Health Food stores: While these are not the cheapest, you can usually find store brand organic items for less than name brand organics at a conventional grocery store. If you have exhausted all other options, check out the store brand and see if they have the organics you are looking for.
Cheapest Place To Buy Organic Milk
Happy Friday everyone!
Our little guy switched over to cow's milk last month, and we're trying to stick to mostly organic milk for him. The problem is that it is SO expensive. It's the same as formula!
I'm wondering if anyone has tips on where the cheapest organic milk can be found. So far, the cheapest I have found is at Trader Joes, where we get a gallon of whole milk for about $5.60 per gallon.
Any tips?
Thanks in advance!
No ideas or tips here. My Katy is drinking Horizon organic with DHA & Omega 3 and I think we're paying like $3-$3.50/per half gallon. She's drinking 2 per week. She's the only drinking it since it's whole milk so it's not too bad, and cheaper than her formula. If I had all 4 of my kids on it I'd go broke in a week! LOL It really stinks that trying to do right and give them the healthiest possible diet costs sooooooooo much more than the alternative. I prefer hormone free milk and meats, but with a fam of 6 we just can't afford it for everyday diet.
I don't know if it's any cheaper than at the specialty stores like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, but our regular grocery stores (here in Atlanta, Publix and Kroger) carry several brands of organic milk (I'm with you on the organic milk--it's the one organic product I ALWAYS insist on). Maybe try the regular stores to compare prices? Also, the brand you buy may have coupons available on their website. We buy the Horizon brand and get lots of coupons from Horizondairy.com.
I find it for about $3.50 for a half gallon at any store i go to, Jewel Osco, Target, Wal-mart, etc. Most of them use local farms, and i live in northern IL so there are plenty of dairy farms around. I'm spending way less on the Organic Whole milk than formula. Plus the organic seems to last longer than the non-organic...maybe that's just me, but I swear it's lasting longer in the fridge.
I get the Shoprite organic brand(it's a supermarket store brand here), for about $4 or $5 a gallon. A friend said farmland doesn't use antibiotics in there milk but I haven't checked that out yet. I use to spend over $100.00 a month on formula so aprox. $20 a month on organic is way better.
In metro New York, ShopRite, Edison, N.J., and Stop & Shop, Quincy, Mass., were offering several of their newly launched natural and organic private-label items at aggressive price points in last week's circulars. Half gallons of ShopRite Organic Milk were two for $5; the retailer's organic apple juice was $1.49 per half gallon. Stop & Shop's variety of organic juices was priced higher, at $2.99, but the company's Nature's Promise brand organic soy milk and organic lemonade were both two for $5. The companies were offering private-label organic eggs for $2.99 per dozen. Stop & Shop also offered all-natural, cage-free eggs for $1.99. Finally, ShopRite had its private-label baby carrots on sale for $1.79 per pound.
On the one hand, Jacobowitz said, the low prices could help introduce new customers to the organic category. Yet on the other, he noted that "milk, apple juice and eggs are big-volume items. That's a power play to take top organic [stockkeeping units] and make door grabbers out of them.
It's hard not to love Trader Joe's for its relatively-inexpensive, high-quality groceries, especially because the packaging and marketing is just so appealing. And while the quirky, budget-friendly grocery store is great for odd, original, and expertly-sourced items, there are some staples that you are just better off not buying there. Things that you might eat daily, like cereal, fall into this category, but organic milk does, too (via CNBC).
According to Lauren Greutman, who evaluated the cost of organic milk at Trader Joe's for CNBC, "it's not terribly priced, but you can find it for a lot cheaper other places." Apparently a half gallon of 2 percent organic Trader Joe's milk costs about $3.29, but you could get the same size of the same kind of milk from Aldi for $2.69. At Walmart, the same half gallon of 2 percent organic milk would cost $3, so it's worth shopping around if you really want to save some money.
Keep in mind that a gallon of Trader Joe's organic milk is more than $2 more expensive than the equivalent sold at Whole Foods, according to Cheat Sheet. So, even at what we perceive to be very expensive, high-end grocery stores, you could get milk that's ultimately cheaper than Trader Joe's. Even lactose-free milk is more expensive at Trader Joe's. It's 83 cents cheaper at Walmart (via Reader's Digest).
Millennial households are leading that charge, as they stock up on organic milk and baby food for their children. But other generations are also buying more organic products. Overall, 88 percent of American households have bought organic food or beverages.
Organic milk has the same protein, mineral, lipid and vitamin content as normal milk. Nonorganic milk typically has growth hormones, which are specific to each species. So, drinking milk with bovine growth hormone, which is degraded by stomach acid, has no physiological impact on humans.
At my local Whole Foods, whole raw almonds from the bulk bin are $12.99 per pound. Using a 1 cup almond to 2 cups water ratio, it costs about $4.05 to make 2 cups, or 16 ounces of almond milk. Alternatively, 365 Organic Unsweetened Almond Milk is $1.99 for 32 fluid ounces. Admittedly, this was the cheapest almond milk I could find. The other brands I saw ranged from $2.29 to $4.00.
Total: $31.85 Santa Maria; $24.66 SLO. Loaf of organic bread: $5.49; two cartons of half-dozen organic, free-range eggs: $4.98 ($2.49 each; the SLO location has one dozen organic eggs for $4.69); half-gallon of organic milk: $5.39; 1 pound raw organic butter: $15.99 (raw organic butter was the only kind in the Santa Maria store; the SLO store has 1 pound organic butter for $9.09).
All milk produced in the United States is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Together, dairy farmers, milk processors, and government agencies work to ensure consumers have access to a safe and high-quality product. This applies equally to organic and conventional products.
Milk from both conventional and organic dairies undergoes an extremely rigorous evaluation by a USDA Pesticide Data Program, which ensures that all residue detections in milk are much lower than established tolerances. This testing occurs every few years, when loads of milk from all regions of the U.S. are evaluated for pesticide residues.
Milk fat and protein from organic and conventional herds are sometimes reported to differ, but the reports are contradictory. Some researchers report increased protein or fat concentrations in conventional milk, whereas others report greater protein or fat concentrations in organic milk. These two components are the result of many factors, some of which are not management-specific, like genetics.
One 8-ounce glass of conventional or organic milk provides 8 grams of protein. And, when following FDA guidelines, that 8-ounce glass provides the daily recommended values for calcium, riboflavin, phosphorus, vitamin D, pantothenic acid, potassium, vitamin A, and niacin (Figure 2). All these nutrients help your body perform everyday tasks, from building and maintaining strong bones and teeth to promoting proper blood circulation. Currently, no research shows that organic or conventional milk is healthier than the other.
Consumers may wonder why organic milk stays fresh so much longer than conventional milk. The expiration date is not related to whether the product is organic or conventional, but instead is a result of the processing procedures before the milk is distributed to grocery stores.
Organic milk costs more than conventional milk because organic production is more expensive for the producer (increased animal feed prices, certification costs, and lowered milk yields). In 2018, organic food and beverages cost an average of 7.5 percent more than conventional food and beverages, which is down from 9 percent in 2014. The price premium has been decreasing due to increasing consumer demand for organic products.
Although organic and conventional milk are produced in different management systems, neither can be considered better than the other from a nutrient standpoint. Both are great sources of protein, calcium, and vitamins for people in all stages of life. Consumers can feel confident that all milk is safe and nutritious, and they should buy the type of milk they feel is the best choice for their family.
The one anomaly in the tests was Colorado's Aurora Organic Dairy, which produces milk sold under many retailer labels, including the Great Value organic brand at Walmart. Its acid levels were much more similar to conventional milks than other major organic milk brands. Post reporters also wrote that "signs of grazing were sparse, at best" for the farm's 15,000+ cows during their visits to Aurora last year, and that "at no point was any more than 10 percent of the herd out" feeding on grasses.
The Cornucopia Institute, a nonprofit representing small organic farmers, argues that the USDA's certification system doesn't work for consumers (who pay a premium for milk that might not live up to organic principles) or for dairy farmers who truly play by the rules. An Organic Dairy Report published by Cornucopia last summer gave Aurora a "Cow Rating " of 0, a score that categorizes its production practices as "ethically deficient." (For that matter, Horizon also received a score of 0 in the report.)
Organic meat and milk can be richer in certain nutrients. Results of a 2016 European study show that levels of certain nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids, were up to 50 percent higher in organic meat and milk than in conventionally raised versions.
38c6e68cf9