If it’s NOT a fat-free milk, pour a little into very hot water like tea/coffee and see if it curdles after 30 seconds.
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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Milk that has gone bad will curdle in hot water.
I'm in the same boat; I can't smell spoiled milk. Partially that, partially I don't really like dairy milk that much, I drink plant-based milks now. When I open a new container I mark the date on it with a sharpie. Then I throw out any remainder after 14 days (or whatever the bottle says plus some).
i have fully functioning taste and smell, and I drank spoiled milk many many times by mistake. Just grabbing the pack and start drinking, only tp realise after a couple of gulps it is spoiled.
it never caused me any issues
FWIW I had a similar experience, and just switched to oatmilk. I only use it for breakfast cereal, so I don't notice a difference.
(I've heard almond milk is good too, but I believe almond growers take up a disproportionate amount of water.)
Can you microwave a small amount or maybe heat on the stove in a sauce pot? Sour milk will curdle. Then just use it for pancakes instead of buttermilk
I’m anosmic too and I had the same experience in college. I never had to deal with “fresh” milk ever being not so fresh though. Although after reading your post, I think I’ll get a pitcher for milk so i can pour out the bottle when I get it to double check for chunks. You could try that too, but I can’t say how well it works.
I don’t think I can taste if milk is sour, but I’ve developed a tolerance to food that’s gone a bit bad anyway.
Technically my problem isn't that I can't smell at all, it's that I have pretty much every seasonal allergy so when I was growing up I never had the opportunity to learn how to use my nose. As a kid my parents tried to address this with decongestant, but I think I built up a tolerance because they stopped working for me. Every once in a blue moon, there will be two weeks where I can actually smell things, but I will consistently misidentify what I am smelling since I never learned how to smell. This leads to me embarrassing myself by saying demented things like claiming flowers smell like burnt popcorn or that my fiancée's cooking smells like burnt plastic. I suspect that not being exposed to smells at a formative age caused my brain to just not bother with the nose-interperetation part of the brain. Maybe when I die they could dissect my brain and figure that out.
I've thought about getting back on the decongestants again, but I don't want to overdo it and damage my liver. I like my liver. I want to treat it well. My fiancée's dad also told me about some shots he got to get rid of his grass allergy, so I might look into that
Ah, yeah I got my sense of smell knocked outta me when I was a kid. I’ve read about some kind of treatment to help people train their sense of smell. It came up a lot in some anosmic groups I was during the pandemic. I never looked too much into it because there’s no point, but it might be worth a trip to an ENT in your case.
If it's liquid it's good to drink and if it's chunky you probably shouldn't though I don't find that milk products spoil that easily. I've seen flakes floating in my coffee and I've still drank it and nothing has happened.
Taste
I think I need to modify the title to "How to detect spoiled milk if you cant smell and your sense of taste is only technically there"
If that is the case you don't need to worry about whether the milk has spoiled. You could drink it regardless until it started getting chunks.
Edit: to clarify, the lactobacilli that spoil the milk are harmless. If the off taste doesn't bother you there's nothing to worry about until the chunks become noticable at which point it is obvious.
That actually sets my mind very much at ease. I was so worried about getting sick from it.
Keep in mind if you are drinking raw milk, or drink directly from the container, spoilage could be from something other than lactobacilli.
No this was a brand-new sealed container of lactose-free 2% milk
Your stomach curdles the milk as it digests anyway. If you cannot see the milk is bad and the taste does not bother you, you can drink it.
I can't smell bad milk either. Also can't taste it.
I learned just how bad it was when I polished off a bowl of cereal, made a bowl up for my Person with the same milk I'd just consumed, and they spit it out thinking I was playing an awful "prank" on them. I had to convince and demonstrate that no, I can't detect spoiled milk until it's visibly bad.
Drink a few glasses and wait. Your digestive system has the answers you need! Lol sry idk.
Drink it, if you don't end up in the ER, then it's safe. 😉