Is the restorative milk milk really milk?

The saying that "restored milk is fake milk" has been circulating in the rivers and lakes, and many consumers are worried about it. So, what exactly is a restorative milk? Why is it always considered "fake milk"?

Today, we will follow Yang Qingxin, a teacher from East China University of Science and Technology, to understand the true face of restored milk.

What exactly is a restorative milk?

Restored milk, also known as reduced milk or reduced milk, refers to milk concentrated, processed into concentrated milk or milk powder in which an appropriate amount of water is added, diluted into a milk with a proportion of fresh raw milk in the proportion of water and solid substances.

There are two ways to process reconstituted milk, one is to mix different proportions of milk powder into fresh milk, and the other is to mix milk powder with water as raw material.

(Image from the Internet)

According to national regulations, kefir, sterilized milk and other dairy products can use recombined milk as raw materials, but pasteurized milk cannot use reconstituted milk as raw materials. That is, pure milk sold in supermarket freezers cannot be used as raw materials for milk powder; while ambient milk, yogurt and various modulated milk can be used as raw materials. However, products using reconstituted milk as raw material should be marked with the words "reconstituted milk" and truthfully indicated in the ingredients and proportions contained in the reconstituted milk or milk powder.

It can be seen that the restored milk is not a "poor life" without nutrition, let alone fake milk, as long as the production is standardized and labeled, consumers can buy and drink with confidence.

But reading this, do you have a lot of question marks in your head? Why not just use fresh milk as a raw material?

This is because compared with fresh milk, milk powder does not require cold chain preservation, is easy to transport and store, and can reduce production costs. This also explains why "restored milk yogurt" in supermarkets is generally cheaper than "raw milk yogurt".

What is the difference between restorative milk and other milks?

The main milk products commonly found on the market are as follows:

Raw milk: Raw milk refers to the regular milk that is expressed from the udder of healthy dairy animals that meets the relevant requirements of the state without any change of composition, without the addition of exogenous substances, and has not been processed, that is, the most authentic fresh milk.

Pasteurized milk: raw milk is heated above 70 ° C for ten seconds, the impact on milk is relatively small, and the appearance and flavor are well maintained, which is second only to fresh milk.

Room temperature milk: Generally heated at more than 135 ° C for a few seconds, the taste and color of the milk has a more obvious impact.

Reconstituting milk: Liquid milk that meets the milk fat content requirements by adding water to the skimmed milk powder and adding milk fat.

Compared with the above milk, the nutritional value of restored milk is not large

The milk undergoes a high temperature sterilization during the concentrated drying process, and then undergoes another high temperature sterilization after washing. There are concerns that two high-temperature treatments will destroy the nutrient content of the restorative milk.

In fact, the nutritional value of restored milk is not greatly lost. Because dairy products mainly provide calcium and high-quality protein, calcium is an inorganic salt, and heating does not affect its content. Some people may be worried that heating leads to protein denaturation, but even if it is not heated, the protein we ingest must be digested and decomposed into amino acids to be absorbed and utilized by the human body, so heat denaturation will not only not reduce its nutritional value, but also help digestion and absorption.

Heating does cause the restorative milk to lose some vitamins, but it doesn't lose much. For example, the proportion of milk powder restored to liquid milk, compared with the vitamin content of fresh milk, found that the loss of vitamin B1 and vitamin B2 is only about 15%, and the content of vitamin B1 and other vitamins in milk is already less, so consumers do not have to worry too much about such losses.

Editor/Jing Wang