simple pasteurised whole milk, in the nearest supermarket, about 5km away (i have no car), rarely i see more than 10 bottles in the fridge, and the rest is UHT, and out of the UHT and the fresh, both, whole milk makes up about 10-15% of what is stacked up on the shelf. most is 'medium fat' which means between 1 and 2%, which is a really low calorie yield after the yoghurt fermentation is done. 30g fat in 3L. this is not enough calories for an adult male.

the small markets close by none of them sell plain pasteurised milk, and only one of them sells whole UHT milk routinely, and their price is quite a bit higher than i pay if i walk 5km east to machico. 

 i checked the ingredients, it was maltodextrin. they even put it on the "salt and pepper" flavour, that's how i know it's what set my teeth into pain mode for a week. the citric acid probably tore through all the tartar that was shielding my nerves also, which wouldn't have helped, but that stuff doesn't rebuild fast.

the fact maltodextrin does it is very interesting. MSG, ok, understandable, it's a signaling chemical in the nervous system already, triggers activity, in the brain, glutamate excess is the cause of epilepsy, so pain from MSG, yes, i do get that at times. but maltodextrin was something else. it wasn't a direct effect, as far as i can tell, but rather indirect, causing bacteria to poison the nerves, or otherwise damage them in the same sort of way as a burn takes a week to fully stop hurting.

the milk leaves a biofilm coating on my teeth, the casein hardens up and is relatively impervious without strong acid or alkali so normal mouth conditions it stays shielded.

i've got way too much shit on to risk letting my teeth go spastic again. i need the money so i can get a dentist to yank my wisdom teeth, all of them pls, and let my whole mouth straighten up, but that's gonna be a painful process and definitely not one i can even start doing before i have a lot of spare cash.

so i'm grateful that milk provides a general all round solution but it's just a real pain in the arse to have to hunt the whole milk. the moment i have a couple hundred euros ahead of my expenses i'm just gonna order a whole pallet of the damn things. well, 90L, that's roughly a month supply and the stuff expires quite a bit longer than that. 6 months i see... so probably that means the stock i buy at the shop already sat 4 months waiting to be sold.

if i were to get it in bulk, i could order 3 months supply direct from the factory and never have this problem of scarcity or having to walk 10km round trip to get some. not that the exercise isn't good for me, but i really haven't taken a rest more than a few days from doing a 10-20km walk for over 2 months now. madeira standard 20km is like 100km on flat land. 

 regarding why hard to find milk: check my profile. I'm in Madeira. population 300,000. centre of the atlantic ocean. nearest milk production area is the Azores islands.

i have no car and walking here is not like walking on the mainland. most paths anywhere involve ascending and descending at least 50m if not 200m over a 5km distance. 

 Go to a different store!  

 i've been to every store on the island practically. there's only 300k people here, it's not a big place.

nobody seems to keep in mind that i'm living in Madeira. this is an outpost in the middle of the atlantic ocean, directly west of mauritania. the majority of things from bovines here come from Azores, the remainder from the mainland. local production is pretty small scale, maybe a few thousand head of cattle on the whole island.