Milk and Its Products by L. H. Ritzhaupt

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 14, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 36.

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Milk and Its Products

By L. H. Ritzhaupt

Diseases That May Be Communicated — An Important Article of Food — Should Be Carefully Inspected

By L. H. RITZHAUPT, B. A.

THE milk of several animals, such as cows, goats, asses, mares, reindeer, and camels, are used for food, but in this country very little other than cows’ milk is utilized.

The composition of milk, being 87.4 per cent water, 3.5 per cent fat, 3.4 per cent casein and albumen, 5 per cent lactose or sugar, and 7 per cent ash, makes it a complete food for the infant, and fully meets the requirements of the growing body. In adults, it will sustain life comfortably for many months.

From our birth to our death, milk and its products are a large part of our diet. This is easily recognized by quoting from the Bureau of Animal Industry: “Milk and cream together furnish 16 per cent of the total food value of the average American family.” This does not include cheese, of which 300,000,000 pounds are made and consumed every year; nor butter, of which twice that amount is consumed in the same period.

DISEASES IT COMMUNICATES

Milk, according to its nutriment value, is one of the cheapest foods on the market. Therefore the rich and the poor alike use it. This is the reason why we find it so important a carrier of disease in typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, diarrhea, septic sore throat, and foot-and-mouth disease.

MILK INSPECTION

The United States government has appointed a milk commission, which has standardized milk into three classes: first, certified milk; second, inspected milk; and third, market milk.

In the first two classes, (a) the milk is to contain no pathogenic or disease-causing bacteria; (b) the milk, the dairy, and the cows are subjected to frequent inspections; (c) the cows must be free from any communicable disease; (d) the workmen must be free from disease; (e) the milk must be cooled immediately on drawing, and sold within the following twenty-four hours; (f) the milk must be free from all adulterants, of which water, thickening, coloring matter, and preservatives are common.

The third class, or market milk, is the ordinary milk, which goes on the market from the barn door, and has been examined in no way, neither does it bear any signs of inspection. This is the milk that gives the babies summer colic, and lays the adults in bed with typhoid fever. We find such milk distributed by the early morning milkmen in the smaller towns and cities, and other places where the long arm of the law cannot quite reach.

The last paragraph does not mean that you should stop using milk unless it is either certified or inspected, but it does mean that you should at least take precautions against the ordinary summer and autumn diseases that are so often transmitted by the “market milk.” This can be done by heating the milk to 150 degrees F. for one half hour, or by keeping the milk at a boiling temperature for one minute.

Milk should not be taken as a beverage, but as a food; and it is especially valuable as a diet for infants, and for persons sick of the acute infectious diseases, as typhoid fever, diphtheria, and smallpox. It is also used in nephritis and gastric ulcer. Cream is very good for hyperchlorhydria, the trouble commonly called heartburn. In very severe cases of fever, the predigested milk is given, and is of great service.

HOW TO TEST BUTTER

Butter is not so likely to transmit disease, except tuberculosis; but it is subject to all manner of adulterations. Chief among these are the lower grades or renovated butter. Adulteration is easily detected by taking a small piece of butter, half the size of a thimble, in a tablespoon, and heating it over an open flame. If it is good butter, it will boil over without sputtering. If it is renovated butter, it will crackle and sputter.

POSSIBILITIES IN CHEESE

Cheese is the decomposition product of the protein substance — casein and albumen — and fat of milk. Whole milk is usually used. In the process of cheese making, the casein, which constitutes more than three fourths of the proteins of the milk, is precipitated by the rennet, forming a curd. Most of the fat attaches itself to this curd. The curd is then broken up, and the whole is heated to a temperature between 96 degrees F. and 108 degrees F. The whey is drained off, and carries with it most of the milk sugar and albumen, leaving the casein and the fat. The curd is salted and pressed. It is wrapped, and kept for several weeks or longer in a cool place, where it “ripens,” developing flavors through the action of bacteria or other micro-organisms, and also undergoing certain other marked changes.

The average cheese, while fresh and moist, is one fourth its weight protein, about the same fats, and one third water. The commercial cheese of to-day is subject to a great many adulterations, such as lard, coloring matter, preservatives, starches, and mineral salts. Besides these, the length of time it is kept before selling makes it strong, and bordering on other putrefactive changes.

With the evil of the world showing itself in milk and its products as well as in other things, the only safe way is to have your own tested cow, and make your own butter and cheese. But this is not possible for all; therefore it behooves us to be careful, and do the best we can, using either certified or Pasteurized milk.