Nutritional qualities and opportunities for non-bovine milk in the UK

Milk, in general, is a food of major global economic importance with recent research suggesting humans have been exploiting animal’s milk as a food resource as far back as the Bronze Age (3,000 BCE). Animal’s milk is an excellent nutritional resource, containing high levels of clean liquid, sugar, fat, B-vitamins and calcium. Humans have adapted behaviourally to milk consumption by developing techniques such as pasteurising and curdling and also biologically by evolving lactase persistence, a genetic adaptation which allows the digestion of lactose in milk. The consumption of milk and milk products varies from country to country, from Finland consuming 180 litres per capita to 50 litres in Japan and China. Liquid milk consumption in the UK is relatively high, measured at 102 litres per capita. Whilst bovine milk is the most predominant of dairy foods in the world, non-bovine (e.g. sheep, goat, donkey, reindeer, and camel) milk is also a key source of nutrition in some parts of the globe.