How to choose which milk is good for you?
Posted on: 17/Mar/2018 11:29:12 AM
Recently, there have been many reports about deteriorating quality of milk. Should it be the packeted ones we get at our nearby dairy shops, raw milk from the local dairy or the fancy tetra-packs, which promise us good health? Here is some information that may be useful to you.
Raw milk is the unpasteurized, whole milk which is not treated in any manner. In India, this milk is available in both organic and inorganic forms. Local dairies often supply these to our doorsteps.
Organic means where the fodder provided to the cattle is unadulterated (not treated with pesticides or chemicals). Moreover, in such dairies, cows and buffaloes are also not injected with hormones or medicines for more milk. Inorganic, on the other hand, is where adulterated fodder is fed to the cattle and even the condition in which they are kept is bad.
The distribution of raw milk from local dairies is higher in rural areas than in urban areas due to the durability and nutritive value of this milk. This, however, does not mean that raw milk lacks nutrition or is bad. It simply means that the condition under which the milk is produced, may not be clean or sanitised, which may lead to hazardous repercussions.
Packeted milk is the pasteurized, homogenised version of milk. Pasteurization means that milk is heated and then cooled immediately under a supervised temperature to get rid of bacteria and impurities. Packet milk comes in three forms, toned, double-toned and full-cream. Full cream milk is undiluted and is pasteurized and homogenised as well. Toned and double-toned are the diluted version of this milk. The nutritive concentration and calorie quantity of these three types differ. Packet milk is common both in rural and urban areas.
Using either UHT (ultra-high temperatures) or HTST (high-temperature short time), the milk is heated on a prescribed high temperature for only a few seconds and then cooled down and immediately aseptically (free from disease-causing microorganisms) packed in tetra packs. Tetra-packs ideally contain six layers of protection for the milk. The durability of tetra-pack milk is more than the other two counterparts: Raw milk and packeted milk.
While there have been numerous studies on the comparison of these three types of milk available in the market, most studies point towards tetra-packs as the safest option. The quality of raw milk in India is under question and coming to packeted milk, a study conducted by Harvard University’s school of public health in 2015 confirmed the role of BPA (chemical bisphenol A) in the plastic we buy. This BPA found in plastic is known to disrupt hormones and hence may lead to many diseases. This is because when this plastic comes in contact with sunlight, this BPA can leak into our milk and hence get contaminated.
