The Maillard Reaction, or sometimes it is more commonly known as the Maillard Browning Reaction, is a chemical reaction between an amino acid (or a protein) and a reducing sugar. The two chemicals form a new compound that is significantly altered from a simple amino acid and a simple sugar. The new compound may exhibit…
Yes. Different MPC manufacturers follow their own, unique processing methods. Just as milk powders can vary in heat exposure and heat damage from one manufacturer to another, MPCs can vary from one manufacturer to another. Milk powders are graded according to their heat exposure/damage by assaying the powders for undenatured whey protein nitrogen. The powders…
The U.S. Government requires that all milk used for further processing be pasteurized (unless one has a raw milk license). Therefore, prior to processing the skim milk into MPI/MPS, we pasteurize the milk using high-temperature short-time (HTST) conditions (72°C for 22 seconds). Everyone around the world does this. The skim milk is immediately cooled back…
Yes, depending on the amount of heat exposure, heat can cause properties of an MPC to change. That does not mean that heat will always cause changes in MPC properties. At standard food processing temperatures and hold times (example: 162°F for pasteurizing), MPC will undergo negligible to slightly perceptible changes. At higher temperatures above 180°F…
Yes, feed composition is a large determinant factor of cow’s milk quality/ consistency. Have you heard the old saying … “You are what you eat”? Well, this saying holds especially true for cows. The quality of milk produced by a cow is determined by what the cow eats. A cow produces milk from the components…
It is possible to maintain a consistent balance in a dairy herd of the numbers of cows at all stages of the lactation cycle by practicing what is known as “herd rotation” – at any time during the 12 month calendar year, the same number of cows are at all stages of lactation, resulting in…
To understand seasonal variation of cow’s milk, one first needs to understand that all cow’s milk is produced by a cow as part of the mammalian lactation cycle for feeing of infant mammals. Once a cow begins the pregnancy cycle, the lactation cycle begins. When a calf is birthed (as with all mammal births) the…
Even at refrigerated temperatures, as milk sits around, reactions occur. Calcium and phosphorous will react with each other to form insoluble calcium phosphate salts and they will also react with the casein and whey proteins to decrease protein solubility. Fat in the milk will hydrolyze and oxidize, modifying the flavor characteristics of all of the…
To make a claim about lactose in a food product, one is making a nutrient content claim. A nutrient content claim on a food label characterizes how much of that particular nutrient is present in the food. It does not link the nutrient with a specific disease or health condition. Nutrient content claims can only…
If one is talking about nutritional quality, it is difficult to accurately assess the nutritional quality of a single protein when it is mixed with other nutrients in a consumer product. For that reason, protein nutritional quality is usually assessed on a single protein without any additional nutrients present. Such assays include Relative Protein Efficiency…