Also, I really feel the need to point out: pasteurizing isn't what makes the milk less tasty. Homogenization is what skims the fat and makes it into bland watery (and profitable) Supermarket milk.
But ironically, boiling milk is FAR worse for all the vitamins than pasteurizing it. Boiled raw milk is less nutritious for you than Supermarket milk, especially since supermarket milk is often fortified back to its original levels or beyond. It IS tastier though, but pasteurized unhomogenized milk does exist, which is great because it tastes like a desert, AND won't kill you.
Homogenization doesn't skim the fat. It breaks the fat globules up into very small particles that form a stable emulsion that doesn't separate. All they do is pass it through a high pressure nozzle.
"whole milk" is often skimmed, or occasionally, added to to make it fit in a certain legally defined bandwidth of fat content. It's not unmodified.
Also, homogenization absolutely changes the texture of the milk. That is in fact part of the point, making sure nobody gets the crappy milk. Some people prefer it, some don't, it's a personal taste thing.
Okay, sure, they skim it. But your original comment was worded a bit badly, the way I read it implied that whole milk contains 3.25% of all the fat that it should if it was truly whole, rather than that it contains 3.25% whereas true whole milk is just slightly more. Some people do believe that whole milk is actually 100% fat which is why I thought it best to correct you.
I do wonder why they have such a precise requirement for whole milk in the US. Where I live, most whole milk sold is roughly 3.5 to 3.8 percent, and often they actually give a range instead of an exact value on the package. I could buy a carton of milk that says "3.8% to 4.4%" if I wanted to. My personal preference is "whatever's cheaper, but if whole milk isn't much more expensive, go for whole". Usually I use it in food rather than drinking it straight so the flavor doesn't matter as much to me.
Oh no, yeah totally. I definitely just misspoke in my original comment, and instead of simply correcting it, I've been doubling down and twisting it so it seems like I was right the whole time.
Be nice to skimmed milk drinking cryptids. They happily subsist on the waste product of butter making and reduce competing demand for the full-fat milk product you enjoy.
I was raised on skim milk, thanks to my mother who was constantly dieting throughout my childhood. 2% milk tastes like liquid ice cream to me. Skim is much more refreshing.
Also, it was fun to freak out my friends by hydrating with milk after exercising. Skim milk is mostly water anyway.
The term that people should look out for is "creamline" or "cream-top" milk. It's whole milk that is unhomogenized. It basically separates in the bottle, so there's a layer of cream floating on top of skim.
I couldn't say for sure, but I've heard it's better for making cheese/yogurt/etc.
Personally, I wouldn't buy it just for drinking cause I don't think it lasts as long.