UMP Initiative

Today I made a quick stop at the local grocery store, four items on the list, including milk. Milk is a complicated and divided affair at my house, with girls that prefer Skim and their dad and brother who are Vitamin D Whole milk kind of guys. Today I walked into that age old trap of milk buying. I stumbled through the mine field of colored caps and fell victim one more time.

It is the slickest and most deceptive of set-ups in the milk cooler. You can't let your guard down. I first looked for the Vitamin D, the most reliable, the ol' predictable, the red cap. No. Not here, not at this grocery. It was purple! Purple? Then I moved on down the row to the light blue skim. But the off-brand (hmmm... "off brand" is never a phrase you want to use with milk. Let's just say that it wasn't the store brand label...) was 50 cents cheaper and milk is milk and 50 cents is 50 cents, right? So I grabbed the light blue capped cheaper version and headed to the checkout line. I was out of the store and back in the car when I looked at the receipt and WHAT?!? One vitamin D milk, one 1% lowfat?! WHAT HAPPENED?

Foiled by cap color, yet again!

(of course, since it was 98 degrees outside, no way was I dragging that sweaty gallon back into the store, so hopefully the girls will see the blue cap and think "skim milk" and like their mom, not notice...)

So today, after years of making "we should..." statements, today I am publicly suggesting the UMP initiative- the Uniform Milk Packaging act. One color per label- standard across the industry. No more mistaken milk purchases in the parking lot!

And I'm not the first with this idea.  A quick Google search under "milk labeling colors" shows that Startled went public with a similar idea a year ago.
Red for Vitamin D whole
Purple for Reduced fat 2%
Green for Low fat 1%
Light blue for Skim milk non-fat ("because skim milk really is a pale, deathly blue. Also, it is gross." says Startled. My son would agree.)
It is easy and it just makes sense.

My conservative senses dare not demand government intervention or legislation, but really milk producers. Unite! You can make a difference!

(and wow! what's with the price of milk? It's the same price per gallon as gasoline!! And I think that my 15 year old son gets about the MPG, minutes per gallon, as our 12 passenger van... sigh.)