It's printed in black and white right on the carton. Dec. 31, 2007. Still more than two weeks away.

I'm funny about my food, so I pay very close attention to expiration dates. Very. Close. Attention.

I think it stems from the time my mom fed me a glass of sour milk. I was healing from broken bones at the time, so milk was practically prescribed.

I took a big ol' swig. You can "ewwww" now. It was nasty.

Anyway, this super long-lasting milk of mine is organic. Doesn't seem a little weird that organic milk lasts longer -- much longer -- than milk with all those preservatives?

I have to admit, I was leery of the date, even when I bought it. But a friend had recommended organic milk so I figured I'd give it a shot. I bought it, put it away, and promptly forgot about it.

Then I had a milk craving last night. It happens every now and then. Must have milk. I suppose as far as cravings go, there are worse things.

I opened the carton and took a cautious sniff. I'm not sure why because my sense of smell is somewhat less than reliable. Aftereffects of radiation. It's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when one of the guest chefs is cooking fish in the studio for one of the shows. Then I am the envy of everybody in the newsroom. No fish smell here!

But I digress. Shocking, I know.

I didn't smell anything untoward, although I didn't really expect to. I took a tentative tiny sip. Mmmmm. Then a bigger one. Then a gulp.

It was really good. I know, I know. It's milk. How good can it be? Trust me, it was really good. Way better than "regular" milk.

My sense of smell is shot, but my taste buds work fine. Not quite sure how that happened, but I'm not going to argue.

So, now I'm an organic milk convert. First I went from 2 percent to skim. (Two percent seems sooooo thick to me now.) Now I've made the leap from skim to organic skim.

I admit that the organic stuff costs more, but I think it's worth it. Not just because it tastes good and doesn't have added stuff like antibiotics or hormones, but because it lasts so long. Less waste.

With regular milk, you have, what, 10 days or so to drink it? Especially if you go by the dates on the container, which I so do. But 10 days can get away from you quickly.

This carton of organic milk has been in my fridge a month and should, according to the date, last another couple of weeks!

If I can't drink 1/2 gallon of milk in that amount of time...