ARKANSAS, USA — Milk is a staple in most people's diet. It's widely recognized as a good source of protein, calcium, and other vitamins and minerals.
But the sell-by dates, along with milk's freshness, seem to confuse a lot of people.
A question to our Verify team confirms this.
Kenneth emailed this:
"For a long time, I drank 2% milk. I started noticing it sour before the Best By date. I checked my refrigerator temperature, but there were no problems with it or anything else in there. I decided to go back to whole and noticed it actually goes past the date. Does 2% milk spoil faster than whole milk?"
It's a really great question, Kenneth, and we appreciate you writing us.
From skim to whole, and everything in between, we know they taste different, but are there other differences we can't taste?
In fact, there are.
We took the question to UAMS Director of Nutrition Tonya Johnson, who said that chocolate milk and whole milk actually tend to have a longer shelf life.
The sugar in chocolate milk reduces the growth of bacteria and, typically, the higher the fat content, the longer it takes milk to spoil.
However, she still encourages everyone to drink 2% or skim milk because of the saturated fat content and extra calories in whole milk.
So, we can verify that 2% milk does in fact spoil faster than whole milk.
If you have something you'd like us to verify, email us at verify@thv11.com.