I’m not what you’d call a control freak about my kids’ food, but I do try to find healthy versions of stuff they eat and drink regularly. Not much koolaid around here, candy doled out from Easter or Halloween baskets stingily, granola bars and yogurt for snacks, etc. We try to keep fresh fruit around. If money were no issue, I’d go organic. But that’s never really been a realistic option for us.

So when my friend Cindy mentioned Braum’s “organic” milk at the cost of Walmart milk, my ears perked up. Really? I dropped by Braum’s yesterday with the little ones, making their ice-cream dreams come true, to see what was up. And don’t you know, the milk is only 9 cents more ($3.59) than regular ole’ Walmart/Kroger type milk these days. And while it’s not technically organic, it’s as close are you can get without earning the official label. This milk lacks added hormones.

Here’s the official word from the Braum’s web site:

At Braum’s, we know that we can produce the best quality milk by feeding our cows natural, healthy ingredients. We do not inject our cows with hormones like rBGH to stimulate milk production and we don’t add antibiotics to their feed. We feed our dairy herd of 10,000 Holstein cows a mixture of alfalfa hay, corn, grain, whole cottonseed, soybean and more (the majority of the feed for our dairy herd is grown on our family farms.)

So the next time you drink a glass of Braum’s milk rest easy…it’s 100 percent natural, tastes great and is rBGH FREE!
(http://www.braums.com/whatsnew.asp?id=94)

And with a little girl at home who drinks a lot of milk, I’ll sacrifice my monthly Starbucks fix to pay the difference between natural hormone-free milk and the hormone-supplemented variety we find at the grocery stores. No sense in encouraging puberty to arrive prematurely!

I think we’ve found a winner (not a dud) 🙂