Condensed Milk
Condensed Milk. When a large percentage of the water of milk is evaporated, and sugar added, a thick syrup is formed, known as condensed milk.
It is made extensively in Switzerland and America. When sealed air-tight in cans it will keep indefinitely.
Its average composition—a mean of 41 analyses by Prof. Leeds—is as follows:
| Water | 30.34% |
| Fat | 12.10% |
| Milk-sugar | 16.62% |
| Cane-sugar | 22.26% |
| Albuminoids | 16.07% |
| Ash | 2.61% |
| ——— | |
| Total, | 100.00 |
Owing to the additional sugar it is impossible to dilute it so that the protein and sugar shall approach the standard of human milk.
Children fed with it are plump, but have soft flesh; they are large, but not strong, and lack the power of endurance and resistance to disease. Their teeth come late, and they are very likely to have rickets.[62] This is enough to indicate that it is not a proper food upon which to feed a child exclusively.
Condensed milk is valuable in emergencies or in traveling, and may also be used occasionally when for any reason the milk supply fails. It has the advantage of being free from ferments and easily kept.
There are physicians who recommend the use of condensed milk, and no doubt, compared with the germ-laden, watery fluid called milk, obtainable in the poorer sections of large cities, it is infinitely better. It should always be diluted with at least ten times its bulk of water.