Healthier milk could cut sat fat consumption

Scientists at the University of Reading are in talks with leading milk processors about developing milk and dairy products with significantly less saturated fat.

The saturated fat content of milk could be cut from 70% to 55% by developing cattle feed rich in rapeseed oil. That’s according to professor Ian Givens, director of Reading University’s animal sciences research group and a researcher on the EU-funded Lipgene project.

Rapeseed oil was rich in healthier mono-unsaturated fatty acids and enabled cows to produce milk with around 30% mono-unsaturates compared to 20% in standard milk, he said. “There has been a lot of commercial interest in our work.”Encouraging these changes in its fatty acid profile did not appear to alter the shelf-life or sensory qualities of milk, he added. “However, we do need to do more testing on other dairy products made using the milk such as cheese.”

Widespread adoption of this kind of milk could go a long way to helping Britons meet Food Standards Agency (FSA) targets for reducing saturated fat intakes from 13.4% to below 11% of food energy, said Givens.

It was also preferable to simply cutting back on dairy consumption, he said. “There is evidence that milk products contain compounds that actively promote cardiovascular health as well as containing key nutrients such as calcium. They may also play a particular role in the diet of older people. This strongly suggests that simply reducing consumption of milk and dairy is not a sensible way to reducing saturated fatty acid intakes.”

Fats expert Geoff Talbot said: “If we could achieve a 25% reduction in saturates in milk, then this would give a reduction of about 0.75% in dietary energy from saturates.”

However, more research was needed to ascertain the impact this might have on products made with milk with the new fatty acid profile, he said: “The less saturated fat there is in butter, the lower its melting point. This could be considered a functional advantage making it potentially easier to spread the butter directly from the fridge. However, reducing the saturates level could give a functional disadvantage to cream, making it more difficult to whip and aerate.”

Lipgene is an EU-funded project exploring how altering the fatty acid composition of the diet could help tackle metabolic syndrome, which is associated with a clutch of potentially life threatening conditions, from obesity to heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The project has several strands, including plant biotechnology (developing transgenic plants with long chain omega-3 fatty acids currently only found in fish and algae); animal nutrition and human nutrition.

A second area of research at Reading as part of Lipgene has been enriching poultry meat with long-chain omega-3 fatty acids through feeding chickens fish oil, said Givens. However, researchers have also had to add high levels of vitamin E to feed as an antioxidant to ensure the stability of the meat throughout its shelf-life, he said. “We are talking to companies about commercialising this, as there is clearly a lot of potential as so few people regularly eat oily fish. By contrast, 80% of UK consumers are habitual consumers of poultry meat.”

Separately to the Lipgene project, scientists at the university have explored methods to increase selenium intakes through feeding animals selenium-enriched yeast to produce milk and meat products containing the essential nutrient. Dr Darren Juniper, who has been leading the project, said: “In my opinion, this is a far better method of increasing selenium intakes in the population than supplementation with selenite, or adding selenium to fertilisers and enriching the soil. It’s much more controlled.”

Selenium is believed to boost fertility, cardiovascular and immune system health, and reduce the risk of several cancers. However, UK consumption is well below recommended levels.

Other exciting work was also in progress to explore the potential of dairy ingredients in weight management, said Givens. “We’re only six months into a two-year project, but we want to explore how dairy components affect hormones linked to satiety and appetite regulation.”