Difference Between Sterile Milk and UHT Milk

In a time of increasingly troubling pandemic due to a sharp increase in positive cases and hospitals full, people try various ways to be able to "survive". The scene last week that we saw a lot on social media was that people were busy buying up certain brands of dairy products, which are believed to cure and prevent the transmission of Covid-19.

Dr. Ir. Epi Taufik, head of the Division of Animal Products Technology, Bogor Agricultural University, gave his response. According to Epi, milk is not a medicine or a vaccine, milk is food (food).

Also read: Consumption of Milk, Easy Ways to Meet Animal Protein Needs

Why is Milk Invaded?

According to Epi, milk in addition to containing macronutrient components such as protein, carbohydrates and fat, also contains minerals, vitamins and other micronutrients. Milk protein, like other animal proteins, contains essential amino acids and a high biological value/net protein utilization (90%) compared to other protein sources. The biological value indicates the percentage of protein that is actually absorbed and used by the body.

Apart from being a source of nutrition, many components contained in milk have bio-functional or bio-active characteristics. Bio-functional/bio-active means that the components/compounds from milk, apart from being a source of nutrition, also contribute to the improvement of the body's physiological functions so as to improve health status.

These bioactive components have functions including: anticancer, antipathogenic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant activity, increasing body immunity and others.

Consumption of milk in the context of a healthy and balanced diet and according to serving suggestions can help maintain and improve the body's health status, including increasing the body's immunity against pathogens and viruses.

"So it is true that milk consumption can help maintain the body's physiological condition and increase the body's immunity to prevent Covid-19 infection. But people don't need to panic, because all types of processed liquid milk, be it pasteurized, sterile and or UHT from various brands circulating in the market have almost the same nutritional value, so the health benefits obtained are relatively the same," explained Epi.

Also read: Don't Forget Animal Protein, An Important Nutrient During a Pandemic

Difference Between Sterile Milk and UHT Milk

Epi explained that the basic principle of the nutritional quality of foodstuffs, including milk, is that the fresher the food ingredients are when consumed, the relatively complete nutritional content. In the context of milk, pasteurized milk has relatively complete natural nutritional content compared to UHT/sterile milk.

Nutrient components that are reduced due to processing can be substituted by a fortification/supplementation process. Some activities of milk nutrients even increase due to processing, such as the increased antioxidant activity of pasteurized or sterilized/UHT milk compared to fresh (raw) milk.

According to Epi, milk with "certain brands", which had become viral news on social media, is a type of sterile milk. In the context of its nutritional components, the content in the milk is no different from similar types of milk (sterile and/or UHT) from other brands.

“The difference is usually in the raw material or formulation of the sterile/UHT milk. This “certain brand” milk in its packaging states 100% made from fresh milk, however, similar milk from “other brands” is also made from 100% fresh milk. There are some similar milks from “other brands” that only use additional ingredients other than fresh milk, for example: skimmed milk powder, lactose, stabilizer and others,” continued Epi.

In addition there are differences in the manufacturing process. Sterile milk: heated at a temperature of 110-120 degrees Celsius for 20-40 minutes while UHT milk: heated at a high temperature (135-150 degrees Celsius for 2-4 seconds).

Epi urges the public to continue consuming milk and other animal proteins (meat, eggs) as well as vegetable proteins (vegetables, cereals and fruit) as a source of fiber that milk does not have, in order to have a healthy, diverse, and balanced diet.

He also appealed to market participants not to take short-term profits by increasing the selling price of dairy products unreasonably by taking advantage of public panic during the pandemic.

Also read: These are the benefits of drinking milk by age

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