautiful website but it was hard to tell how their dairy cows live, etc. It may well vary, because Garelick Farms is a huge number of different farms, rather than just one farm.
It was also not 100% clear how far the milk travels compared to other milk, because I'm not sure how far my Market Basket brand milk travels. However, if Market Basket is comparable with the US average, it could travel as far as 1500 miles. At least at this level, Garelick Farms is preferable because this milk is produced in farms around New England. I did find that they recycle their bottles and use trucks with maximum fuel efficiency.
So I went ahead and bought Garelick Farms milk. It tastes good, and I think it's definitely a step up from buying the supermarket brand. I think is a very small step and there are many more steps that need to come next.
Coming Soon
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How to Make Foccacia with the help of a Breadmaker
How to Make Very Good Brownies Quickly
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