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Article history
Received: 24 July 2014
Received in revised form:
27 November 2014
Accepted: 10 December 2014
Keywords
Camel milk
Freeze-drying
Lyophilization
Nutritive value
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to study the effect of freeze-drying process on camel's milk nutritional characteristics compared with fresh milk. The results showed that the protein, casein, whey proteins, lactose and ash percentage were significantly higher (P< 0.05) in freeze-dried skim milk than fresh milk. The average of mineral contents in reconstituted freeze-dried skim camel's milk was slightly higher than that of fresh camel milk except Ca, K and P contents. On the other hand, freeze-dried skim camel's milk had a slightly higher concentration of water-soluble vitamins except vitamin C. Vitamins B, A, D and E showed relatively stable values after freeze-drying treatment. Freeze-drying process skim camel's milk was characterized by slightly higher contents of all amino acids. Freeze-dried whole milk showed higher contribution of Protein efficiency ratio, Biological value and Net protein utilization than that of fresh whole milk. Freeze-dried process had a little effect on fatty acid profile in camel milk fat. Nutritional properties of lyophilized camel's milk remained basically unchanged compared with fresh milk.
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Introduction
Camel milk is highly nutritious so that many generations of our ancestors survived on this beverage alone. Camel milk is almost a complete food consisting of proteins (mainly casein), fat, salts and lactose as well as vitamins and minerals (Sawaya et al., 1984). Camel milk and bovine milk had similar amino acid composition. Camel milk casein contained most of the essential amino acids in high ratios. Glutamic acid was the most abundant amino acid followed by Leucine, Lysine and Aspartic acid (Abu-Tarboush and Ahmed, 2005). In Africa and the Middle East, camel milk is used therapeutically against dropsy, jaundice, problems of the spleen, tuberculosis, asthma, anemia, piles, diabetes and against Hepatitis C Virus (Rao, et al., 1970; El-Fakharany et al., 2008). Beneficial role of raw camel milk in chronic pulmonary tuberculosis patients has been observed (Mal et al., 2001). Treatment of type-I diabetes with oral supplementation of raw camel milk was reported to be effective and reduces the insulin daily doze from 30 to 35% (Agrarwal et al., 2003). Research has demonstrated the presence of...