Effects of Industrial Processing Methods on Camel Milk Composition, Nutritional Value, and Health Properties

Introduction

Camel milk has a comparable gross composition with other milk species including bovine milk. However, due to the unique molecular properties of these components (i.e. Fat and proteins) it is very challenging to implements the production process used for processing of other milk (Hailu et al., 2016a). These differences include rennetability or coagulation properties, heat stability, curd formation (Hailu et al., 2016b; Farah, 1986; Ramet, 2001). Heat treatment of milk is an essential step to render milk safe for human consumption and extend its shelf life (Chapter 3). Moreover, heat treatment is an integral part of production process of different products i.e. cheese, yogurt, powders (see Chapter 5). There are varied heat treatment methods depending on applied time-temperature combination. This is including low temperature long time pasteurization (LTLT), high temperature short time pasteurization (HTST), sterilization, thermization and Ultra High Temperature (UHT). Among all, HTST pasteurization and UHT are the most commonly used methods in dairy industry (Benabdelkamel, et al., 2017).

The heat stability of camel milk is different compared to bovine milk (Farah, 1986; Ramet, 2001); whereas camel milk reported to have some different properties from bovine milk including poor stability at high temperatures. This is attributed to the casein micelle or deficiency of β-lactoglobulin and κ-casein in camel milk (Al Haj & Al Kanhal, 2010). The addition of neither urea nor formaldehyde alone has no effect on HCT of camel's milk heat stability (Alhaj, Metwalli, & Ismail, 2011), therefore, heat treatment should be carefully optimized. On the other hand, proteins sedimentation could be the main problem for camel milk preservation (Farah et al., 2004) due to their poor stability. Similarly, the overall purpose of heat treatment applied to other milk sources would have the same effect; however, the deleterious outcomes for production of a specific milk product type is not documented yet. The scientific reports made on effects of different factors on industrial processing of camel milk is not much, therefore other milk sources are used to show the possible implications and these types of milk are specified each time whenever referred. This chapter aims to provide an overview on industrial processing methods and their effect on camel milk composition, nutritional value and health properties.