ABSTRACT

Milk is a normal secretion of the mammary glands of female mammals. The US Public Health Service defines milk as “the lacteal secretion, practically free of colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows, which contains not less than 8.25% milk-solids-not-fat and not less than 3.25% fat.” The term milk is understood as referring to cow’s milk unless other species are mentioned specifically. For most of the world, particularly the West, milk from cattle accounts for nearly all the milk processed for human consumption [1]. However, other milking animals are very important to some populations because their milk provides an excellent and cheap source of highly valuable animal protein and other constituents. For example, sheep followed by goat make a major contribution to the milk production of the Mediterranean countries and also in large areas of Africa and Asia. Worldwide, the dairy industry produces milk as a fluid product and transformed into a variety of manufactured dairy products using a range of advanced processing technologies. The family of dairy products manufactured from milk is shown in Figure 11.1 [2]. Family of dairy products manufactured from milk. (From Goff and Sahagian [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CH011_CIT00002">2</xref>].) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-u.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429091483/664b9b5a-638a-4ec7-b69b-5d34889988bd/content/fig11_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>