Researchers found that new LED lights that are being installed in display cases across the US leave milk with a more satisfactory taste that consumers prefer over milk that has been exposed to fluorescent lights.
Exposure to certain light changes the flavour profile of milk. Milk fresh from the dairy should taste sweet and rich, however, when people described milk that was exposed to conventional fluorescent lights, they used words like "cardboard," "stale," and "painty."
"We want to help figure out ways to return to the fresh taste of milk that our grandparents experienced when it came straight from the dairy," said Susan Duncan, professor at the Virginia Tech in the US.
Milk consumption has been decreasing for several decades and the lighting used in retail display cases that change the taste of milk may be one of the factors for this decline, Duncan said.
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One of the nutrients in milk - riboflavin - oxidises when it is exposed to fluorescent lights. This reaction not only causes the taste to change, but can also reduce the nutritional content of milk.
Duncan's tests show that when milk is stored in the traditional translucent plastic jugs, these reactions can take place in a little as two hours.
Duncan conducted a series of tests at the Virginia Tech Sensory Evaluation Laboratory that showed the new LED lights leave milk with a more satisfactory taste that consumers prefer over milk that has been exposed to fluorescent lights.
More work still needs to be done on packaging to protect flavor profiles even further. Every milk drinking experience should deliver that positive experience, she said.
"The research that is being done around this new lighting gives us momentum to explore other ways that we can preserve the natural taste of milk," Duncan said.