KLIM

Milk in Taipei is expensive! Half a gallon of the fresh stuff will set you back NT$120, or about US$4!!! There aren't as many choices either - full-fat or low-fat only, none of the fancy schmancy 2%, 1%, or skim that I've come to take for granted.


Powdered milk is much more affordable at about half the price of the fresh, so roughly about what a gallon of fresh milk would cost at home. The powder comes in cans, and my goodness the breadth of choices can be dizzying! One whole aisle in the supermarket is devoted to milk powder, and you can buy it according to the nutritional needs of your age group. So how do you know which one to buy, especially if you're like me and have a very limited Chinese vocabulary? After meticulous research, I've developed...


JEAN'S POWDERED MILK SELECTION METHODOLOGY:

1. Look for a name you can trust or have tried before.
I wouldn't dare buy any that was produced in China or Southeast Asia. KLIM was a brand I've come across quite often in the homes of my relatives, and it tastes pretty good (I sometimes think it tastes better than fresh milk). KLIM, as it turns out, is made by Nestle, a Swiss multinational conglomerate hell bent on dominating the world one chocolate crunch bar at a time, so I figured they know what milk should taste like.


2. Look at the picture on the can.
Some of them have pictures of babies, which I gather is formula for babies. I wouldn't go for the ones showing the old couple with cheeks radiant from drinking milk, or quite possibly Metamucil. Maybe the young gringos frolicking, or the young Asian woman doing yoga. As for the cans without pictures, I'm afraid they were some of the first to be eliminated from my careful selection process.


3. Read all the English on the can.
Some of them are fortified with vitamins, "Calci-N," or have the word "super." I also like the play on words with "KLIM" - get it? It is "milk" spelled backwards!!


4. Go for a pretty color.
I have to look at this can day in and day out while I slowly deplete its contents, so it might as well be a pretty can. Let me tell you, it was a toss up between the purple yoga lady and the baby blue gringos.

In the end I chose the gringos, mainly because the word "Super" along the bottom of the can (Criteria #3) tipped the scales.