VATIS UPDATE Article

According to a study done by researchers at Purdue University, the United States, a rapid heating and cooling of milk significantly reduces the amount of harmful bacteria present, extending by several weeks the shelf-life of one of the most common refrigerator staples in the world. Bruce Applegate and other collaborators from Purdue and the University of Tennessee, the United States, have published their findings in the journal SpringerPlus, where they showed that increasing the temperature of milk by 10°C for less than a second eliminates more than 99% of the bacteria left behind after pasteurization.

The low-temperature, short-time (LTST) method in the Purdue study sprayed tiny droplets of pasteurized milk, which was inoculated with Lactobacillus and Pseudomonas bacteria, through a heated, pressurized chamber, rapidly raising and lowering their temperatures about 10°C but still below the 70°C threshold needed for pasteurization. The treatment lowered bacterial levels below detection limits, and extended shelf-life to up to 63 days. Sensory tests compared pasteurized milk with milk that had been pasteurized and run through MST’s process. Panelists did not detect differences in color, aroma, taste or aftertaste between the products.