We begin with a dairy cow. One cow eats 50 pounds of food and drinks 15 gallons of water each day! After the food is completely digested, some of it is turned into milk in the cow’s udder. (Point out the udder in a photograph.)

Next the cow must be milked. In the past, cows were milked by hand. Today most cows are milked by vacuum-pump milking machines.

After the cow is milked, tank trucks pick the raw milk and bring it to a dairy plant. The trucks keep the milk cool and fresh during the trip.

At the plant, the milk is pasteurized (heated to a very high temperature) in order to kill any harmful bacteria that could make us sick. Then the fat is mixed evenly throughout, making the milk easier for us to digest, in a process called homogenization.

The processed milk is cooled and packaged in cartons or plastic containers.

Finally, the milk is delivered to a store near you!

The cow eats lots of food so she can make milk.

The cow is milked.

The milk is heated to kill germs.

The milk is cooled. It is put into cartons.

A truck takes the raw milk to the dairy.

People buy the milk at a store.