Milk meddling

SIR – Geoffrey Richards (Letters, March 11) asks why there is no cream on the top of milk any more.

The reason is simple. As well as being pasteurised, milk is now almost always homogenised, which effectively destroys its structure.

Gone are the joys of early summer milk, when the cows were feeding on the lushest of grass: at this time of year the milk from our Guernsey herd was two-thirds cream, and utterly delicious. How the health and safety police would judge this is another matter. Adrian Waller

Woodsetts, South Yorkshire

SIR – I have silver-top, full-cream milk delivered in glass bottles by a local milkman.

The cream on top is thick and delicious, wonderful on cereal for breakfast or in freshly made coffee. Dr Sheila Hopkinson

Chesterfield, Derbyshire

SIR – We buy organic milk (Graham’s, a Scottish producer) from our local Sainsbury’s. It comes in plastic bottles and always has a magnificent layer of cream at the top.

It seems the container makes no difference. Anne Gould

Lisburn, Co Antrim

SIR – The demand for semi-skimmed and skimmed milk has created a problem for the dairy industry: what to do with the surplus cream?

Some is converted into milk powder and butter, but the bulk is made into “processed cheddar cheese”, creating a glut of this product in the cheese market. Why, then, is this so-called cheddar so expensive? Duncan Rayner

Sunningdale, Berkshire