Milk components
Milk fat mainly consist of saturated
fatty acids such as myristic, palmitic and stearic.
Cheese, yoghurt and butter also mainly consist of saturated
fats. Some unsaturated fatty acids (mainly oleic acid)
are also present. As the milk fat is lighter than the
plasma phase of milk, creaming of raw milk quickly occurs
in raw milk. Homogenization prevents
milk from creaming.
Milk contains about 3.2 % of proteins.
About 80 % of the proteins of milk are caseins and about
20 % are whey proteins. These proteins are highly nutritious
and therefore often used for protein preparations.
Lactose (disaccharide composed of
D-glucose and D-galactose) is the major milk carbohydrate
and is therefore know as milk sugar. In small amounts,
other carbohydrates as glucose, galactose and oligosaccharides
are also present. The occurrence of lactose in nature
is restricted to milk.
All essential minerals (e.g. zinc,
cobalt, manganese, calcium, iodine etc.) being important
for the human diet are present in milk. Calcium and
phosphorus as well as potassium, sodium, magnesium and
chloride are the most abundant minerals in cow’s
milk. |
Food
Analysis 
