Packaged Full-Cream Milk

Good fats, bad fats and some microbiological facts

Gone are the days when one depended only on the local milk vendor for getting fresh milk (once upon a time the cow was brought to the customer’s doorstep for milking, but that’s another story altogether). Almost all items are now sold in readymade forms in packets and milk is no exception. The growing demand for milk largely explains the spurt in production as also in brands. At the same time, with adulteration of milk – with water, vegetable oils, detergents, caustic soda, urea, starch, blotting paper, white paint, etc. – increasingly becoming a reality and a concern, more and more consumers are switching to branded packaged milk. This report will, among other things, put to rest most of our concerns about milk adulteration and contamination, and affirm or dispute the health-related claims of leading brands of packaged full-cream milk.

The testing was carried out in an NABLaccredited laboratory and it was mainly based on the relevant Indian Standard (IS 13688: 1999) and FSS Rules, 2011, for ‘packaged pasteurized milk’ wherein the categorization of milk has been done based on minimum quantity of milk fat present. Here, full-cream milk means milk or a combination of buffalo or cow milk or a product prepared by combination of both that has been standardized to