Cutting organic whole milk with water?

[annettemarie]

I get Catholic Heritage Curriculum's homeschool newsletter, and they had this frugal tip:

We try to buy organic milk and eggs, but they are very expensive in our area. My husband and I decided to buy whole milk and cut it in half with filtered water. I understand that there are more nutrients in the milk doing it this way than buying even more processed 2% milk. Because the organic milk seems to taste better to begin with, even the finicky milk experts in our family are pleased! Each gallon is half off (that's about 1$ less than non-organic milk costs).

Thoughts? Is this still nutritious? No one in our family really drinks milk, but we do use it a lot in cooking. Would it work with raw milk as well?

[cristeen]

It will work - milk is mostly water to begin with. But it will not taste like what you're used to. And using it in cooking, you'll lose some of the richness in the dish.

[rebirth]

but if you're used to using 2% or skim it is fairly similar. I'd personally do 1/4-1/3 water to the rest milk, if at all. I like my milk rich and creamy though.

[Ruthla]

You're using half the milk, paying half the price, and getting half the nutrition. It's basically giving your kids less milk, rather than using larger quantities of milk but buying "cheaper milk."

This could be a good thing if you have a LO who drinks too much milk, to the exclusion of other foods. This could be a bad thing if you need to maximize the nutrition for a child- an underweight child, or a child with tooth decay who REALLY needs the minerals.

As for the general question of "is it better to have smaller amounts of high quality milk rather than higher amounts of lower quality milk"- I'm really not sure.