Milk-and-Dairy-Products-in-Human-Nutrition-FAO

Chapter 3 – Milk and dairy product composition 85
of the world’s butter/ghee is produced in India, with a total of 3.8 million tonnes in
2009 (FAOSTAT). While Indian ghee is made from cow or buffalo milk, or a mixture
of these milks, Middle Eastern ghee is mainly from goat, sheep or camel milks
and is known by the names of maslee, roghan and samn (Sserunjogi, Abrahamsen
and Narvhus, 1998). Other indigenous products related to ghee include samna
(Egypt), meshho (an Assyrian non-perishable milk fat), Ethiopian indigenous ghee,
samin (Sudan) and samuli (Uganda).
Nutrient profile of butter and ghee
Approximately 81 percent of butter and 99.5 percent of ghee consists of fat (see
Table 3.7). According to the FAOSTAT Food Balance Sheets, butter and ghee
provide a global average of 28 kcal of energy/capita per day and 3.2 g of /capita per
day, ranging from 67–90 kcal of energy/capita per day and 8–10 g of fat/capita per
day in Europe and Oceania to only 7 kcal of energy/capita per day and 1 g of fat/
capita per day in Africa.
Ghee contains large amounts of fat-soluble vitamins: 100 g of ghee is reported to
have a vitamin A content of 600 μg RE (INFS/WFP, 1988), 8 μg of vitamin D and
2.8 mg of vitamin E (Sserunjogi, Abrahamsen and Narvhus, 1998). Based on the
CODEX guide to food labelling (FAO and WHO, 2001), ghee can be labelled as
high in both vitamin A and vitamin D (CODEX does not have a Nutrient Reference
Value for vitamin E).
The FA profiles are generally similar in ghee made from cow and sheep milk
(Al-Khalifah and Al-Kahtani, 1993). Although the FA content of the original milks
is not known, values for SFA content suggest that the FA profile is similar to that of
the parent milks. Palmitic (C16:0) and oleic (C18:1) acids are the main FAs in both
cow and sheep milk ghee (Al-Khalifah and Al-Kahtani, 1993).
The CLA content is reported to be higher in ghee than in the parent milk fat
(Aneja and Murthi, 1991, cited in Sserunjogi, Abrahamsen and Narvhus, 1998; Bisig
et al., 2007) and can be increased by up to fivefold by increasing the temperature
of clarification from 110 °C to 120 ºC. No such changes were reported in the
manufacture of butter (Bisig et al., 2007). Butter and ghee are the richest source of
CLA (Sserunjogi, Abrahamsen and Narvhus, 1998). Ghee is also reported to contain
essential FAs (Rangappa and Achaya, 1974, and Chand et al., 1986, cited in Kumar
et al., 2010). The cholesterol content is reported to range from 200–400 mg/100 g in
ghee from cow, sheep and buffalo milks (Al-Khalifah and Al-Kahtani, 1993; Kumar
et al., 2010), compared with about 10 mg/100 g in milk.
3.3.6 Cream
Cream, fresh (0885): That portion of milk which is rich in milk fat and is separated
by skimming or centrifuging.
The CODEX standard for cream and prepared creams (FAO and WHO, 2010h)
defines cream, reconstituted cream, recombined cream and prepared creams (prepackaged
liquid cream, whipping cream, cream packed under pressure, whipped
cream, fermented cream and acidified cream) as follows:
“Cream is the fluid milk product comparatively rich in fat, in the form of an
emulsion of fat-in-skimmed milk, obtained by physical separation from milk.