Tuesday 5 April 2016

Milk and Dairy Products in India

Milk is a fluid that has variety of usage in the Indian cuisine. The various kinds of milk such as whole milk, skimmed milk, toned milk etc, cater to various people and their taste. Milk serves as a base for preparing various types of dairy products. Milk also helps in treating under nutrition.



Dairy products

Milk products can be categorized into curdled and non-curdled products. The items that come under the curdled category are:

  • Paneer: It is prepared by curdling the milk using some amount of lemon juice or vinegar. Whey is completely removed and then the rest is used for cooking.
  • Chenna: It is also made by curdling but little amount of whey is kept in it and it is rubbed to make it soft. It is used to make Sandesh, Rasgulla, etc.

Non-curdled items include:

  • Khoa: This is very much used in making sweet dishes like peda, burfi, etc. It is prepared by continuously heating and reducing the milk.

Other products are:

  • Yogurt
  • Ice cream
  • Shrikand
  • cheese
  • Buttermilk
  • Butter
  • Ghee
  • Flavoured milk
  • Condensed milk
  • Malted milk food
  • whitener
  • Milk powder, etc.

So many varieties gave a boost to the Indian food industry and optimised the need of milk in the country. And you must also know that milk production in India is the largest in the world. India comes first in the ranking of producing milk. In 2013-14, the production of milk was almost 140 million tonnes. Increased milk production in India has helped to decrease the import of milk powders.



Traditionally, people use to collect milk with their hands but today milk is collected by using modern technology from cows, buffalo, goat, camel, sheep, and also donkey. But mostly cow’s milk is used.  Desserts that are made on festivals, and specials occasions have milk in it. Therefore, milk consumption is high in preparing sweet dishes. In India, people love to share sweets during festivals and milk plays a vital role in making these tasty and yummy dishes.

Based on the need and demand of the recipe, people use different kind of dairy products. People who are health conscious uses low fat milk. This milk contains 1.5% of fat content and all the necessary nutrients required by the body. To prepare kheer or rabri you can use whole milk or full cream milk. These variants of dairy products help us to consume the required amount of calcium, proteins, vitamins and other important nutrients. People can easily switch from one item to another to get the benefits of drinking milk. All this needs tends to increase the demand for increase in the production of milk in India.

No comments:

Post a Comment