Talk:Powdered milk

Refrigeration
The article states that powdered milk does not need to be refrigerated. What about after you mix it with water though? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.9.45.237 (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Concerned Parent
I guess people found my outraged comment to be of a vandalistic nature and personally I find that quite offended. Because of the image's resemblance of Cocaine, my child has ended up inhaling powdered milk and ended up in the hospital. I am a single working mother and really don't have time to go blocking wikipedia. That's a very misleading image. Please put a real picture of powdered sugar instead of one of Cocaine please. 207.228.52.221 (talk) 18:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC) b4.00i,2

===Concerned Third-Party===

If your child is so stupid as to snort powder based on a picture on Wikipedia, then you need to supervise him/her better because he is likely to be culled from the herd. Darwinism at its finest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.191.148.3 (talk) 13:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

So how much coke does your child normally snort? A gram of powdered milk snorted will have no ill affect on anyone. Haven't you laughed so hard that milk comes out your nose?Flight Risk (talk) 05:18, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment 1
Wrap the milk in a wet towel? Hah, someone should edit that part, make it say something like "Wrap the container of milk in a wet towel".

Apparent copyvio
The table on reconstituting powdered milk looks like it came from this site. The table is probably copyrighted, so I removed it.--Bkwillwm 04:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Facts aren't copyrightable.

First made
Powdered milk was not first made in the 20th. Genghis Khan's warriors were using it. Someone verify please :)
 * Not sure if this is good enough, "12th Century Genghis Khan's warriors created powdered milk." http://www.lanimoo.com/products/learn.asp
 * It was clearly invented pre-20th as numerous sources say malted and chocolate powdered milk were invented in the late 19th century by combining things with milk powder. 24.19.35.187 02:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The article on Coenraad Johannes van Houten says powdered milk was invented by Henri Nestlé in 1867. However, if you read the biography linked from Nestlé's page, it appears it was in fact baby formula that Nestlé invented in 1867, of which powdered milk is a primary ingredient. So this doesn't really contradict the Genghis Khan theory. (To add an extra complication, the baby formula article says that it was invented by Justus von Liebig in the same year. I have to stop reading Wikipedia before my head explodes.) --61.214.155.14 05:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR EXPANSION: how is it made?
I was expecting that in an article in an Encyclopedia, one could find at least some information about the process of manufacture of powdered milk, instead of such nonsense banalities as those included in the "Trivia" section. Can anyone add information about the principles, techniques and steps involved in such an important industrial process?

--Thanks, AVM 01:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The process of making powdered milk is obviously based on removing the water from liquid milk. The process begins by removing some moisture by evaporation. The condensed milk is then dried by a variety of methods. One method of drying the milk is to pass the condensed milk through a spray appartus that produces a fine mist. The mist is introduced into a chamber filled with extremely hot air, instantaneously drying the milk. The hot air is vortexed and the powder is pulled through a system where the particles of dried milk are collected from the air by settling or filtering. Clumps and heavier particles of incompletely dried milk are removed by sifting and filtering. The product is then packaged according to the intended use. The typical final product will have a moisture content of less that 4% by weight, and the moisture content can be adjusted during the drying process by adjusting the temperature of the air and flow of the milk through the spray apparatus. I have heard of a process called sheet drying, but I do not have any personal experience with this method. I may be able to provide pictures of the spray apparatus and vortex chamber within a few weeks, if it would help the explaination. No promises, but I could try. There is an excellent reference book out there called "Dairy Processing Handbook" produced by Tetra Pak Processing Systems that explains many of the processes of the dairy industry in general terms. Due to the nature of the method, some burning and scorching of the product may occur. The standard test for scorched particles in powdered milk is performed by reconstituting the milk and passing the milk through a sediment filter. Other tests that might be involved with the quality of the product (not a complete list) include: moisture, acidity, microbiology, and protein content (due to possible denaturization of protein during evaporation/drying process). For further methods of powdered milk testing reference the "Standards for Grades of Dry Milks: Including Methods of Analysis" published by American Dairy Products Institute and "Standard Methods for the Examination of Dairy Products" published by American Public Health Association.

This is the first time I've contributed to Wikipedia. I was hoping to get some feedback on the post before throwing it in the article. Does it make sense/need clarification? All of the composition is my original writing, but should be verifiable. Thanks Acidflask 18:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oxysterols
Compared to fresh milk, powdered milk (and powdered eggs) contains oxysterols. The free radicals have been stated to have atherogenic and carcinogenic properties Powdered milk is frequently added to 1-2% pasteurized milk to give it more body.

The article is from a health newsletter and also lists all heated dairy as containing oxysterols. I moved it because its a whole paragraph in a two paragraph article, and gives undue weight to the information. The information is better suited at an article on oxysterols.

The information about oxysterols was deleted by an anonymous user. The reasons for deletion are unsupportable when four reference have been provided. Since powdered eggs contain oxysterols some discussion of the health implications of this should be included. This would be like deleting any reference to the health of effects of nicotine in an article on tobacco. Wikiherbal 24.83.199.83

The references to oxysterol content are contradictory. One the one hand there is a direct reference to levels of oxysterols in powdered milk, but on the other a statement by a doctor saying that powdered milk shouldn't have oxysterols. Obviously one of these sources is wrong, so it's pretty confusing to have both.

§ Let's contest this bias.

Oxysterol content appears to be beneficial to human health? It looks like someone with an agenda has written this section of the article to make out that Oxysterols are bad.

The oxysterol amounts can go as low as: skimmed milk powder, 0.01-0.1 ug/g; and whole milk powder, 0.2-0.8 ug/g (from following article

Firstly for omitting more recent information and secondly for not showing that cooked meat contains up to 1800ug/g of oxysterols which makes the 30 pale by comparison. I highly doubt that anyone is going to stop eating cooked meat.

http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0716-97602003000300002&script=sci_arttext for amounts

Starting point for research showing that oxysterols are beneficial: http://www.google.com/patents/US20060247220

http://www.thincs.org/discuss.cordainagain.htm#Leib

"Another consequence of leaving milk fat to sour is that the cholesterol contained therein undergoes some spontaneous oxidation, forming oxysterols. Oxysterols have the property of preventing crystallization of cholesterol from supersaturated solution. I believe it is the crystallization of cholesterol from the plasma lipids that are deposited in the arterial intima that renders that cholesterol atherogenic; and that adequate oxysterols in the diet could prevent that from happening." "I should add that meat has been preserved for millenia by allowing it to dry in the air.The same oxidative changes occur in the cholesterol in meat"

58.168.50.47 (talk) 01:17, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Contamination?

 * Is dried milk really at greater risk of contamination/disease? I thought even pasteurized liquid milk had a fairly high incidence of bacteria and other contaminants. --Gwern (contribs) 00:04 9 September 2007 (GMT)

Nutrients
How does powdered milk differ in nutrients from hydrous milk? What amount per a measuring unit there is of the same nutrients and how much there are nutrients that does not exist in the other milk? These questions should be too difficult for the average Wikipedian =) Teemu Ruskeepää (talk) 10:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

 * "Powdered Milk Man" is a supervillain in the fictional universe of the band The Aquabats!, portrayed both in a song and sometimes as an onstage character at live shows. He should not be confused with Powdered Toast Man, a character from the animated Ren and Stimpy Show on television.
 * Due to its resemblance to cocaine, powdered milk is sometimes used in the movie industry as a prop in lieu of actual cocaine.
 * Powdered milk was also used on TV to create the piles of dust which were all that remained of (most of) the original Red Dwarf crew. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Softwarestorage (talk • contribs) 01:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Different types?
I recently read an interview with a dairy expert who made, in passing, the distinction between nonfat dry milk (prevalent in the US) and skim milk powder (prevalent in Europe). No other details were given. I would have thought they would be the same. Is there differences in powdered milk between different regions? There doesn't seem to be any regional information in the article. -- 174.24.215.106 (talk) 16:33, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Making you own powdered milk?
Is it possible in some way to make your own powdered milk at home? If you leave an answer, please notify me on my talk page. —Kri (talk) 15:41, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Differences and Relationship to Whey Powde Concentrates/Isolates/Hydroisolates
It would be nice to have some information here that explains how "Powdered Milk" is different from Whey Concentrates and Isolates. Is it only a matter of degree of purity? Concentration? Or is there no significant difference? Can I just use "Powdered Milk" instead of "Whey Isolate" to provide protein supplementation for muscle building? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.191.148.3 (talk) 13:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Milk protein is a mixture of casein and whey. Consider yogurt: casein firms up as acidity increases, whey remains liquid. Various milks, from different mammals, have varying casein:whey ratios. The stomach of humans has a pH around 2.0, rather acid. Milks that are desirable for cheese have a high casein:whey ratio. Can't help with your other questions. I looked at the text of this article, and can't really see a good place to add "Milk protein is a mixture of casein and whey", though perhaps someone else will feel differently.  Milk is already linked in this article's lede, and the milk page discusses casein and has a link to the whey page. Gzuufy (talk) 17:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Price
I remember for most of my childhood during the 1960's my family only bought and drank powdered milk at home because it was considerably cheaper. Now when I find it in the stores it will cost quite a bit more per reconstituted volume. I never cared for it mixed up fresh, but after a day in the fridge it was good. Is there a point where it is purchased in bulk today that it can reach or be cheaper than whole milk? I can see an additional processing cost, but then there would also be a savings on storage, transportation and spoilage waste.Flight Risk (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Drawbacks of powdered milk
I noticed the same minor omission (as I see it) on the page on Powdered eggs: shouldn't it be stated, for the sake of factfulness...or factualness....or factuality (hmm...none of those are real words, according to my spellchecker...interesting), that powdered milk is considered by many to be inferior to fresh milk, as far as taste and texture goes? I know I've always considered it so, and always felt that it was something to be used when fresh milk is unavailable, or the benefits of transportation and shelf-life outweigh the (relatively minor) drawbacks? If powdered milk was generally considered to be just as good as fresh milk, one would think there was little need of all this transporting and storage of fresh milk, never mind the waste created from the thousands of gallons of milk that isn't sold before expiration date is disposed of (I'm sure the costs of all the special, rapid and refrigerated transport, packing and display must cost many times more than cost of the drying process). If powdered milk was considered just as good, I don't see why they wouldn't just sell ALL milk in dried form. Even if powdered milk cannot be factually proven to be "inferior" (I suppose that's subjective anyway), I don't think most people would deny the fact that it's a generally-held belief. I know that when my mother makes a cake using dried milk, it never seems to come out very well. It's generally held to be something you use when you can't easily or economically obtain fresh milk, and it just seems to me that the article ought to reflect that, even if it isn't something that can be proven factually. AnnaGoFast (talk) 05:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE: According to Google, "factualness" and "factuality" are indeed words, just as I had thought, and "factfulness" is an "unofficial" word that was recently coined. That's why one should never trust spellcheckers 100%. I'm surprised at how often it tells me I'm spelling a word wrong when I'm not. Makes it hard to trust anyone, really! AnnaGoFast (talk) 05:52, 16 February 2016 (UTC)