Use of "Permeate" in Milk

[nickrey]

In Australia we have two dominant supermarket chains. Recently they have been competing to gain customers through savage discounting of basic products (bread, milk). This has led to margin squeeze that is hurting producers who look for more cost effective methods of production to keep in business.

It now turns out that popular brands of milk have been diluted using "permeate" which is a watery, greenish waste product from the production of cheese.

News reports are telling us that permeate forms up to 16% of fresh milk that we drink.

This seems to me very similar to the pink slime in processed meat topic that was on the cooking forum earlier this year.

What other products are bulked up for reasons of profit to our detriment? What is worse, why are these practices allowed under food regulations without any additional labelling?

[IndyRob]

Well, I think I'll have to take the same general position I took in the Pink Slime thread.

First, in the U.S. we have grades of milk that include 1% milk (which I refer to as White Water). Some greenish cheese 'waste' (or 'by-') product (whose description matches well with my experience of whey) may well be welcome.

Luckily, we can buy 'Whole Milk' in regular or organic varieties.

Buy the product you like with a view towards what you'd like to pay. It doesn't have to be that complicated.

[TheTInCook]

This is less sinister then it sounds.

First, permeate is different then whey. Whey is the liquid that drains out of curds, it has residual often has residual proteins (albumins, IIRC). Permeate is produced by passing milk over a molecular filter. Lactose, vitamins, minerals, and water pass through, but protein and fats stay behind. Like reverse osmosis, but for milk.

Second, the natural composition of cow milk varies through out the year. In Australia, you can add or remove milk components to standardize the composition or make special types of milks (eg enriched calcium). This is no different then from skimming cream from milk, or adding some back to make a richer milk.

Lastly, Australia has a Food Standards Code defining the composition of the different milks. So it's not like you're going to get ripped off by thinned milk. Unless you buy 1%milk, then you're on your own.

[xxchef]

As noted the permeate being used, and the cheese-making "by-product" whey are different things. Whey would not really be an appropriate additive to milk - not because there is anything inherently wrong with it, but because it is naturally quite acidic and generally full of cheese culture, both of which would serve to age and curdle the milk quickly if not substantially manipulated.

Further, not only is there nothing wrong with the consumption of the whey, it is a much-sought after source of food-grade proteins etc for use in power drinks and baking with other applications in the health/beauty/cosmetic fields. As a cheese dairy we are regularly contacted by people looking to buy our whey. We are a very small and use it to raise a few market hogs a year. They are usually looking for the dehydrated product that large dairies produce and sell in bulk as an additional revenue stream.

[tikidoc]

This is less sinister then it sounds.

I don't think it sounds sinister. I think it sounds misleading.

When I buy milk, I expect it to contain just milk. OK, and some added vitamin D.

When I buy ground beef, I expect it to be meat that has been ground, not a bunch of heated centrifuged scraps that have been sprayed with ammonia.

The problem in the US, and now, it appears, in Australia as well, is that we CANNOT trust what is in our foods to be what we think it is. It's not that this crap is in the food, it is that the food is not required to be labeled as having this crap in it.

[Maxim]

Somewhat off topic, but on topic in terms of Australia food labelling...

As of this month, the requirements for "free range" eggs in Australia have been liberalised, to allow 13 times more chickens per hectare (up to 20,000) in eggs designated "free range".

Again, this flows on from what tikidoc was saying: Milk here doesn't mean just milk and 'free range eggs' can come from conditions that we would probably consider no different from battery farming.

[nickrey]

I still think it's sinister, as do many of my fellow local shoppers apparently. There was a single liter of non mass produced milk in our local supermarket this morning - the rest had sold out. I've been wondering for ages why our milk had been tasting "buttery" and not in a good way. The organic tastes much better. What I can't understand is why people defend practices such as this in terms of standardization and it not hurting you. Isn't this industrially generated blandness what most of us on eGullet are trying to keep as far away from as possible?

[ScoopKW]

The problem in the US, and now, it appears, in Australia as well, is that we CANNOT trust what is in our foods to be what we think it is. It's not that this crap is in the food, it is that the food is not required to be labeled as having this crap in it.

And let's not forget that it is impossible to learn what is going on without diligent research on the internet. The media is not interested in reporting problems in our food supply. Our food suppliers buy a lot of advertising, and newspapers lost their backbone years ago.

The government is not interested in legislating safer (or more honestly labeled) products for us. Our food suppliers buy the legislators. And although that's been going since before the Roman Era, these days it's blatant and pervasive. (Unfortunately, we no longer punish those convicted of bribery by placing them in a canvas sack with a starving rat and then throwing the sack in a river.)

And as long as megamarts offer low, low prices, most of the public doesn't care. At least not in the US.

Edited April 24, 2012 by ScoopKW (log)