Some love them, others hate them. With their distinctive taste and smell, goat’s milk products divide society into two camps.
Milk is rightly considered one of the basic components of our diet. Consumption of milk (not only cow’s milk) and dairy products in the Czech Republic is currently rising year on year. In 2019, people consumed an average of 249 kg of milk per person. Goat’s milk production accounts for approximately 2.4 % of total world milk production. Goat’s milk is also characterised by its high biological value. It has a high content of proteins, fatty acids and vitamins. It is the short and medium-chain fatty acids that are largely responsible for the characteristic smell and taste of goat’s milk, which, however, not all consumers appreciate.
We would like to introduce the latest study, which focuses on assessing important sensory descriptors, such as colour, taste, smell, consistency and creaminess, in goat’s milk yoghurts with added almond flour, inulin or whey proteins. The work was carried out in collaboration between Dr Legarová of FAFNR, who has long been engaged in dairy research, and Italian colleagues from the Università degli studi di Catania, and was published in the prestigious journal LWT (Food Science and Technology).
The study shows that adding additives during yoghurt production significantly affects the sensory properties of the final product and consumers’ subsequent preferences. The sensory analyses were carried out in fully equipped laboratories by two groups of trained assessors (both Czech and Italian). Changes in the counts of lactic acid bacteria, specifically lactobacilli and streptococci, were also monitored in the goat’s yoghurt samples.
Fermented dairy products, of which yoghurt is the main representative, are popular foods all over the world. An interesting finding of the study was that the addition of almond flour had a rather negative effect, as it did not produce the expected reduction in the unwanted goaty odour. In samples with added almond flour and whey proteins together, however, there was a reduction in the intensity of almond smell and taste, as well as of the unwanted goaty aroma. These samples also showed a positive effect on consistency and improved creaminess, whereas the additives had no statistically significant effect on the counts of the monitored microorganisms.
Ing. Veronika Legarová, Ph.D.
Author of the research paper
She studied Quality of Production at the Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. She has worked at CZU since 2006 and, after completing her doctorate in 2011, as an assistant professor at the Department of Food Quality and Safety. She is responsible for 6 courses on milk production and processing. Her scientific career was shaped by her family, which has a tradition in dairying going back several generations. Among other things, her current research includes a project on methods for detecting the adulteration of goat’s and sheep’s milk. As an expert in the field, she lectured in the Philippines as part of an international development project.