Safety and Quality Assessment of Milk Before and After Pasteurization Collected from Different Regions of Punjab

Abstract

Milk is an excellent source of proteins, fats and carbohydrates along with minerals and vitamins. It is the balanced diet for all age groups. In Pakistan consumption of milk is increasing day by day. Milk from different animal sources has quality and nutritional differences. Pasteurization found to be increased the milk quality and shelf-life stability by reducing microbial load. The objective of study is to evaluate the differences among the raw and pasteurized milk in terms of safety and microbial distribution. The proximate and quality analysis including moisture, crude protein, crude fat, total soluble solid, pH, acidity, lactose composition, solid-not-fat (SNF) and specific gravity were done for the milk samples. The microbial tests were performed for Total Plate Count and Total Coliform Count before and after pasteurization process. The collected data was analysed statistically to estimate the level of significance. Pasteurized milk of buffalo showed high value for pH 6.65, lactose composition 5.964, crude fat 7.974%, crude protein 6.453%, SNF 6.672%, Total solids 12.646% while pasteurized cow milk showed low value as compare to buffalo milk samples as pH 6.60, lactose composition 4.732, crude fat 4.744%, crude protein 4.353%, SNF 6.128%, Total solids 10.872%. Total Coliform count (TCC) for raw and pasteurized milk of cow was 3.320 CFU/ml and 1.2600 CFU/ml respectively, whereas for buffaloes it was 2.604 CFU/ml and 1.0900 CFU/ml respectively. In case of TPC it was 2.834CFU/ml and 1.132 CFU/ml for raw to pasteurized milk of cow while it was 2.0320 CFU/ml and 1.0720 CFU/ml in buffaloes. Result revealed that pasteurized milk is safer to use and pasteurized milk has low microbial count as well as authenticity in safety and quality when compared with unpasteurized milk.