Camel milk: A review of its nutritional value, heat stability, and potential food products

Abstract

Camel milk is superior to bovine milk and quite close to human milk in terms of its nutritional value. It contains high concentrations of many bioactive compounds that are essential for human health. Despite its profound nutritional and health benefits, food products produced from camel milk are still very limited compared to bovine milk. Differences in the composition of bovine and camel milk make the production processes for bovine milk products unsuitable for camel milk products. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding regarding the composition, bioactive compounds, and the heat stability of camel milk is essential to preserve the inherent nutritional value of camel milk while achieving desirable attributes in the final products. In this review, the properties and functionalities of macro-nutrients in camel milk, especially heat stability of camel milk and its proteins are described. In addition, technical aspects of the production of various camel milk products, including difficulties in their production and directions for further research to enhance their quality, are comprehensively discussed.

Keywords: Bioactive compounds; Camel milk; Camel milk products; Heat treatment.