SC - Re: Beestings-Now Colostrum

[David & Sue Carter]

Glenda wrote

> In the media lately (our very athletically-oriented Olympic city of
Sydney)
> they've been saying that Colostrum is being used by athletes to give them
> that extra (legal) boost. I believe they get it in powdered form. Might be
> worth looking around gyms etc. for it.
>
> Glenda.

The CSIRO (Australia's government scientific reaearch organisation) were
working on the unique properties of colostrum when I was a QA Manager for a
National Dairy Foods company some 10 years ago.  We participated in some of
the projects.  The sports supplement is just one of the commercial by
products of this research.  I would be surprised if it was widely available
yet.  I'd like to think its our secret weapon.

Apart from feeding to calves it used to be considered a nuisence to the
commercial dairy farmer, because traces of Colostrum in their milk was a
menace to processing and attracted hefty financial penalty if detected.  It
is now a valuable item worth separating properly.

Extra info re milk fat: we used to pay on both %milkfat and %protein on a
10day average composition.  Some herds had low volume/ hi fat and some were
hi vol/ lo fat.  Protein was more ameanable to feed quality than fat was.
The highest %fat we had from one specialised herd was 8%, and the raw milk
was undrinkable (unless you liked cream)
The milk after it was processed was down to 3.6%fat  for whole milk, and
2%fat for low fat, less for special varieties, but the lower fat products
always had milk solids in the form of skimmilk powder added to give
mouthfeel.  The most common method of seperating fat is to centifuge the
milk, controlling the speed of rotation controls the %fat of the cream. The
norm is 35%fat as this doesn't start turning to butter so easily. Our excess
cream was turned into THE best ice cream in the universe - Golden North
Honey ice cream (there was once a war for ownership of me because I worked
at the plant that made this stuff.  Helen of Troy WAS just a pretty face,
real wars are fought for FOOD)

Esla
(Now in wine corks, not in ice cream)
mka Sue Carter