Worrying news coming out of the Agricultural Commission of the Italian Parliament. It seems that very soon yogurt sold in Italy may not need to be made from … fresh milk!
The law will be ‘relaxed’ whereby milk powder or similar derivatives can be used instead. Primarily because milk has four big drawbacks.
1. It goes off.
2. Takes up too much storage space
3. It’s heavy
4. Cows smell (we added this one ourselves)
Or perhaps because buying powdered milk from countries outside the EU offers huge savings for industrial yogurt interests – 360 million kilos of milk savings apparently.
The Union of Italian Farmers, Coldiretti, estimates that a traditional kilo of yogurt needs 1.2 kilos of milk and that every Italian consumes seven kilos of the many varieties of yogurt a year.
Already the EU has given its go ahead for the production of cheese without milk, orange juice with only 12% oranges, and even wine without grapes.
What next?