Substitution of vinegar for lactic acid as bactericidal agent in infant milk mixtures.

Abstract

BUTTERMILK was introduced as an infant food in Sweden in 1776, in Holland in 1865, in Germany in 1902, in France in 1907, and in the United States in 1913,* because it was found that infants thrived better on it than on ordinary sweet milk. 1 Other sour-milk mixtures soon followed. Clark and Faber attributed the value of the acid to an improvement in the digestibility of the milk. 4 They showed that the buffer value of cows' milk is considerably more than that of human milk, that it neutralizes a larger amount of the hydrochloric acid of the stomach, and thus may interfere with the activity of the gastric enzymes through a reduction of the gastric acidity below the optimal hydrogen-ion concentration zone of pH 3.5 to 5.0. The addition of an acid to cows' milk counteracted its excess buffer salts and made its digestibility more nearly that of