The Problem of Reconstituted Milk

Abstract

RECONSTITUTED milk, the production and use of which have greatly increased in many parts of the world in recent years, is not of recent origin. Over seven centuries ago 1 the world's most famous traveler Marco Polo while visiting the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan, realized the value of dried and. reconstituted milk. These Mongols were nomads who required convenient food for their many expeditions. Quoting Polo, they have milk dried into a kind of paste to carrv with them. When they go on a journey, every man takes some 10 lbs. of this dried milk with him, and of a morning he will take half a pound of it and put it into his leather bottle, with as much water as he pleases, so as he rides along, the milk paste and the water get well churned together into a kind of pap, and that makes his dinner. There is some evidence that the ancient Egyptians may have used dried milk, but the interesting report made by Marco Polo is the first account of such a product. Condensed milk has been manufactured for nearly 100 years and evaporated milk for more than 60 years; however, satisfactory processes for drying milk have been developed only within the present century. Today powdered milk is used throughout the world, but this valuable commodity is of comparatively recent commercial origin.