Say cheese to four advancements in processing

On National Cheese Day (4 June), food lovers embrace their love for cheese from cows, buffalo, goats, sheep — and even plants. Despite thousands of years spent maturing this culinary staple, researchers continue with the advancement of cheese processing. Here are four papers published in ACS journals:

Adding whey protein into a semihard cheese

Traditional semihard cheeses don’t incorporate whey protein, a potentially functional ingredient for cheesemaking. So, a pilot study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry tested adding whey protein to a semihard Edam-type cheese by mixing high heat-treated milk (97.8°C), which contained denatured whey proteins, into the pasteurised milk (treated at 72°C) used for cheesemaking. The team found that the new cheeses ripened slower and were firmer, though they also tasted slightly more bitter and had a sandier consistency than cheeses made at the same time without the high-heat milk.

A probiotic cottage cheese

Scientists encapsulated probiotic microbes in edible microcapsules and added them to cottage cheese, creating what was claimed as a more healthful product. The cottage cheese with microbes encapsulated in a 1% sodium alginate and 1% carrageenan gum coating produced a pleasant-tasting semisoft dairy product, which panellists preferred to versions containing higher proportions of sodium alginate. The researchers report additional nutritional analyses and sensory test results for the new functional cheese in the open access journal ACS Omega.

Mimicking cheesy scents with plants

To produce a natural cheese-like aroma, researchers evaluated two fungi-fermented soy or sunflower proteins with coconut oil. The odour compounds produced by both fungi were similar to multiple animal milk-derived cheese samples. Therefore, fungal fermentation could be a sustainable way to produce natural cheese-like aromas for plant-based cheese alternatives, the researchers say in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Leftover goat milk fats from buttermaking

Milk fats in the whey left over from making goat cheese or butter could be a functional ingredient in infant formula. Of three methods to collect these fats, a study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry suggests that adding rennet to the liquid left over from making goat butter creates a product with the best composition, including the greatest abundance of phospholipids, gangliosides and omega-3 fatty acids such as DHA. Using this material to enrich other foods could have positive effects on a consumer’s health, the authors conclude.

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