Liquid Strength
As kids, our mothers told us to drink our milk. But sometime during adulthood, glasses of milk disappeared from our tables. Passing on milk means skipping its nutrients too.
Make mom proud with wholesome milk from Hartzler Family Dairy, which produces milk from 200 cows raised within 15 miles of its Wooster plant and also sells products like butter. Since 1996, Hartzler Dairy has been overseeing production from field to bottle. Its sustainable practices, such as its cows not being fed pesticides, have drawn busloads of scientists and farmers from as far as Australia to study its innovative farms.
“We work with nature,” says co-owner Joe Hartzler. “Our philosophy is if you grow a healthy plant, it will produce a healthy cow. The healthy cow will produce healthy milk. Healthy milk will produce healthy people.”
Its process for its signature half-gallon milk focuses on keeping milk in its most natural state, so it uses low-temperature vat pasteurization (rather than pipe pasteurization like most) to retain healthy fats, proteins and enzymes while killing bacteria. To keep large fat particles intact for easier digestion, the milk isn’t homogenized, a process that breaks down milk for a smoother consistency. In place of this, a fatty cream layer rises to the top of the bottles, but that goes away by shaking.
“You’re getting more flavor from your fats, more value of being able to utilize the minerals and vitamins in your fats,” Hartzler says. He adds that because of those health benefits, some doctors prescribe Hartzler Dairy milk to patients who can’t drink regular milk. “Thousands of people are what they call lactose intolerant but can drink our products.”
To make its milk even yummier, Hartzler Dairy has released flavors in single-serve glass bottles — rich chocolate, rich vanilla, orange cream reminiscent of a creamsicle and a strawberry and a black raspberry, which both recall wild berries the Hartzlers ate as kids. All are homogenized and made by mixing cane sugar and flavorings into Hartzler whole milk.
They make excellent milkshakes and smoothies or are wonderful alone. Find imaginative flavored milk creations on Hartzler Coffee Cruise — a passport that can be stamped at 22 coffee shops through April 30. Try drinks like the black raspberry habanero at Canton’s Walkie Talkie Espresso & Coffee.
Even as adults, there are still benefits to listening to your mama and drinking your milk, especially Hartzler Dairy.
“It’s creamier. It tastes better. It has more vitamins and minerals in it,” Hartzler says.
Sold at stores including Acme Fresh Market, Buehler’s Fresh Foods, Heinen’s, Mustard Seed Market & Cafe and Hartzler ice cream shop at 5454 Cleveland Road, Wooster, hartzlerdairy.com