From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dairy products are generally defined as foodstuffs produced from milk. They are usually high-energy-yielding food products. A production plant for such processing is called a dairy or a dairy factory. Raw milk for processing generally comes from cows, but occasionally from other mammals such as goats, sheep, water buffalo, yaks, or horses. Dairy products are commonly found in European, Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine, whereas they are almost unknown in East Asian cuisine.

Dairy farm

• Milk, after optional homogenization, pasteurization, in several grades after standardization of the fat level
  • Cream, the fat skimmed off the top of milk or separated by machine-centrifuges
    • Sour cream, cream that has been fermented by the bacteria Streptococcus lactis and Leuconostoc citrovorum
    • Crème fraîche, slightly fermented cream
    • Smetana, Central and Eastern European variety of sour cream
    • Clotted cream, thick spoonable cream made by heating
  • Cultured buttermilk, fermented concentrated (water removed) milk using the same bacteria as sour cream
  • Milk powder (or powdered milk), produced by removing the water from milk
    • Whole milk & buttermilk
    • Skim milk
    • Cream
    • High milk-fat & nutritional powders (for infant formulas)
    • Cultured and confectionery powders
  • Condensed milk, milk which has been concentrated by evaporation, often with sugar added for longer life in an opened can
  • Evaporated milk, (less concentrated than condensed) milk without added sugar
  • Ricotta cheese, milk heated and reduced in volume, known in Indian cuisine as Khoa
  • Infant formula, dried milk powder with specific additives for feeding human infants
  • Baked milk, a variety of boiled milk that has been particularly popular in Russia

• Butter, mostly milk fat, produced by churning cream
  • Buttermilk, the liquid left over after producing butter from cream, often dried as livestock food
  • Ghee, clarified butter, by gentle heating of butter and removal of the solid matter
  • Anhydrous milkfat

• Cheese, produced by coagulating milk, separating from whey and letting it ripen, generally with bacteria and sometimes also with certain molds
  • Curds, the soft curdled part of milk (or skim milk) used to make cheese (or casein)
  • Whey, the liquid drained from curds and used for further processing or as a livestock food
  • Cottage cheese
  • Quark
  • Cream cheese, produced by the addition of cream to milk and then curdled to form a rich curd or cheese made from skim milk with cream added to the curd
  • Fromage frais

• Casein
  • Caseinates
  • Milk protein concentrates and isonates
  • Whey protein concentrates and isonates
  • Hydrolysates
  • Mineral concentrates

• Yogurt, milk fermented by Streptococcus salivarius ssp. thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus sometimes with additional bacteria, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus
  • Ayran
  • Lassi

• Gelato, slowly frozen milk and water

• Ice cream, slowly frozen cream and emulsifying additives
  • Ice milk
  • Frozen custard
  • Frozen yogurt, yogurt with emulsifiers that is frozen
• Other
  • Kumis/Airag, slightly fermented mares' milk popular in Central Asia
  • Viili
  • Kajmak
  • Kephir
  • Filmjölk
  • Piimä
  • Vla
  • Dulce de leche

Some people avoid dairy products for health reasons. They argue that cow’s milk is specifically designed for calves, not humans.

Vegans and some vegetarians avoid dairy products due to a variety of ethical, physiological, environmental, political, and religious concerns.

"Eggs & dairy" is a common category. Some people may define dairy as "food that is produced by animals (other than meat)" rather than as milk specifically. Under this definition, eggs are grouped with milk products. For example, the Open Directory Project at one point listed cooking eggs as a subcategory of cooking dairy products. Defining dairy as limited to milk products, however, is more common and definitely right. Eggs are not dairy, rather they belong to the "meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dry beans, and nuts" group on the food pyramid.

Wikibooks Cookbook has an article on

Dairy product

• International Dairy School
• Questions and Answers on dairy products
• MilkAcademy - Applicable information about milking equipments and dairy farming
• Got Milk?
• MooMilk.com -- Dairy Industry information for children and dairy professionals
• NZMP list of ingredients manufactured from milk