Source of this article: Consumer Report Author: Zhang Zhao
"Dragon meat in heaven, donkey meat on earth", which reflects people's high praise for donkey meat. However, in recent years, donkey milk has also become an "aristocrat" in milk with the help of many merchants.
(A donkey milk powder sold on an e-commerce platform)
On an e-commerce platform, a 480g ordinary donkey milk powder is priced at up to 748 yuan, while the price of similar specifications of ordinary milk powder is generally only 50 yuan or even lower, even if it is imported milk powder, its price will basically not exceed 100 yuan.
(A fresh donkey milk sold on an e-commerce platform)
At the same time, the price of fresh donkey milk is also more expensive than "skyline". On the same e-commerce platform, the price of 3 bottles of 335mL of fresh donkey milk is 218.5 yuan, an average of 72.8 yuan / bottle; even if 30 bottles are purchased at one time, the average price also needs nearly 48 yuan / bottle. In contrast, the price of fresh milk of similar specifications generally ranges from 7 to 18 yuan per bottle.
Such a high price is not lacking in consumer demand, and these consumers psychologically have a "sense of identification" with donkey milk or believe that the merchants say that donkey milk is better for the body than other milk.
However, we can't help but ask: is there really something special about the nutritional value of donkey milk? Will donkey milk be another "IQ tax"? Why is donkey milk sold so expensive?
"Donkey milk has a nutrient content of nearly 99% of human milk" can mislead infants and young children
"For a product to be on fire, it must have impressive highlights."
In online channels, many merchants compare donkey milk with human milk in advertising campaigns to highlight the high nutritional value of donkey milk and attract consumers.
For example, the brand of donkey milk, which specializes in donkey milk, claims on its official website that donkey milk (powder) is "the closest milk treasure to human milk" and "its nutritional composition ratio is close to 99% of human milk".
(Screenshot of the official website page of Grandma Donkey Milk)
Is the above statement reliable?
Lu Donglin, honorary chairman of the Xinjiang Dairy Association and senior pastor, publicly stated that the protein and lactose content of donkey milk and the ratio of whey protein to casein are indeed close to human milk, but the fat content is much lower than that of human milk, and there are also great differences in mineral elements, trace elements and human milk.
According to estimates, the absolute difference rate between 6 nutrients such as fat, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, vitamin B2 and human milk of donkey milk exceeds 50%, and the nutritional content of donkey milk is difficult to say that it is close to 99% of human milk.
In addition, there are many marketing articles on the Internet based on the statement that "donkey milk and breast milk are 99%similar", claiming that donkey milk is more suitable for infants and young children to drink, which has also led many parents to choose to feed infants and young children directly with donkey milk.
(Comments on a fresh donkey milk on an e-commerce platform)
In fact, there are certain health risks in feeding infants and young children directly with donkey milk, and the replacement of human milk with donkey milk is not in line with scientific feeding recommendations.
Experts have written that the fat in donkey milk is much lower than that in breast milk, and fat is crucial for the development of babies, and if donkey milk is really given to babies, it is easy to cause malnutrition.
The Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016) emphasize that breast milk is the best food for infants and young children, and if exclusive breastfeeding cannot be used, it is recommended that formula feeding at the appropriate stage is preferred, and it is not appropriate to feed with ordinary liquid milk, adult milk powder, etc.
This is because infant formula has undergone a certain formula design and processing, ensuring that the amount and proportion of some nutrients are close to breast milk.
However, the system of oligosaccharides, lactoferrin and immunoglobulins in breast milk, as well as many unknown active ingredients, cannot be fully simulated, so even formula milk is flawed, not to mention donkey milk that is quite different from human milk.
In addition, according to the standard, the basic raw materials that can be used to produce infant formula milk are only milk, goat milk and soy protein, while donkey milk is not among them.
In general, donkey milk and human milk have the characteristics of "low fat, high lactose", but this is not enough to be a reason to replace breastfeeding infants and young children, after all, donkey milk and human milk still have a large difference in other nutrients.
Is donkey milk better than cow's milk? Drinking donkey milk may be more likely to have diarrhea
In marketing articles and business promotions, donkey milk is not only compared to human milk, but also to milk. They claim that donkey milk is more nutritious than milk because it is rich in vitamin C and selenium.
Is there a scientific basis for this claim? According to estimates, the content of vitamin C and selenium in donkey milk is 4.75mg/100g and 10μg/100g, respectively, while the content of vitamin C and selenium in milk is 1mg/100g and 1.94μg/100g, respectively, and the content of these two nutrients in donkey milk is about 5 times that of milk.
In this way, donkey milk is indeed more rich in vitamin C and selenium than milk, but how much does this degree of "richness" mean to consumers?
"Donkey milk has more vitamin C and selenium, which is not an obvious advantage, because milk is not a good source of vitamin C and selenium, even if the content is a little more, the total amount is very limited." Associate Professor of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, College of Food Science, China Agricultural University, wrote an article pointing out.
This is because if you use donkey milk to supplement vitamin C and selenium, the cost performance is too low. To supplement vitamin C or rely on fruits and vegetables, to supplement selenium requires the addition of animal foods or agricultural products in selenium-high areas.
According to the "Chinese Food Composition Table (2002)", jujubes are rich in vitamin C representatives, such as ordinary fresh dates with a vitamin C content of 243mg/100g, and sour dates as high as 900mg/100g; the vitamin C content of oranges that consumers eat daily is also much higher than that of donkey milk, which can reach 33mg/100g; and the vitamin C content of ordinary cabbage, rapeseed, cauliflower and other vitamin C is also above 30mg/100g.
As for selenium-rich foods, in fact, consumers are often exposed, such as the selenium content of pig elbow is 32.48μg/100g, pig loin can reach 156.77μg/100g, and even ordinary pork has 11.97μg/100g.
Consumers unconsciously consume more vitamin C and selenium every day, and if they spend a lot of money to buy donkey milk to supplement it, it is really superfluous.
In fact, the nutritional value of donkey milk lags behind that of milk across the board. According to calculations, the content of 13 indicators such as protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, potassium, sodium, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin E and so on of donkey milk is low to varying degrees.
In particular, protein and calcium are two key indicators, donkey milk can not provide consumers with enough amounts, and the vast majority of consumers drink milk for the purpose of supplementing protein and calcium.
At the same time, donkey milk has a defect relative to milk: its lactose content reaches 6.3g/100g, while milk is only 4.7g/100g.
Even if the lactose content of milk is not high, some consumers who regularly drink milk will also develop lactose intolerance, resulting in diarrhea and bloating. Therefore, if you switch to donkey milk, these consumers face a higher risk.
Experts remind that taking donkey grandma powder as an example, when soaked to the same concentration, drink more lactose. So in theory, donkey milk powder is not suitable for people with lactose intolerance.
However, donkey milk actually has advantages, its fat content is only about half of milk, for obese or weight-controlled consumers, drinking donkey milk can become an option. However, why don't we opt for a less expensive low-fat milk?
No milk can fight cancer
"In addition to women and children, the old man's money is also easy to earn." This is a well-known "trade secret" by passers-by, so the marketing of donkey milk is indispensable to the keywords of "anti-cancer treatment".
Many marketing advertorials are copied and pasted, "Donkey milk is known in the international nutrition community as the 'king of milk', contains important anti-cancer substances, which is itself a unique natural antibiotic." ”
(Screenshot of the official website of Grandma Donkey Milk)
Grandma Donkey Milk even more bluntly claimed on its official website, "The anti-tumor effect of donkey milk lies in its protein components, especially whey protein components." ”
The journal attempted to conduct an email interview with the brand's company, Beijing Ga Grandma Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., but as of press time, it has not received any response. Subsequently, according to the phone displayed on its official website, the call was also in a state of unanswered.
(Reports of false claims about donkey milk)
In fact, as early as 3 years ago, the media reported on the phenomenon of false propaganda of donkey milk. In May 2018, according to CCTV, the Changsha market supervision department cracked a case of selling donkey milk as an "anti-cancer miracle drug" and obtaining high profits, and one of the aunts in the report spent more than 16,000 yuan to buy a batch of donkey milk powder because she listened to the "cure all diseases" of donkey milk.
Law enforcement officials from the market supervision department said that these donkey milk powder is actually an ordinary food, but it claims that the effects of "regulating the three highs" and "treating tumors" deceive consumers.
Some food experts also remind that whether it is donkey milk powder or other milk powder, there is no curative effect on all diseases, and any other food does not have it.
In fact, at present, health food is also the hardest hit area of false propaganda, and many tumor patients have delayed treatment because they believe in foods with "anti-cancer" effects.
Consumers should be aware that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made it clear that health foods have no verifiable anti-cancer effects.
The so-called "anti-cancer" foods are mostly commercial packaging hype, or far-fetched and rigid concepts, which are essentially ordinary foods without any magical effects.
The hype routine of these foods is basically the same: feeding mice with tumors a certain food, the result is observed that tumor growth is inhibited, the mice's life expectancy is extended, so this is used as the basis for the hype in the advertisement.
However, the body metabolism of humans and mice varies greatly. A certain food that works in mice does not mean that it will have the same effect in humans.
On the other hand, true anti-cancer drugs require extremely rigorous clinical trials to prove their effectiveness and safety, and not such simple experiments can prove it.
Why is donkey milk so expensive?
Since the nutritional content of donkey milk is neither close to 99% of human milk nor more advantageous than milk, why can it sell so expensive? Is it really "harvesting" consumers' wallets?
In fact, the reason for the high price of donkey milk is mainly because "things are scarce and expensive", and donkey milk does not have a mature industrial chain like milk.
According to the Data Of Statistics, the number of domestic donkey stocks has shown a downward trend in recent years, with 2.6007 million heads at the end of 2019 and 2.3243 million heads at the end of 2020, a decline of more than 10%.
On the contrary, the situation of cattle is better than that of donkeys, with the number of cattle in the stock at the end of 2019 being 91.3827 million heads, and reaching 95.6206 million heads at the end of 2020, an increase of 4.6%.
In terms of breeding volume, donkeys cannot be compared with cattle, and in terms of milk production cycle and milk production capacity, donkeys are also difficult to compare with cattle.
Donkeys have a milking cycle of less than 8 months and are basically no milk production in winter (December to March of the following year), while the average Holstein cattle (common dairy cow breeds) generally have a milk production cycle of 10 months (about 300 days).
According to industry data, a donkey can only squeeze out about 2 kilograms of milk a day, while a locally produced cow can produce about 25 kilograms of milk a day; imported high-quality cows produce more than 70 kilograms of milk a day.
Even if all the donkeys farmed at the end of 2019 (2.6007 million heads) were used to produce milk, then the national output of donkey milk in 2020 was only 1.2483 million tons, while according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of milk in 2020 was as high as 34.4014 million tons.
In addition, donkey milk is actually mainly produced in Xinjiang, which in turn increases the cost of donkey milk preservation and long-distance transportation, resulting in a further high price of donkey milk.
Even making donkey milk into donkey milk powder has a "disadvantage". Due to the high water content of liquid donkey milk, about 11 kg of liquid donkey milk is required to produce 1 kg of donkey milk powder, while the production of 1 kg of milk powder generally only requires 8 kg of liquid milk. This is one of the reasons why donkey milk powder is more expensive than milk powder.
Compared with milk, donkey milk is a small variety of dairy products, donkey breeding number is small, the milk production cycle is short, the milk production capacity is poor, the economy is not good, which determines that donkey milk can only be made into high value-added products.
In this way, it is not difficult to understand the emergence of marketing propaganda such as "donkey milk nutrition ratio is close to 99% of human milk", "donkey milk is more nutritious than milk", "donkey milk can fight cancer and cure diseases".
Donkey milk is essentially not like other "IQ tax" products, as a dairy product, it has its own nutritional value, for people with spending power, drinking donkey milk can be used as a daily option, for ordinary people, there is no need to spend this "unjust money".