got milk?

Bermuda is not agriculturally self sustainable. A common misconception is that since it's a tropical locale, exotic fruits are in abundance. After you get the once over of the island, you will notice that most of the land is taken up by housing. It is a very small island after all. Of course, there are areas owned by farmers but it's not nearly enough to feed the entire 60,000+ population. Banana trees, however, are in abundance & the bananas here are huge - definitely different from the imported Chiquita. We pass certain farm plots during our daily commute to work & anything from butternut squash to cherry tomatoes are grown at any given time. Most of Bermuda's produce is imported & transported via the sea. It can be very annoying when some produce arrives a bit wilted due to the summer heat, yet the exorbitant prices are not marked down at the grocery store. That also largely depends on which grocery store you go to. In any case, I prefer my produce to wilt after I've bought it, not before!

But what about the staples, like milk for example - If some produce has freshness issues, how does Bermuda handle milk? Well, this island does produce it's own courtesy of its very own cows. When we first got here on the island we noticed that milk was priced a tad unreasonable to what were used to - that little carton on the left there - that will run you a little over four bucks. Quite pricey because in Toronto, I could get a two litre bag of milk for the same chump change. But every thing is relative in Bermuda. We are used to the prices by now & it's not so much of a shocker anymore. There's four different types of milk one can buy, each variation is colour coded. The least messed with is the blue carton. The other variations have a certain amount of fat or powdered milk added to it. Powdered milk is also available because lets face it - there's not enough cows to produce for all of Bermuda. Needless to say, we have switched to the Blues just because we feel it's better for us. And if you're looking for a expiry date, it's a little hard to find. But it's there. Since milk is produced every week, it's just the day thats indented on the top of the carton. That's the expiry date not the number of the carton as some may think. For the new comers, this mark is lost & meaningless until someone kindly points it out & what it stands for.