Should I drink it? Pet and/or Carnation evaporated milk version.

November 20, 2018 9:55 AM

Evaporated milk adds so much to coffee, esp coffee with chicory. I had a hot cup ready to go 12 hours ago, set it down "over there" and over there it sat. I threw it down the drain a few minutes ago; I wanted to drink it but didn't, and won't, not without The Official MetaFilter Seal Of Should I Drink It Or Not approval.

I'd rather see a church burn than throw out a big honkin' cup of Luzianne Premium Blend Coffee & Chicory with a nice add-in of evaporated milk. But I know better than to go against the combined wisdom here. So: What is the time limit of evaporated milk not being refrigerated?

Related: Evaporated milk in coffee tastes good, so I am assuming it's probably terrible for me, and will lead to strokes, heart attacks, polio, etc. Any of you have the low-down on that?

Related 2: Oh, wherefore art thou, Milnot? Forty and fifty years ago, Milnot seemed to be in every store, in every aisle, it leapt off the shelf into your cart almost, it was "the go-to" evaporated milk. The only place I can find it now is on Amazon and it's set up to where you have to buy a case of it, which is Not Going To Happen. But what the heck happened to Milnot?

posted by dancestoblue to Food & Drink (17 answers total)

If we say yes, are you going to retrieve it from the drain?

I'm a bit more reckless than much of Mefi on the eating front. When milk is spoiled, it's usually quite evident from the smell and taste. I'd've given it a sip, if I had such strong feelings about it.

(Evaporated milk is literally just boiled-down milk without sugar. It's as good or bad for you as milk itself is.)
posted by praemunire at 10:02 AM on November 20, 2018

I would have drank it without hesitation but then I am a foul bachelorette frog.
posted by The otter lady at 10:46 AM on November 20, 2018

as to your related-

milnot is actually 'filled evaporated milk' which means its milkfat was replaced with oil. people typically don't drink it as milk but use it for cooking.

the wikipedia page for filled milk mentions milnot by name, specifically in reference to lawsuits by the dairy industry 95 years ago during a "filled milk ban". i don't think those had too much to do with why you don't see it widely anymore- unless it's because all the people that grew up on milnot before the ban have been dying the last 40-50 years. nonetheless it's an interesting part of the story and i learned something new.
posted by noloveforned at 10:50 AM on November 20, 2018

If it smells okay, try it. If it tastes okay, keep going.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:39 AM on November 20, 2018

I am a a complete heretic when it comes to drinking old coffee, so setting that aside, I routinely drink coffee with dairy products as often as the next day after pouring so long as there's no sign of curdling (and even that is unlikely to be harmful, just nasty). In my experience the time it takes for coffee milk to go bad depends a lot on the ambient temperature.
posted by drlith at 11:41 AM on November 20, 2018

I would have drank it without hesitation but then I am a foul bachelorette frog.

Seconded.
posted by jessamyn at 12:35 PM on November 20, 2018

I’ve put a rediscovered, half-drunk cup of tea with milk in the microwave the next day. I’ve also drunk it cold. Foul bachelorette frogs unite!
posted by Iteki at 1:01 PM on November 20, 2018

I want to join the foul bachelorette frog cabal. I use evap for coffee and cereal and any other "milk" necessity. It would never occur to me not to drink it after 6 or 12 or 18 hours of sitting out. If it won't go bad in the can after months, I feel it won't go back in my cup or bowl. I buy the cheapest store brand, too, and have found Aldi has the cheapest in town. And, yes, it goes really well with chicory coffee. Enjoy.
posted by MovableBookLady at 1:15 PM on November 20, 2018

It should be fine (at least safety-wise. Taste, though...meh)
Evaporated milk is made using a heat-sterilization and vacuum process, so it’s pretty safe.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:24 PM on November 20, 2018

Okay, it seems consensus is that it is/would have been okay to drink. I'm going to mark this as resolved.

As far as smelling bad dairy news, I am anosmic -- I cannot smell anything, I do not have a sense of smell. (Wikipedia: Anosmia) A friend decided to test me once, we were in his car, he'd had this horror show lymphoma, with really bad news chemo AND really bad news radiation, and then he comes down with Chrohn's, ended up he had these ultra-mega-death-ray-farts-from-hell, they literally had made other people vomit, we're in his car and I don't have a clue.

So smell is out.

As far as old coffee, I am a heathen. For many years I was this coffee snob, drinking almost only light roast coffee, which is really gentle on the taste buds but tons of caffeine. But I will literally drink Folgers anymore (hanging head in shame.) This coffee with chicory is really stepping out for me.

And thx to noloveforned's comment, I am no longer missing Milnot at all. You can bet they're putting the worst garbage on the planet into Milnot. The local store (HEB) has a really good generic, only a couple of pennies less than the name brands but I'll mostly buy it to support the local chain because why not.

Resolved.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:44 PM on November 20, 2018

I mean, it might taste fine, but sometimes you get halfway through and suddenly your mouth is full of spider.

I will only drink clear liquids that have been left unattended for that long, unless there was a lid on them.
posted by lollusc at 4:12 PM on November 20, 2018

Milnot was good for cats to drink, it didn't give them diarrhea like milk. I learned that from a vet expert on cats. So I got my cats some, and of course they didn't like it.
posted by chocolatetiara at 4:45 PM on November 20, 2018

Oh oh oh oh !!!! Just in case anyone wanders in here, I forgot to mention. Embossed on the cans of evaporated milk are the words SHAKE WELL or SHAKE THE SHIT OUT OF THIS STUFF or words to that effect. So. I shake it, and shake it, and then some more. Then I pop open the can, and pour it into a container that's maybe 25% larger volume than the can (in my case, just an old peanut butter jar. This way, I can SHAKE THE SHIT OUT OF THE STUFF so it's all mixed up, but the deal is that it's also foam all over the top, and when I pour that into the coffee it's like a latte, this nice foamy layer of glop on the top of my cup of coffee. Being as how I love lattes, this is A Good Thing. So I came back in to tell you about it. And now I've done so, my civic duties discharged here.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:07 PM on November 20, 2018

I came in to say I feel like evaporated milk would last a looong time, but since that's already resolved, consider this comment my application to join the FBFC. Can we have badges?
posted by penguin pie at 6:53 AM on November 21, 2018

I once opened a can of evaporated milk at my parents’ house that was about 5 years after its use-by date, and it had gone bad. So now you know, you can’t keep cans of evaporated milk forever.

(And then I asked my husband to go to the store and get some new evaporated milk, and he had my young daughter get it from the shelf, and they accidentally grabbed...Milnot. It was gross. We had to have a second trip to the store to manage to finish the cake.)
posted by leahwrenn at 7:25 AM on November 21, 2018

If it won't go bad in the can after months, I feel it won't go back in my cup or bowl.

Just so you know, that is not how cans work. Once you open the can, the material within is no longer protected from bacteria. And not to go all Howard Hughes, but your cup or bowl or anything else in your house including the air has plenty of bacteria to get into whatever you dump out of a can. After that, it's all about time and exponential growth.

As for the original questioner, if you enjoy the coffee enough to feel bad about wasting it, you will probably enjoy a fresh cup far more than a 12-hour-old oxidized nastybusiness one. But assuming you are willing to pay the esthetic cost, half-day-old coffee with half-day-old evaporated milk seems much less likely to smite your tract with a Spell of Open Sphincters than many other foods.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:04 AM on November 21, 2018

I leave half a latte in the car overnight and drink it the next day. I’m not down with chicory, but I see no harm in drinking 12 hour old coffee with milk.
posted by SLC Mom at 10:45 AM on November 22, 2018