Now, a new comparative study in the Journal of Dairy Science has peered back in time to demonstrate that—despite advancements in selective breeding and changes to farm practices—milk of the past and milk today share more similarities than differences and are still crucial building blocks of human nutrition. On New Year's Day in 1908, explorer Ernest Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Nimrod set sail from Lyttelton, New Zealand, on a quest to be the first to set foot on the South Pole. While the wharf was packed with well-wishers, the ship was packed with dairy: 1,000 pounds of dried whole milk powder, 192 pounds of butter, and two cases of cheese. Shackleton and his crew would make it farther south than anyone before them—within 100 nautical miles of the Pole—and leave behind their base camp. A century later, one remaining container of Defiance brand whole milk powder was discovered during the Antarctic Heritage Trust restoration project(opens in new tab/window), having been frozen at Shackelton's base camp for the past 100 years. Lead investigator Skelte G. Anema, DPhil, principal research scientist with Fonterra Research and Development Centre in Palmerston North, New Zealand, explained the discovery's significance, "The Shackleton dried milk is possibly the best-preserved sample manufactured during the pioneering years of commercial milk powder production, and its discovery gives us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to understand the similarities and differences between a roller-dried milk powder manufactured over 100 years ago with modern spray-dried counterparts." Dr. Anema noted, "Before we had vacuum-assisted evaporation, milk powders in the early twentieth century were manufactured by a roller-drying process involving boiling-hot milk being poured between two steam-heated revolving cylinders so that the water evaporated, leaving a thin sheet of dried milk that would have been milled... |