11 - Optimising dairy milk fatty acid composition

Abstract

Publisher Summary Milk is a very complex food of great interest, not least since it is intended to be complete food for young animals. Milk is essentially a complex colloidal system comprising globules of milk fat suspended in an aqueous medium containing lactose, a range of proteins, mineral salts, and water-soluble vitamins. Since the lipids in milk and dairy food products contain relatively large amounts of saturated fatty acids compared with other animal-derived lipids and notably more than lipids in chicken meat, milk, and dairy products make a major contribution to saturated fatty acid intake. It seems likely that concerns about the relationship between diet and chronic disease would continue to increase, not least because of increasing cost to national health services for treating such conditions. This would increase the urgency to improve the health-related aspects of staple foods such as milk. Thus, the future role of animal nutrition in creating foods closer to the optimum composition for long-term human health would become increasingly important. This, however, needs to be done with caution as there is increasing evidence that milk contains compounds that might actively promote long-term health.