"Look at your fish!"

The object I chose was an empty glass milk bottle that I got from the farmers market. My husband and I go every Saturday to get our favorite milk, amongst other things, from JD Farms. The glass bottle has their logo on it, its a little barn and silo with a cow and the words "JD country milk" Russellville, KY. It also says it's all natural grade A milk, low temp pasteurized at 150 degrees and non-homogenized. At the very bottom of the bottle is a bible scripture "This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." The bottle says its 64 oz but it looks bigger, that's probably because of the shape and the thick glass. It has grooves in one side of it to grab for easy pouring. The top has a plastic handle for transporting milk to the car and into the home if you have multiple jugs. On the back of the bottle it tells a little more about the farm, who they are and what they believe. It tells you that this is a family business (which my husband and I know, because its the sons who make the trip every saturday from kentucky to nashville,tn.), that the milk is natural and fresh. It tells you a little about the cows too! The cows roam on green pastures of chemical free grass and have been injected with no artificial hormones or antibiotics. They make a promise to the consumer to "treat our cows with respect. Happy cows produce healthy milk." The bottom of the bottle says "stanpac" which when I researched is an Ontario based company that sell packaging for dairy products, one being these half gallon glass bottles. The glass bottle is a great option for packaging milk for many reasons. Glass bottles can be sterilized and re-used. Helping reduce waste produced from plastic milk jugs. Another is it is more friendly to the enviroment, one site states that "Plastic is made from petroleum, and its manufacture is highly polluting. In fact, making one 16 oz bottle out of #1 plastic generates 100 times the toxic emissions as making the same bottle out of glass." Another benefit is the flavor, it locks in the same farm fresh flavor, without the free of chemicals seeping into your milk. The same website states that, "Some people have raised concerns about chemicals leaching from plastic. And nowhere is this more worrying than when the plastic is used to hold our food. Glass, on the other hand, is known to be safe." And lastly, the glass milk bottle is nostalgic. But more than nostalgia, I think this is pointing to something greater. The idea of doing things as they were done before technology, consuming food the way our grandparents did, is what I think this generation is heading towards. The milk is not only from a local farmer who you can know, in a glass milk bottle but the milk is pasteurized at a low temperature. High temperature pasteurization helps extend a milks shelf life but kills the good enzymes and bacteria that your body needs. But who wouldn't rather have fresh milk every week that tastes better and is better for you? When you buy locally you don't have to think about extending a shelf life because of the transport from a big factory many states away to your grocery. This is something else we can learn just by examining the bottle.

There is a new trend of farmers markets popping up all over the country and in Nashville, it is now possible to attend some sort of farmers market somewhere in the city Monday through Friday. Now,\ that's pretty sweet if you ask me.