234 MARKET DAIRYING 
20 per cent; for ice cream, from 8 to 16 per cent. 
Consumers have hitherto been too indifferent regard- 
ing the composition of the milk they buy; they have 
failed properly to consider milk from the standpoint of 
a food. In most cities there is a wide variation in the 
composition of milk sold by different dealers, and often 
the highest priced milk will be found the cheapest when 
considered from a food standpoint. A quart of milk con- 
taining 5.5 per cent fat is worth fully 50 per cent more 
than one containing only three per cent. 
When compared with other foods, such as meat and 
cheese, milk at prevailing prices is a cheap food. Milk 
dealers should impress this fact upon their patrons. 
Those who sell a good quality of milk will find it profit- 
able to stamp the per cent of fat on the bottle cap. 
City milk authorities should encourage the quality 
basis of handling milk as much as possible, because it 
will promote justice and honesty. The subject of buy- 
ing and selling milk on the butter fat basis is discussed 
in chapter XXVII. 
Sterile Milk Vessels. Much disease is disseminated 
through unsterile milk bottles. Every milk dealer’s bot- 
tles at one time or another reach homes where there are 
persons affected with some contagious disease, and bot- 
tles will in many cases become infected with the disease 
producing organisms. A number of epidemics have 
been directly traced to unsterile milk bottles. In too 
many instances milk bottles are not sufficiently sterilized, 
and some milk dealers make no attempt whatever to 
have the bottles sterile; the main consideration with 
them is to have the bottles clean. The realization of 
the importance of having milk bottles sterile has started 
a movement to pasteurizing the milk in the bottles. 
