PHYSICOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS ANALYSIS AND ADULTERATION DETECTION OF COW'S MILK

The adulteration of milk is among Egypt’s most pressing problems, which puts consumers’ health at danger in addition to causing significant financial losses. Thus, the current study aimed to detect adulteration in marketed cow's milk in Assiut city, Egypt. One hundred marketed cow's milk samples (50 for each) were selected randomly from dairy shops and retail outlets. The samples were analyzed to look for indicators of heat treatment and adulteration. The physicochemical parameters were determined using an automatic milk analyzer, including specific gravity, freezing point, moisture%, T.S%, fat%, S.N.F%, protein%, lactose%, and added water%, to identify adulteration through partial skimming and water addition. To detect inhibitory substances, milk samples were also subjected to both general and specific testing, as well as heat treatment and the identification of some commercial additives. It was found that the average values of density, T.S, S.N.F., protein and lactose% were lower than the legal limit, according to the Egyptian standards (2010). 86% of the taken samples from dairy shops and 88% from the retail outlets were found to be adulterated by adding water and (4 and 2%) of the taken samples from the dairy shops and retail outlets tested positive for inhibitory substances. It was also indicated that 8 and 72% of the samples were heat treated. As a conclusion, the marketed milk in Assiut city was processed under insufficient control measures, allowing the opportunity for greedy retailers to manipulate the milk in order to increase their profits.