COMPARISON OF NUTRITIONAL CONTENT OF VARIOUS MILKS
David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D.
University of Cincinnati Clermont College
Batavia OH 45103
22 November 1999
This page has been accessed Counter times since 26 July 2000.

A number of interesting controversies have revolved around the differences in milk from various species (especially as to the relative appropriateness for use as milk for humans, notably babies). There are some notable differences in composition of milks according to the USDA's Handbook of the Nutritional Contents of Foods, by Watt and Merrill, United States Department of Agriculture, Dover Publications, Inc, New York (1973).  (See Table I, pp 38 & 39.)
 

I have picked out nutrients from their table which have the greatest variation. (100 mL is a little less than 1/3rd cup):

CONTENT OF SELECTED NUTRIENTS IN MILKS OF VARIOUS SPECIES
Content per 100 grams of whole milk

 
g  (=%)
 g   (=%) g   (=%) mg mg mg
Animal
fat
 protein carbohydrate calcium phosphorous vitamin C
cow
3.5 
 3.5  4.9  118  93  1
goat 
4.0 
 3.2  4.6  129  106  1
human 
4.0 
 1.1  9.5  33  14  5
sheep
 7.02
 6.0
 5.35
 193
 - -
 2.46
water  buffalo
 6.89
 3.77
 5.16
 117
 - -
 4.08
reindeer 
 19.6
 10.8
 4.10
 254
 - -
 - -


One could write a whole paper on these differences. I think the most interesting are:

  1. Human milk has about 1/3rd as much protein as either cow or goat.
  2. Human milk has twice the carbohydrate as either cow or goat
  3. Human milk has 1/4th the phosphorous as either cow or goat
  4. Human has five times the of vitamin C. This is not surprising, since of these three species, only human are unable to synthesize their own vitamin C, and thus must get it through the diet.
It may be notable that the fat content is about the same for all three species. Also, there are relatively few differences between cow's and goat's milk in this table, and yet our experience is that goat's milk is more easily digested than cow's.  Persons with peptic ulcers have said that it helped considerably to consume goat's milk.  Why, exactly?  We do not know.

Also, over many years, we have had parents of young infants come to us for goat's milk because their infants could not digest either cow's milk formula, or soy milk formula, and the mother had dried up (or been dried up by the pediatrician!). These parents have been emphatic that their infants thrived on goat's milk as opposed to cow's or soy "milk." The differences in digestibility of goat's versus cow's is apparently in some category not listed in this table.

We know that goat's milk is naturally homogenized, since the cream does not separate nearly as readily as cow's milk. We have interpreted this as the reason for goat's milk digestibility. However, we have received email correspondence indicating that human milk does separate overnight, so there is probably more to the story.

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