Science: Reconstituted Milk

One thousand four hundred seasick cows wished that they were in a nice Kansas City slaughterhouse. They were on their way to Panama to supply U.S. Army men with a daily quota of 14,000 quarts of fresh milk. According to Dr. Charles Edward North, Manhattan consulting milk sanitarian and an enthusiastic expert, the unhappy cows could have stayed at home. The soldiers need never have known the difference.

To prove his point, Dr. North recently demonstrated for the New York Academy of Medicine a method of reconstituting milk dehydrated by a process he has been perfecting for 25 years. Academicians agreed that his reconstituted milk is indistinguishable from fresh whole milk in appearance, taste and chemical content. The new feature of the North milk is its natural taste, the new wrinkle is separation and dehydration of the butterfat and skim milk at different temperatures.

Dehydration of fresh skim milk is done in one of two ways: 1) spraying the milk into hot air chambers; 2) drying it in thin films on heated rollers. Temperature, in the North method, must be carefully controlled. Milk heated above 159° F. picks up a cooked taste and loses some of its protein value. The dehydrated butterfat is made by centrifuging a mixture of pure butter and water at 185° F.—a temperature which destroys auto-oxidizing enzymes. Both dehydrates will keep for at least two years at any temperature if packed in sterile containers. They can be mixed in any desired proportions to make skim milk, whole milk, light or heavy cream, butter, ice cream, even buttermilk.

The process has been offered as a means of supplying A.E.F. and Army camps with sufficient good-quality milk at big savings in money and shipping space, but the post-war possibilities of reconstituted milk are enormous. Many sections of the world, notably the tropics and Far East, have never had adequate milk supplies. The dehydrates can be shipped anywhere as general cargo.

Dr. North also sees a great market for his milk at home if urban consumers can learn to accept reconstituted milk as the real thing and not ersatz. Savings in transportation and refrigeration costs, a flattening of the seasonal production curve could substantially reduce city milk prices.