It doesn’t take a mathematician to parse the equation that is this post’s title but it does take a milk expert, so I contacted the self-described milk experts at Humana, shooting over an email with the title’s query. However, since the company only specializes in baby milk formula, I thought that in the meantime I would cover my bases by looking for other more-well rounded milk experts.

From ORC International Expert Advisory Services, I find an anonymous milk expert who has worked for 25 years closely with milk and spent 6 years processing goat milk. This milk expert has spent more time with milk that I have spent alive — quite impressive. And from ForensisGroup: The Expert of Experts (how presumptuous), I find a whole page on milk experts, which list the many reasons for which I could need a milk expert, ranging from court litigation about dairy to consultation in medicine. After contacting both groups, however, I am presented with outrageous hourly rates for consultation with a milk expert — quite the lucrative business to be in indeed.

After receiving an email back from Humana, I realized that I had made a grave mistake. Since their website was in English, I assumed that Humana’s milk experts spoke English, but apparently Humana is a German company and I am presented with an email in that same language. I cannot understand it. Without Humana, ORC International, the ForensisGroup, or any other milk experts, we must become the milk experts ourselves and solve this equation.

Solving this equation, we must define its parameters. I’ll call old milk one that’s dated to expire in a day and new milk is one dated for three weeks. If I have half a gallon of old milk and half a gallon of new milk, and mix them together, will I have a full gallon of milk that’s set to expire in about a week or two?

We must learn more about milk expiry dates because it’s common knowledge that most expiration dates are scams by Big Ag. If I had hired a milk consultant, then this would be simple but now I must forge my own path and learn about milk expiry dates alone. I regret not hiring a milk expert.

Much research into the topic reveals that a dairy product’s expiration date is based on the number of microbes in a product. So, by diluting milk with relatively high microbe counts (the older milk) with the newer milk with a lower microbe concentration, we would have milk with a microbe concentration in between the two, which would presumably delay the expiration date of the older milk.

So, yes: old milk + new milk = normal milk.

I am now the milk expert.