Feasibility study and optimization of infant formula production using a mixture of camel milk and cow milk

Abstract

Breast milk is the best food for the baby and infant formula is an essential food for infants who are deprived of breast milk. There has been a lot of research on the optimization of infant formula that uses different milks. The composition of camel milk is close to human milk and is important in terms of nutritional properties, non-food allergy and medicinal value and therapeutic applications, and this can be an appropriate alternative to cow’s milk in infant formula. In the present study, the effect of replacing cow’s milk with camel’s milk in infant formula was investigated. The number of treatments was determined by using the Mixture Design method and the necessary tests were performed for infant formula and physicochemical and qualitative tests including moisture, dry matter, measurement of color parameters, density, particle size, insoluble index, pH, acidity, total sugar, fat, protein, ash, vitamin C, minerals, aflatoxin M1, wettability acceptable and scorched particles were done. The results showed that adding camel’s milk to cow’s milk could meet 87.3% of our expectations for the production of infant formula from camel’s milk and not have an adverse effect on the physicochemical properties of the formula.

Keywords:
camel milk; cow milk; infant formula; mixture design; optimization