ABSTRACT
Since earliest historical times, the milk of domesticated herbivores has formed an important part of the diet of many peoples. This chapter deals with cow’s milk, partly because of its wider distribution and economic importance, and partly because insufficient work has been carried out on the milks of other species to present figures with confidence. It also deals with nutrient losses resulting from processing. Breast-fed infants are generally considered less susceptible to infectious disease and to sudden infant death syndrome than their bottle-fed counterparts. Thus, not only does human milk have a superior balance of nutrients, but its content of immune antibodies and nonspecific antimicrobial factors confers additional advantages on the infant. Cream is milk in which the fat content has been increased by skimming or centrifugation. It is essentially a mixture of milk fat and skim milk in proportions that vary with the conditions of separation, and its nutrient content varies correspondingly.
