Breast Milk Cheese
I've wasted far too much of my life wondering about whether human breast milk can be turned into cheese. (Well, it's only a few hours I've wasted, but still, that's far too long.) I discussed the subject in one of my books, and concluded that yes, it should be possible to make cheese from human breast milk.
But then,
a few months ago, I posted about
some woman who said she tried to make cheese from her own breast milk, and it didn't work. She said it was due to human breast milk having too low a protein count.
But
here I see that Mexican artist Raul Ortega Ayala served breast milk cheese and crackers at the opening of a London art exhibition. So if you know what you're doing, it must be possible.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
Well, at least we know for sure your wife's breasts aren't fake, Raul.
Posted by MohawkWarrior on 04/24 at 05:42 AM
Human breast milk has a much lower fat content than cow milk. The first stuff out is very low fat, and almost looks bluish. At the end of the nursing period, when the baby (or the breast pump) gets down to the end of the current supply, THEN you get more milkfat. This is why babies that nurse only a short bit are fussy so soon after - they got just the sugary part and not the big batch of calories! And it's why human breast milk actually tastes like the milk from a bowl of Kellog's Frosted Flakes.
Breast milk definitely contains plenty of protein, mostly whey and casein, plus a number of other proteins. For more than you wanted to know about the specific percentages, see
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/firstyearoflife/whatsinbreastmilk.html
Milk needs to be slightly acidic to make good cheese. If there is enough lactic acid in it, you are fine, or you can add buttermilk, or yogurt or a cheese culture (a type of bacteria). Or a bit of lemon juice. Or whatever. On the other hand, if it's too acidic then it never sets right either, which is why cheesemaking is an art.
To get your milk to make curds, once you have it acidified, you add rennet. This converts the milk protein (casein) from a soluble to an insoluble substance. You have to let it set and gel up, if you mess with it before it sets your cheese doesn't work right. More than anyone probably ever wanted to know about rennet is available at
http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/stomach/rennin.html
Apart from casein cheese, there are also whey cheeses (examples are ricotta, gjetost, or mysost). Gjetost is essentially made by cooking whey down until the lactose carmelizes.
The big problem in making cheese from human breast milk is that it just takes a LOT of milk to make cheese. Most of milk is water, most of cheese is the solids.
Posted by gunnora on 04/24 at 01:00 PM
i'm sure it's possible , but who'd want to do it and who'd want to eat it? big gary creme brulee uses heavy cream, egg yolks, vanilla and sugar. i make it at work often.(a fine dining resturant) just milk could work, but it wouldn't be as good.
Posted by patty on 04/24 at 04:43 PM
i didn't say you couldn't do it, i said it would be of a much lesser quality than at our resturant.
Posted by patty on 04/27 at 05:25 PM
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Category: Food, Breasts