The STEC bacterium has been tested in milk sold through Swiss milk taps. Milk samples from more than 120 dairy farms were tested for STEC, among other things. STEC refers to the Shiga toxin-producing strains of E. coli. There are many …
Over the past month in the Netherlands, there have been tastings of dairy products: cheeses of all shapes and sizes, farm-fresh produce in a variety of flavours. There are both ‘farmhouse cheeses’ and ‘cheeses from the farm’. The former is …
Take home message Traditional kefir based on grains (SCOBY) has a different composition depending on whether it is made from cow’s milk or goat’s milk. Results are based on highly pasteurised whole milk. A Turkish-trained taste panel prefers kefir made …
There is milk fat and then there is milk fat. Much of the fat we consume through dairy products is determined by what the cows eat; whether it is summer or winter, whether the cows graze or not, and whether the cows are pushed to the highest possible milk yield by feeding them extra fat in the form of palm oil. The image below illustrates the shifts in milk fat composition, and was created based …
Take home message Making good cheese is a skill Gouda cheese is made from (raw) milk, rennet and starter culture. The starter culture converts milk sugar into lactic acid (= fermentation), while the rennet causes certain proteins (casein proteins) to …
Take home message In the past, milk was obtained from the farmer in the village, warm, every day if necessary. For people living in cities, this became a problem at the end of the 19th century. The distance to the city …
…however, rich in different genetic strains. Research into a tradtional starter culture for Gouda cheese, which was maintained through daily back-slopping, showed that only two bacterial species are present, namely Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides (Erkus et al., 2013). This …
Take home message What a cow wants? A cow is a mammal and a ruminant. This makes her special, along with other ruminants. Like us, the cow has a digestive system with a stomach and intestines, however she is also …
Take home message Realising spreadable butter kept at low ambient temperature Butter competes with margarine and ‘spreads’ when it comes to spreadability. Butter is a natural product with different fatty acid composition in summer or winter. Margarine is made up …
Take home message No stainless steel Today, everything around milk and milk processing is stainless steel (INOX). The cheese vat in which the milk is processed is stainless steel, the milk pipelines through which the milk is pumped and even …
