Dairy product

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dairy products are generally defined as foodstuffs produced from milk.They are usually high energy yielding food products. A production plant for such processing is called a dairy. Raw milk for processing generally comes from cows, but occasionally from other mammals such as goats, sheep, water buffalo, yaks, or horses. Dairy Products are commonly found in European, Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine whereas they are almost unknown in East Asian cuisine.

1 Types of dairy products
2 Lactose tolerance and intolerance
3 Criticism
4 Eggs as dairy?
5 External links

[edit] Types of dairy products

There are more than 30 main products made from milk with a number of sub-products in each category. Dairy products include:

Milk, after optional homogenization, pasteurization, in several grades after standardization of the fat level
- Cream, the fat skimmed off the top of milk or separated by machine-centrifuges
  - Sour cream, cream that has been fermented by the bacteria Streptococcus lactis and Leuconostoc citrovorum
  - Crème fraîche, slightly fermented cream
- Cultured buttermilk, fermented concentrated (water removed) milk using the same bacteria as sour cream
- Milk powder (or powdered milk), produced by removing the water from milk
  - Whole milk & buttermilk
  - Skim milk
  - Cream
  - High milk-fat & nutritional powders (for infant formulas)
  - Cultured and confectionery powders
- Condensed milk, milk which has been concentrated by evaporation, often with sugar added for longer life in an opened can
- Evaporated milk, (less concentrated than condensed) milk without added sugar
- Khoa
- Infant formula, dried milk powder with specific additives for feeding human infants

Butter, mostly milk fat, produced by churning cream
- Buttermilk, the liquid left over after producing butter from cream, often dried as livestock food
- Ghee, clarified butter, by gentle heating of butter and removal of the solid matter
- Anhydrous milkfat

Cheese, produced by coagulating milk, separating from whey and letting it ripen, generally with bacteria and sometimes also with certain molds
- Curds, the soft curdled part of milk (or skim milk) used to make cheese (or casein)
- Whey, the liquid drained from curds and used for further processing or as a livestock food
- Cottage cheese
- Cream cheese, produced by the addition of cream to milk and then curdled to form a rich curd or cheese made from skim milk with cream added to the curd
- Fromage frais

Casein
- Caseinates
- Milk protein concentrates and isonates
- Whey protein concentrates and isonates
- Hydrolysates
- Mineral concentrates

Yogurt, milk fermented by Streptococcus salivarius ssp. thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus sometimes with additional bacteria, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus
- Ayran
- Lassi

Gelato, slowly frozen milk and water

Ice cream, slowly frozen cream and emulsifying additives
- Ice milk
- Frozen custard
- Frozen yogurt, yogurt with emulsifiers that is frozen

Other

[edit] Lactose tolerance and intolerance

Main article: Lactose intolerance

The normal mammalian condition is for the young of a species to lose the ability to digest milk sugar (lactose) effectively after the end of the weaning period. Even among humans lactose-tolerant populations are in the minority. A relatively recent genetic change caused some populations, including many northern Europeans, to continue producing lactase into adulthood, thus enabling them to consume dairy products their entire lives. For this reason dairy consumption is very culture-specific.

[edit] Criticism

Vegans and some vegetarians avoid dairy products due to various ethical, physiological, environmental, political, and religious considerations, among others, though most people may not take up every issue.

[edit] Eggs as dairy?

Some define dairy as "food that is produced by animals" rather than as milk specifically. Under this definition, eggs are grouped with milk products. For example, the Open Directory Project at one point listed cooking eggs as a subcategory of cooking dairy products. Defining dairy as limited to milk products, however, is more common.