Dear dairy

I grew up on powdered milk at home, but I would bring tetra packs of milk for recess and lunch at school. Four glasses of milk a day? Most kids would rather die. Later on, my mom started buying fresh milk in cartons. I don't recall ever seeing powdered milk here in Denmark, and the figures show why.


In 2005, the average Dane consumed 136.2 kg of liquid milk products, of which 89.9kg is milk. In contrast, 2005 figures (from a 2003 survey) show that the average Filipino consumed 19kg of milk. The Recommended Daily Allowance(RDA) is 30kg. "It would be noted that while the Philippines accounts for a very insignificant portion of the dairy universe, it is performing fairly well both in terms of yield and cost to produce," says the National Dairy Board. Ahahaha! Manny, magpainom ka pa ng Magnolia!

Some interesting facts from the Danish Dairy Board: Danish-Swedish Arla Foods is Europe’s largest dairy group. Arla, together with 34 smaller dairy companies, make up the Danish dairy industry, which exports €1.6 billion worth of dairy products annually and accounts for 10,000 jobs.

Come to think of it, milk prices in the Philippines and Denmark are nearly the same. You can afford to have milk and yogurt every day in Denmark without breaking the bank. The milk is really fresh, not processed at Ultra High Temperature(UHT). Most milk types are low in fat: minimælk (0.1%), skummetmælk (0.5%), letmælk(1.5%) and sødmælk (3.5%), which is their equivalent of full-cream milk. Nearly the same goes for chocolate milk and yogurt.

Though the French may complain about Danish cheese, there's still a good variety available. I think in the Philippines, we mainly have cream cheese and cheddar. The rest are processed cheese--flavored milk solids.

The next time you spread Lurpak butter (one of those things more popular abroad than in its native land) on your bread, think of the Danes and their dairy products. But oh, what would I give to have some condensada on bread!

Strawberry season soon. Woohoo!

Photo: Peter Blisgård/Danish Dairy Board