Features of fatty acid composition of goat milk and the products on its basis

Goat's milk has recently begun to occupy a signifi-cant share in the diet of adults and children, as in com-parison with cow milk it is easily assimilated in gastroin-testinal tract. Due to the fact that milk fat of goat milk is one of important components of this product, the study of its characteristics opens up wide opportunities for researching useful properties for human beings. There-fore the research task was to compare features of fatty acid composition of fat phase of goat's milk and prod-ucts based on it. In the study the samples of whole pas-teurized drinking goat and cow milk were used. Fat phase was isolated, followed by the preparation of me-thyl esters of fatty acids. Maximum and minimum limit values of mass fractions of 16 fatty acids of whole pas-teurized drinking goat and cow's milk, as well as fer-mented milk products and goat milk cheese by gas chromatography were established. In goat milk and its products, in comparison with the cow, identical levels of essential fatty acids, such as linoleic and linolenic, were noted, while the proportions of caproic, caprylic and capric acids were significantly higher. Studied ratios of caproic and caprylic acids have been proposed as spe-cies characteristic of goat's milk, since their mean value is half that in cow's milk (0.85 and 1.61, respectively). On the basis of experimental data on mixing of goat and cow's milk, the dynamics of the values of this ratio was described by the linear regression equation with a high coefficient of determination R² (0.9781). Obtained model can be used to detect the adulteration of goat's milk by cow.