Milk Cocoa Beverages

Milk Cocoa Beverages
Dairy based products with additions of coca or chocolate are the most widely known and accepted milk drinks.

Cocoa or chocolate milk drinks are dairy based products, which are manufactured from heat treated milk with the addition of cocoa powder and sugar and eventually stabilizers. After adding the powder, the product is heat treated with and accepted process, cooled and filled.

Standard products are made from whole milk (3.5% fat content), fat reduced milk (1.5-1,.8% fat) or skim milk and are labeled in accordance with heat treatment process and the powder quality (e.g., asterisked cocoa milk, UHT chocolate milk, sterilized chocolate milk).

Additives
Additives are the different kinds of cocoa or chocolate powder which are used in the manufacturer of the milk drinks.

These powders are obtained from the press cake of the cocoa beans, where the fat or cocoa butter has been extracted by using to different degrees.

A product can be obtained which has a high to a low fat level with a fat content <10%.

The particle size of the powder is in range of 10 – 30 mm, and the pH is in the range of 5- 7.

Sugar (sacchrose) can be added to cocoa powder to a level of up to 65%. Other additives can be used such as vanilla, lecithin or other natural ingredients.

This powder is directly soluble in milk to a level of 20- 30%, Cocoa milk is therefore a more or less stable suspension; a part of the powder slowly settles on the bottom of the pack (due to the higher specific gravity) and is redistributed by shaking,

Homogenous distribution of the additive is a prerequisite for good taste.

By adding 1-2% of a stabilizer (=0.02-0.03 % on the finished product), the viscosity of the cocoa milk is slightly increased and the cocoa particles remain suspended.

The choice of the stabilizer depends on the selected heat treatment.

For pasteurized cocoa milk, starch, gelatin or alginates are used; for UHT products mainly carrageenan is used, and for sterilized products cellulose products, e.g., carboxymethyl cellulose (about 0.2%) is used.

For taste enhancement, additional natural or artificial flavors can be added.

Formulas
Per liter of milk about 12-15 g of cocoa powder and 30-45 g of sugar (saccharose) is added. The formulas are made according to powder quality, taste of the product and economies.

When calculating the quantities, the different densities of milk and cocoa powder as well as the different quantities (volumes in liters for milk and mass in kg for powders) must be considered.

When adding 50 kg of sweetened cocoa powder to 1000 L of milk, we obtain 1019 liters of finished products.
Milk Cocoa Beverages

The Origin of Milking

The Origin of Milking
For million of years, breast milk has been the first beverage. Replacement with animal milk carried tremendous implications and potential nutritional advantages.

The first irrefutable evidence for milking domesticated livestock and, by implication, human use of milk and the manufacture of dairy products, dates to approx 4000 BCE and is based on Stone Age rock art produced in the central Sahara region of Africa.

By 1500 BCE, milk use was widely distributed, and in India, many of milk’s qualities and already been described in the Charaka-Samhita.

“Cow milk has ten properties: sweet, cold, soft, fatty, viscous, smooth, slimy, heavy, dull and clear. Buffalo milk is heavier and colder than that from cow; useful to cure sleeplessness and excessive digestive power. Camel milk is rough, hot, slightly saline, light and prescribed for hardness in the bowels, works against worms... Milk from one-hooved animals (donkey; horse) is hot slightly, sour, saline, rough, light, promotes strength, stability, alleviates vata in extremities, Goat milk is astringent...”

Anthropologists, geographers and physicians have written on the physiologic and dietary implications of human using animal milk and use or nonuse o flavored particular societies.

With our ability to feed grass to livestock and the use of milk in its raw form or as fermented cheese, humans expanded into new areas of habitation and increased population density.

The majority of other human populations, following the standard mammalian pattern – lose the ability to maintain lactase production and therefore, cannot digest animal milks easily, a pattern evidenced by most Asians, West Africans, Southern European Mediterraneans and most Central and Southern American.

However, some human populations now maintain lactase production throughout their lives, a physiologic characteristic that links peoples and cultures as diverse as east African cattle pastoralist (the Masai, Suk, and Turkana) with northern European Scandinavians (e.g., Danes, Norwegian and Swedes).

Different cultures have widely diverging regarding the suitability of animal milks as human foods or beverages.

For some, it is question of identification: because animal milks are for the young of specific animal, it is wrong to mix these foods because the consumer may take on characteristics or the animal.
The Origin of Milking

Milk and Nutrition

Milk and Nutrition
Milk has been a staple of the diet of Old World temperate zone people since the agricultural revolution, approx 8000 BC. Milk is mentioned more than 20 times in the Hebrew scriptures (“…. a land flowing with milk and honey………..”) as a metaphor for abundance and wholesomeness.

Also, in one of the Islamic medicine tomes, we read: “Drink milk, for it wipes away heat from the heart, strengthens the back, increases the brain, augment the intelligence, renew vision and drives away forgetfulness”. Although they are not supported by contemporary standards those claim, nevertheless, illustrate the generally high esteem that milk has enjoyed throughout its history.

Milk is a thirst quenching nourishing beverage. For some segments of the populations milk became, and is still today, the principal source of almost all nutrients, with daily consumption of 5 – 7 L.

Nutritional science emerged only at the beginning of the 20th century and quickly recognized the value of milk in a balanced diet. Virtually all US government nutrition programs and nutritional policy statements for the last century have emphasized the importance of milk. As nutritional science grew, so also did the understanding of the composition of milk and of its many benefits.

However, during the past 30-40 years particularly, several factors have converged to alter perceptions of the role of milk in the human diet. These include:

• The emergence and promotion of alternative beverages (and the relative affluence that made their purchase possible),
• Medicine’s emphasis on treating nutrients as toxins (e.g., fat, sodium, cholesterol),
• Animal rights activism
• Still growing technophobia.
  

Milk and Nutrition