MILK VALUES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 106, 7 May 1942, Page 4

MILK VALUES

PASTEURISATION ADVISED

FOR SAFE CITY SUPPLY

The importance to the housewife of knowing the comparative nutritive values of fresh, dried and condensed milks, was the subject of an address given by Mrs. Dorothy Johnson to the monthly luncheon' of the New Zealand Women's Food Value League on Wednesday.

"Unless a family has its own tested cow and can supervise the handling of the milk from the time it leaves the cow to the time it is consumed, it is not considered wise to take milk in its raw state," said Mrs. Johnson.

Pasteurisation, she continued, was advisable in a city supply for safety. In a time of emergency processed milks—dried and condensed—were extremely valuable, and actually were not nearly so inferior in nutritional value as was once believed.

Reviewing the various processes, Mrs. Johnson pointed out that dried full-cream milk by the spray-drying process lost only 20 per cent of its vitamin C, one-tenth of vitamin 81, and almost none of its vitamins A and D. Actually its nutritional value was only 5 per cent less than that of fresh milk. By the hot-roller drying method the vitamin loss was a little greater.

Dried skim milk lacked vitamins A and D. but the wise housewife would make these up from New Zealand butter. Skim milk powder kept better than full-cream milk powder once opened. Condensed milk list 40 per cent of vitamin Bl and fiO per cent of vitamin C, but still remained a valuable food.

Unsweetened condensed milk, it was found, kept well. In time of emergency fresh pasteurised milk was advisable for children, expectant mothers and nursing mothers, while the rest of the population should make use of the tinned milks.