Bags o' Milk!

Can you take a photo of bagged milk for us non-believers? :D - duplicate_helix


I had no idea such a thing existed before this comment appeared back on a post I'd made about my May trip to Canada. Owing to the circumstances of that visit I wasn't able to take a picture then, but as I'm now living here and have more than enough time to devote to this, here is my illustrated guide to the Bag Of Milk!

Figure 1 - the Milk Bag
The Bag in its natural environment, surrounded by its protective crate shell within the dangerous confines of the grocery store. That shell is how we outsiders can determine that this is truly milk related, as it is still recognisable as a milk crate. That is, if the words printed on the bag didn't tip you off.

The bag itself is reminiscent of a bread bag, only wider. The plastic it's comprised of feels the same. If it didn't slosh alarmingly and shift its centre of gravity when picked up, it might be mistaken for a loaf of bread in a very dark room.

Figure 2 - the opened Milk Bag
In captivity, the bag of milk is opened at the top, a bread tie keeping the contents from being spilled out. However, closer examination of the specimen reveals an interesting fact:

Figure 3 - sachets within the Milk Bag

Figure 4 - an individual sachet
It is not just one bag of milk, but several! So, how do we deal with these individual sachets of cow secretions?

Figure 5 - the jug
At about this point, anyone not used to the vaguaries involved here would simply split open a sachet and pour the contents into this open jug, wondering how the heck the milk doesn't go off in the fridge. Surely it would absorb every smell and flavour in that closed space, making it completely unpotable?

No! The Bag o' Milk is more clever than that! In quite an ingenious twist, one simply places the actual bag in the jug, like so:

Figure 6 - the filled jug
Then simply snip off the two top corners off the sachet, and the milk is ready to be used! One simply pours it from the bag! The airflow provided by the snipped off corners allows the milk to be easily poured without slopping. It's really quite amazing in its simple, strange way.

So there you go, non-believers. Canada really has bags o'milk, and they are indeed different when compared to the bottles, Tetra-Bricks and cartons we Aussies are used to.