Sixty volunteer taste testers concluded that yogurt and ice cream made from mare’s milk were creamy and visually appealing and had a good taste and consistency.
Most people are familiar with ice creams made from cow’s milk and cow’s cream, as well as a number of other ingredients. But can you make delicious ice cream by replacing cow’s milk with mare’s milk?
This is actually possible. A team of researchers from the West Pomeranian University of Technology tested this idea by making four types of ice cream from mare’s milk and various bacteria and reported on the health benefits of these creations.
Consuming mare’s milk is not as strange as some people might think: Historically, the consumption of mare’s milk has been an important part of Mongolian culture for thousands of years. There, it was fermented into a strong alcoholic drink, airag, and is believed to confer as yet unproven health benefits to those who consume it.
Foodies and consumers are increasingly interested in so-called functional foods. Basically, functional foods are foods that offer health benefits beyond their nutritional value. In addition to nutrient-rich ingredients such as fruits and vegetables, this category also includes foods fortified with vitamins, minerals, probiotics and fiber.
Mare’s milk is one of these functional foods. It has a low casein to whey protein ratio, low mineral content, high lactose content, and a composition of polyunsaturated fatty acids. In addition, mare’s milk also contains bioactive compounds, enzymes, and proteins that may have medicinal properties that can help cure or prevent gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. In addition, mare’s milk is more similar to breast milk than cow’s milk, so people with a cow’s milk allergy can often consume mare’s milk safely. Mare’s milk can be used to make various traditional dairy products, such as yogurt, kefir, and probiotic fermented beverages. Therefore, curious scientists have been working to develop the use of mare’s milk instead of cow’s milk in various foods.
In this study, researchers investigated the use of mare’s milk to make yogurt ice cream and synbiotic ice cream containing probiotic microbes and inulin. Inulin is a starchy substance found in a variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs. In the human gut, it acts as a prebiotic that is neither digested nor absorbed in the stomach but remains in the intestines where it helps certain beneficial bacteria thrive.
For their work, the researchers sourced mare’s milk from Poland, pasteurized it, and used it to make four different flavors of ice cream by varying additional yogurt cultures and the sweetener inulin. Tests were then carried out to determine factors such as melting speed, consistency and creaminess, taste, nutritional value, and appearance of the different flavors of ice cream.
The team of scientists prepared 60 ice cream samples, each weighing 50 grams. A day later, they conducted various analyses, including sensory, physicochemical, structural and microbiological. The researchers found that the ice cream melted quickly, but this could be due to its low fat content.
The 60 human taste testers found all ice cream flavors creamy and appealing – both tasty and with a good consistency, although the sample with yogurt bacteria and inulin had a slightly sour taste. However, the color of all ice cream flavors was described as “white-creamy and uniform” and they all had a “pleasantly creamy taste.”
In short: DELICIOUS! Mare’s milk ice cream is a delicious and nutritious treat.
“Mare’s milk is a suitable raw material for the production of yoghurt and synbiotic ice cream, which can be considered a valuable functional food due to the unique composition of mare’s milk and brings benefits to the consumer’s health,” the researchers write.
However, I do have one reservation: Given the dairy industry’s extreme mistreatment of dairy cows (who only live about 4.5 to 6 years out of their average lifespan of 20 years before being slaughtered) and their calves (most of which are slaughtered for veal after a brief stay in a tiny pen), I fear that dairy mares and their foals will also suffer this inhumane outcome.
Source:
Katarzyna Szkolnicka, Anna Mituniewicz-Małek, Izabela Dmytrów & Elżbieta Bogusławska-Wąs (2024). The use of mare’s milk for yoghurt ice cream and synbiotic ice cream production, Plus One | doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0304692
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