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Milk is a rich source of nutritive compounds which can be enriched and/or further modified. Milk proteins and bioactive peptides may supply new products to help protect against several common health risk factors.
With the demand for personal nutritional needs there is an increasing demand for functional products. Milk contains a range of bioactive components with potentially beneficial effects. Bioactive effects of note include proteins such as lactoferrin and the immunoglobulins, peptides formed during milk protein hydrolysis, fatty acids such as conjugated linoleic acid, minerals, oligosaccharides and melatonin.
Development of new, more sophisticated processing, including processes that are less likely to denature proteins, and processes to recover enriched streams of specific bioactives, will lead to wider availability of milk-derived functional foods and ingredients.
