Methods of obtaining sterile milk and compositions thereof
The disclosure provides a simple and effective methods for sterilization of milk without degradation or loss of biologically active agents in the milk and the products produced by such methods.
1. A method for obtaining a human milk composition comprising:
(a) filtering whole milk through at filter of about 100-400 microns;
(b) heat treating the whole milk at about 58-65° C. for about 20-40 minutes;
(c) separating the whole milk into a skim portion and a fat portion;
(d) adding a fat portion to the skim portion to adjust the fat in the skim;
(e) ultrafiltering the skim portion through one or more skim filters to obtain a permeate portion and a protein rich skim portion; and
(f) mixing a fraction of the processed fat portion with the protein rich skim portion to obtain a human milk composition.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the whole milk comprises pooled human milk.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising testing a sample of the whole milk for the presence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) or any combination thereof prior to filtration.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the filtering of whole milk is performed through a filter-screen of about 200 microns.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the heat treating of the whole milk is at about 63° C. for about 30 minutes.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the skim portion following separation comprises about 0.69% fat, about 1.07% protein, and about 7.14% lactose.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the fat portion following separation comprises about 46% fat, about 2% protein, and about 10% lactose.
8. The method of claim 1 or 7 , wherein the fat portion is further processed to obtain additional skim.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the additional skim is pooled with the skim portion.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein a fat portion is added to the skim portion in step (d) in an amount sufficient to obtain a fat concentration in the skim portion of about 55% to about 65% of the protein content of the skim portion.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the protein rich skim portion comprises about 8% protein.
12. The method of claim 1 or 11 further comprising washing the one or more skim filters with permeate to obtain a protein wash and adding the protein wash to the protein rich skim portion.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the human milk composition is pasteurized.