Scientists from the Department of Food Science and Technology at The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio, USA) have developed a novel method of supplementing cow milk with vegetable protein using readily available current dairy processing equipment. A new report in the January 2022 issue of the Journal of Dairy Science® presents the study, which may open opportunities to create new functional, multisourced dairy products that could help bolster declining fluid milk sales in the United States.
Approximately 80% of the protein in cow milk takes the form of casein, which naturally binds together to form large spherical molecules suspended in the water component of milk. However, protein does not readily dissolve in water; one end of the casein protein is attracted to water (hydrophilic) and the other is repelled by it (hydrophobic). When the proteins join together, the exterior of…
