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Milk Is Often: All cheese starts as milk, but the milk may be sweet whole milk, a combination of sweet and sour milk, or a mixture of whole and skim milk. The first step in making cheese is to separate the whey (the liquid portion of the milk) from the curd (the solid particles). When milk is slightly sour, this may be done by placing the milk over very low heat for several hours. In modern manufacture, a culture of lactic acid-producing bacteria is added to sweet milk to cause the separation, and sometimes a combination of heat plus the culture and an extract of rennet may be used.
Dairy Cattle. In contrast to beef cattle raising, milk production for use as fluid milk or cream tended to cluster near centers of human population. This occurred in the days before modern refrigeration was available, and the quick movement of milk to market was necessary if the milk was to stay sweet. Today, with efficiently cooled milk trucks and railroad cars, milk is often moved halfway across the country.
The world production of beef and veal, outside of the United States, is approximately 64 billion pounds (30 billion kg) a year. The consumption of milk is 650 billion pounds (300 billion kg); in the major milk producing countries 78% of this is used for fluid milk and butter, 15% for cheese, 3% for canned milk, and 4% for dry whole milk and ice cream.
Meat and milk from cattle provide nearly 25% of the food energy and 40% of the protein available to the United States consumer. These foods also provide large amounts of vitamins and minerals. |
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