STEC, a Loch Ness monster!
How do you find a needle in a haystack? Currently, effort and money are being invested by the Dutch government to take another step in food safety. Raw milk sale will be released on 1 January 2025, but that comes …
All posts filed under: Milk
Mummified kefir grains
Take home message A mummy about 3,500 years old from the Xiahoe cemetery in China. The red arrows point to the kefir grains lying around the neck like a chain (taken from Liu et al., 2024) Lactose conversion SCOBY we …
E.coli is suppressed in kefir
Take home message Fermentation rather than pasteurisation An important goal of pasteurisation of milk is to reduce the germ count, both total and that of specific bacteria, such as E.coli. Usually, pasteurisation is said to be ‘successful’ when the mesophilic …
Natural cheese making
Take home message 5-day training course During the last week of May 2024, he taught a 5-day course at a Bio-Suisse farm in the Jura. In a tight program, one or two types of cheese were made daily. In addition, …
Plastic, yes or no?
Take home message How much more time are we taking? It is a well-known phenomenon: our society ‘solves its problems’ by taking a switch to the future. Or in other words, we are shifting the problem ahead of us to …
Plastic particles in food
Take home message Persistent plastic microparticles Researchers at the VU-Amsterdam, connected through the “Plastic Soup Foundation” have looked at, where plastic is found in our food. In a pilot, samples were taken from meat, milk, roughage and concentrates. They looked …
The taste of milk differs
Take home message German milk tested In February 2023, Germany’s Ökotest on milk published pasteurised milk in two forms, traditionally pasteurised (TP) and pasteurised plus mikrofiltration (MF). The difference between the two manifests itself in the shelf life of the …
It may cost something
A new concept is emerging, a new awareness about the actual price and the invisible costs for the future and generations after us on earth. German TV featured a contribution on this topic in relation to our food consumption (Planet …
Dance with the beast
There was another wonderful, informative broadcast on Arte-TV (German/French). This time about the phenomenon of mega-forest fires. They are devastating and ultimately threaten the survival of humans and animals on earth. The reason is, there is a flywheel, the impact …
Yak in Asia
Take home message The habitat of the Yak In northern India, Butan and China (including Himalayas, Ladakh and Highlands of Tibet), nomads live up to high altitudes. They can only survive at this altitude (3000 to 5400 m) because of their Yak (Bos grunniens). Yak are larger ruminants, domesticated by humans like the cow (Auerochs). Yak selection started in India about 7,500 years ago, and there too, like in French Lascaux, one finds petroglyphs depicting …
