Cow Milk : Season driven changes

Nisarg Joshi

Cow, Food, Gau, Microbes, Milk

Every other day, I have to explain young friends that we don’t love our mother based on how much she fed us the breast milk. Similarly, mother soil or mother gau, must not be judged based on the yield. It is utterly sick world view. Abnormal and clearly against the dharma.

Milk quantity and quality changes with breed, season, terrain and care you provide to mother.So , for once and all, get rid of this pervert mentality to see Gau as milk machine.

When you are blessed by authentic raw cow milk, don’t try to compare it with milk from professional dairies. In Dairy, milk is homogenized, so you will get same quality every day. When you procure milk from Gau shala, quality changes every day, in all seasons!

Since आत्म विद्या, प्राण विद्या are not part of education, and many of us are not even exposed to introduction, it becomes difficult to understand how microbes work (Not that I know everything. I am still learning. )

Ethical Gau Shala takes care of calf
Ethical Gau Shala takes care of calf

Effectiveness of butter milk depends upon many factors. Source of milk, time of churning, season! Even two cows from same Gau shala will different quality based on their lactation cycle! So if you avail milk from Gau shala, it is very much possible that there will be variation in milk quality! It is natural to doubt variation if for last 20-30 years, you have drank dairy based milk! On the contrary – if there is same quality milk from Gau shala, you should doubt! 🙂  Essential solution is trust between you and Gau shala and frequent visits to Gau shala so that we can connect with Gau mata!

It is not religious fanaticism when I claim that desi zebu cattle’s milk is best probiotic food source, it is easily verifiable by modern scientific standards.

In this post (Real Milk vs Factory milk vs Vegan Alternatives), I shared how and why milk source matters.

Please note. Now, modern dairy science realize season driven changes in milk. Our festivals and deeply rooted life understand this as common sense and restrict milk usage in several patches of the year (I have shared here time to time).

We reduce milk usage by the end of summer and again make it regular by onset of शरद ऋतू.

Milk was never a primary reason we revere and worship cows.

Modern dairy science also misled (at least by advertisements) common mass by saying that pasteurization kills all microbes. Not true. Read paper to know more. They also set wrong standards by comparing milk quality by FAT %. Real nectar is not FAT % but type of fat and other minerals! (Which are lost in high heat dairy process!)

This paper also talks about how modern processes of transporting and processing milk changes microbes and fermented food (I shared it here at least twice why butter milk (छास) from market is different from home-made and why fermentation must happen at home).

While this paper talks sensibly, their end goals are still not right. 🙂

Read it. realize it.

http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/4/e00836-16

The Core and Seasonal Microbiota of Raw Bovine Milk in Tanker Trucks and the Impact of Transfer to a Milk Processing Facility

“Raw milk harbors diverse bacteria that are crucial determinants of the quality and safety of fluid milk and (fermented) dairy products. These bacteria enter farm milk during transport, storage, and processing. Although pathogens are destroyed by pasteurization, not all bacteria and their associated enzymes are eliminated. Our comprehensive analyses of the bacterial composition of raw milk upon arrival and shortly after storage at major dairy processors showed that the communities of milk microbiota are highly diverse. Even with these differences, there was a core microbiota that exhibited distinct seasonal trends. Remarkably, the effects of the processing facility outweighed those of the raw milk microbiome and the microbial composition changed distinctly within some but not all silos within a short time after transfer. “

Seasonal variation in milk vitamin contents available for processing in Punjab, Pakistan

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1658077X12000033

Seasonal variation in milk composition has attained core attention for consistent quality of dairy products at a global scale. Due to escalating scientific awareness, consumers are tracking toward nutritionally enhanced milk based functional products that have elevated their market demand. The current research was planned to evaluate localities and seasonal variation in fat, protein, lactose and vitamins (A, E, C) in milk (mix cow and buffalo milk) available for processing. The seasonal duration ranged from April 2008 to March 2009. The fat, protein and lactose contents of milk from all zones significantly varied throughout the season. Moreover, fat (5.4%) & protein (3.22%) contents were high in February, while maximum lactose content (6.26%) was observed in January. Additionally, minimum fat (4.3%), protein (2.3%) and lactose (4.93%) contents were observed in summer months. Highest vitamin C content (6.68 mg/100 g) of milk was recorded in February, whereas vitamin A (264.5 IU/100) and vitamin E (0.226 mg/100 g) were obtained in August and June, respectively. It was noted that vitamin A and E contents were high in August and subsequently declined till March. Conclusively, the current exploration proved helpful to analyze seasonal variation in milk composition with special reference to vitamins for consistent quality end products.

Milk Components: Understanding the Causes and Importance of Milk Fat and Protein Variation in Your Dairy Herd

http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/nutrition/nutrition-and-feeding/diet-formulation-and-evaluation/milk-components-understanding-the-causes-and-importance-of-milk-fat-and-protein-variation-in-your-dairy-herd

 

Season vs Milk Fat
Season vs Milk Fat
Level of fat and protein varies across herds and seasonally. Ranges represent one standard deviation above and below the average. The solid line in the center of each range indicates the average for that month. For the three years studied, milk fat% averaged 3.76 ± 0.32 (blue), and milk protein% averaged 3.05 ± 0.19 (orange). (Bailey et al., 2005).

Season dramatically affects milk fat and protein (refer to Figure 1). The hot, humid months (July and August in the northeast) depress fat and protein content. There is a gradual increase of protein and fat in milk through the fall and peak levels occur in the colder months of winter. As temperatures increase through the spring, component levels are gradually decreased. These changes may be indicative of feed intake patterns, which are lower in summer due to changes in weather and temperature.

Effect of season of birth on milk, fat, and protein production of Israeli Holsteins.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8827465

The effects of birth month on production of milk, fat, and protein and percentages of fat and protein were analyzed based on production records of 101,653 first parity, 77,541 second parity, and 51,856 third parity Israeli Holstein cows. Each parity was analyzed separately. The analysis model also included the effects of herd-year, DIM, calving age, and calving month. First parity Type III sums of squares for birth month were nearly as large as those for calving month but decreased for later parities. Similar results were obtained using multiplicative models in which the dependent variables were the logarithms of the production traits. The effects of calving month and birth month were not similar, but birth month had similar effects for milk, fat, and protein production. Production was lowest by cows born in the early spring and highest by cows born in the fall. Analyses of the log-transformed traits showed that the F values for calving month were greater than, and the F values for birth month were nearly identical to, the F values for the untransformed trait analyses. The physiological basis for these trends was not clear.

Desi cow is is कामधेनु! do you know what is the meaning of कामधेनु?

Kamdhenu
Kamdhenu

श्रियः प्रदुग्धे विपदो रुणद्धि
यशांसि सूते मलिनं प्रमार्ष्टि ।
संस्कारशौचेन परं पुनीते
शुद्धा हि वुद्धिः किल कामधेनुः ॥

शुद्ध बुद्धि सचमुच कामधेनु है, क्यों कि वह संपत्ति को दोहती है, विपत्ति को रुकाती है, यश दिलाती है, मलिनता धो देती है, और संस्काररुप पावित्र्य द्वारा अन्य को पावन करती है ।

Like knowledge, mother helps us by preventing difficult situations and purifying our environment (both internal body and external)

Think beyond FAT % while doing Gau seva and receiving Prasad (milk)

1 thought on “Cow Milk : Season driven changes”

  1. is it necessary to heat raw milk at home after receiving it? not boiling but heating at normal temperature for few minutes? at a hostel when I order A2 raw milk I just heat it once with very low temperature but at our home, in Gujarat they heat milk for 5-10 mins (ઉભરો આવે ત્યા સુધી). so what is recommended?

    Reply

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