HOME HEALTH GLIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1943, Page 6

HOME HEALTH GLIDE

PASTEURISATION OF MILK NUTRITIONAL VALUE RETAINED (By the Department of Health) Besides being one of the foundations of good nutrition, milk also forms an excellent breeding ground for germs. That is why the use of pasteurised minis advocated, because pasteurised milk is milk that is germ-free and just as wholesome as the raw product. Even if we had a perfect system of guarding milk from dirt and germs, there would still be the risk of disease from an unhealthy cow. Some of the more common troubles passed on to humans from the cow are septic sore throats, undulant fever and more rarely tuberculosis.

Fortunately all these germs are killed at temperatures that do not spoil the food value of milk—hence pasteurisation.

Where there is no pasteurised milk available, families either have to boil their milk, scald it, or home pasteurise it. The first two methods are easy, but a cooked flavour develops, and many people object to it. Home pasturising, however, retains the flavour as well as the nutritional value.

There arc two methods of home pasteurisation. One way is to heat the milk to 145 degrees F. and keep it there for 30 minutes. This entails some bother.

The easier way is to use a 'double boiler —that is, one container in another filled with water. Stir the milk from time to time, bring it to a temperature of 162 degrees F. and keep it there for 15 seconds—while you count fifteen slowly. Then stand the milk in cold water to cool quickly. Your milk will be pasteurised—and safe. Not only that, pasteurised milk is more easily digested than raw milk.