Shopping is also about knowing your enemy. Buy the one that best meets your needs, is the most cost-effective.
There are more and more milk products on the market, and the various concepts are dazzling, so consumers inevitably have trouble choosing. Two days ago, I received a phone call from an acquaintance asking me: what kind of milk do you drink at Home?
I said: supermarkets sell qualified milk quality are passable, and I drink may not be suitable for you ah.
She said: you know these ah, we follow you to pick the right.
I asked: each product has its own strengths and weaknesses, your idea of “good milk”, what is good in the end? There are indicators for comparison, right? Besides, there are different categories of milk, which one do you want?
This is the question she asked. I don’t know what is good in milk, I don’t have a clue, that’s why I’m asking you. She said.
So I spent a long Time helping her to sort out her thoughts, and I’ll share them with you here.
Before shopping for milk, ask yourself a few questions.
— What are my milk preservation needs? Do I have refrigeration at home? Do I need to carry it with me on the go?
–What is my motivation for drinking milk? Is it for the good taste? Or for nutrition? Or for Food preparation?
–If it’s for good taste, is the aroma and smoothness particularly important?
–Do I just want to drink milk, or do I want a fancy milk with other ingredients?
–If it’s for nutrition, do I want protein, or calcium, or any other healthy ingredients?
— Do I want to lose weight? Is there any medical advice for fat control?
— How is the physical condition? Any milk indigestion problems? Any milk protein allergy problems?
–Do you have any lactose intolerance problems such as flatulence, intestinal rumbling, diarrhea, etc. from drinking milk?
— Do you care about cost effectiveness? Are you satisfied with drinking enough nutrients, or do you have to buy the best quality product?
And so on. Then, pick according to your needs.
1 Pick milk by storage conditions.
Each milk product has a shelf Life and shelf conditions description, so please read it carefully.
Consumers who have refrigeration at home and can go to the supermarket at least twice a week can choose “pasteurized milk” that requires refrigeration and has a shelf life of 2 to 14 days at 2 to 6°C. “The milk should be refrigerated. According to the relevant national standards, pasteurized milk is something that no ingredients can be added to. It is the purest milk, and the freshest milk most people can drink.
Pasteurized milk is heated at a lower temperature, usually 70 to 80 degrees Celsius, and there are even some “filtered and de-bacterized” products that are not heated at all. Therefore, pasteurized milk is closest to the flavor, texture and nutritional value of fresh milk. However, because it does not have heat-resistant spores that kill bacteria, it must be transported in a cold chain and refrigerated throughout the entire process, and must be refrigerated immediately after purchase, not at room temperature.
If you don’t have refrigeration, or if you need to take milk products out with you, such as on excursions or trips, you should choose boxed milk that can be stored at room temperature, including “pure cow’s milk This includes “pure milk” and “milk mix”.
These products are autoclaved to kill not only the live bacteria but also the heat-resistant spores. Domestic sterilized milk can be stored at room temperature for 6 months, while imported sterilized milk products can have a shelf life of 12 to 18 months.
The longer storage time requires higher heating temperature and longer heating time, so sterilized milk is not as close to fresh milk as pasteurized milk.
First of all, there are some changes in flavor and “heating odor”; some B vitamins are lost by 20% to 50%; some active ingredients such as lactoferrin are lost There is a loss of some active ingredients such as lactoferrin, etc.; there may also be a small amount of melad reaction products and a small amount of lysine and other essential amino acids. However, the content of protein, fat, calcium and other components do not change significantly.
2 Select milk by fat content.
Milk products can be classified by fat content into whole milk, low-fat milk (semi-skimmed milk) and skimmed milk.
Full fat milk retains all the fat content that milk naturally contains, with a fat content of 3.0% or more. The higher the fat content of milk, the more outstanding the milk smell and richness of its taste.
Some milk products are artificially increased to 3.5% to 4.5% fat content by flash concentration or adding cream to enhance flavor and taste, and are labeled as “thick “, “fine”, “mellow”, “mellow”, “mellow” and “mellow”. “mellow”, “enjoyment “, “superb” and other promotional terms. So, if you care about the taste of milk and don’t need to control calories, enjoy high-fat milk.
Low-fat milk products remove only a portion of the fat content from the milk, reducing the fat content from over 3.0% to between 1.0% and 2.0%. Skim milk products remove most of the fat content, with the fat content dropping to less than 0.5%.
With less fat, the aroma and consistency of low-fat and skim milk is significantly reduced, as is the content of fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, and carotenoids that accompany fat. Skim milk is no longer a dietary source of these fat-soluble vitamins.
Healthy adults and children and adolescents can consume whole milk at normal consumption levels of 200 to 300 grams of milk per day. People who need to control their saturated fat intake according to medical advice can choose low-fat milk or skim milk.
If you really like sweet and tangy milk, you can also choose buffalo milk, yak milk, etc. They all taste good and are more rich and sweet than cow’s milk, but the main drawback is that they are slightly more expensive.
3 Pick milk by protein content.
The most important components of milk that consumers are concerned about are protein and calcium.
Calcium is not part of the mandatory state labeling of nutrients, so many products do not state how much calcium they contain. However, we can still guess which of them has a high calcium content.
Because calcium and protein components always exist together in milk, milk products with higher protein content tend to have a higher calcium content. So, selecting milk by protein content will give you a product with better nutritional quality. Generally speaking, milk with higher protein and fat content also tends to be more expensive.
Some people will say: the difference in protein content is not that big, right? One 3.0%, one 3.6%, the total protein difference is only 20%, the price difference is more than 60%. So I drink two boxes of 3.0% protein directly, than drinking a box of 3.6% protein milk to get more nutrition? That’s right. Consumers can decide their choice by cost effectiveness.
4 Pick milk by lactose content.
Some consumers in China are “lactose intolerant” and experience bloating, gas and even abdominal pain and diarrhea after drinking milk. These people can choose “low lactose milk” or “lactose-free milk” made after the lactose is broken down and processed. Lactose-free milk”. In addition, people with intestinal infections, flatulence and diarrhea are also susceptible to increased flatulence and diarrhea if they drink milk containing lactose.
When milk is treated with solid-phase lactase, lactose, which can cause trouble, is hydrolyzed into glucose and galactose. Compared to lactose, both glucose and galactose are absorbed very well by the body and do not cause problems of flatulence and diarrhea. Also, because glucose and galactose are sweeter than lactose, low-lactose milk “automatically” becomes sweeter and tastes better.
Of course, you can also consider not drinking milk at all and switch to yogurt, or cheese, to get the nutrients from the milk.
5 Choose milk by flavor and texture.
Sterilized milk products that can be stored at room temperature are divided into “plain milk” and The two types of milk that can be stored at room temperature are “plain milk” and “modified milk”. There are no other ingredients added to pure cow’s milk, while the modified milk can contain no less than 80% milk, while adding sugar, fruits and vegetables, grains, beans and other ingredients, as well as food additives such as thickeners and flavors permitted by the state.
In other words, milk with no more than 20% of other ingredients, protein content of not less than 2.3%, called “milk moderation”, still belongs to the category of milk products. But if you add more, it can not be called “milk”, but only called It can only be called “milk beverage”. You must keep your eyes peeled. The product is in the end which category, the packaging is written, but the word may be a little small.
For example, “banana milk”, “oat milk “, “chocolate milk”, “cocoa milk”, “cocoa milk”, “chocolate milk”. “cocoa milk”, “breakfast milk “, “malted milk” and so on all belong to this category of milk preparation. This is a category of milk. Consumers can choose according to their taste preferences (in fact, many people buy them because they like their sweetness and flavor).
The addition of sugars and flavored ingredients often changes the energy value and carbohydrate content of the milk and slightly reduces the protein content. Consumers who need to control their weight or need to avoid products with added sugar should always look carefully at the nutrition facts.
6 Pick your milk by “healthy ingredients”.
Some milk has some “healthy ingredients” added to it, but it’s not always clear whether you want to buy it or not.
Some ingredients are both safe and healthy to add. For example, adding vitamin A and vitamin D to milk is a great thing. This is because Chinese people as a whole do not consume enough vitamin A and do not get enough vitamin D from sunlight, with a fairly high percentage of subclinical deficiencies and mild deficiencies. If more can be added from milk, in the range of doses permitted by the state, and made into VA, VD nutritionally fortified milk, it will obviously benefit consumers.
Adding calcium to milk is not a bad thing, but it is not very meaningful. Because milk naturally contains more than 100mg/100g of calcium, adding some more will only increase by 10% to 20%, which is not a big difference, and poor technical processing will also affect the taste.
Milk contains very low iron, but the addition of iron is also of little significance. Because a large amount of calcium elements will prevent the absorption and utilization of iron elements. So, milk is not originally for iron and drink. It is better to eat red meat directly if you want to supplement iron.
It is also important to consider that some added ingredients are not necessarily suitable for everyone. For example, the addition of inulin, oligosaccharides, dextran and other ingredients, said to be “prebiotics”, “probiotic factor”. “probiotic factor”, to promote the proliferation of intestinal beneficial bacteria, for most people is beneficial. However, for patients with irritable bowel syndrome and for those with diarrhea, it may cause flatulence, diarrhea and other reactions. It is recommended that companies on the scope of application of such products, unsuitable for the population to explain.
7 by the certification mark to choose milk.
Some milk products have “organic food”, “green food”, “free of charge”. green food”, “pollution-free food” and other marks. These are quality certifications that relate to the quality of food safety. These are quality certification marks that relate to food safety quality, and require the practical implementation of organic products, green food, pollution-free food standards and regulations in the production process, and to meet their relevant quality standards. Consumers can check their certification information in the “China Food and Agricultural Products Certification Information System” to identify the authenticity.
8 Pick milk by shelf life
For pasteurized milk that needs to be refrigerated, as the cold chain transportation and storage in China is not strict enough at present, in the season of high temperature, as some transport trucks and supermarket warehouses do not do the whole process of refrigeration, it is easy for the microbial content to exceed the standard in advance. Therefore, try to choose products that are close to the factory date, and drink them as soon as possible after buying them home, so as not to let the products expire at home.
For milk stored at room temperature, although qualified products will not have microbial overload problems, but the vitamin content in the milk will also slowly decline in the process of preservation.
Therefore, it is wisest to choose a product that is closer to the production date and farther from the end-of-shelf-life date for the same type of milk product.
9 Choose other dairy foods according to your health condition
If you do have adverse reactions to milk, such as indigestion, chronic allergies or even acute allergies, then there is no need to force yourself to drink milk. You can consult a dietitian or nutritionist and mix your food wisely to get protein, calcium and multivitamins from a variety of other ingredients.
Some people can try other milks, for example, some people with allergies to cow’s milk may not be allergic to drinking goat’s, donkey’s or camel’s milk, as reported in current studies. Although these foods are more expensive, you may want to try them within your financial means. You can also consider trying deeply hydrolyzed milk powder, or certain cheeses that have been highly fermented by microorganisms, and if there are no adverse reactions, you can consume them for a long time.
After that, the lady still asked a question: Mr. Fan, which brand of products do you choose?
I said: The brand doesn’t matter. Figure out what you want, look carefully at the ingredient list, the nutrition table is important. For every brand, there are high-end products and low-end products. As long as the high-end products of well-known brands, the quality can be completely assured.
If you have to differentiate between brands, then when buying pasteurized milk that needs to be refrigerated, give preference to local brands. This is because local brands usually have a stable local raw material base and the shortest transportation distance, so they are most likely to put the best quality products in the local area to serve the local folks.
As for the cost performance of the product, it is entirely your own decision. Forgive me for not charging companies for brand promotion, I can’t give you specific advice ……
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