🥛 Pasteurized milk

Pasteurised milk is milk heated to a temperature below boiling to destroy disease-causing microorganisms. As defined by the FAO and WHO, pasteurisation must reliably kill the agents of tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and Q fever (Coxiella burnetii). The minimum conditions are the equivalent of heating every particle of milk to 72 °C for 15 seconds in continuous flow, or to 63 °C for 30 minutes in a vat (batch pasteurisation).

The method is named after Louis Pasteur, who in the 1860s showed that briefly heating wine to 50–60 °C kills microbes without spoiling the taste. Pasteurisation of milk was proposed by Franz von Soxhlet in 1886, and from the early 20th century it sharply reduced the number of milk-borne diseases.

Pasteurisation is not sterilisation: it does not destroy bacterial spores, so such milk is kept in the fridge, usually for a few days to 2–3 weeks depending on the process and packaging. According to the FDA, pasteurisation has little effect on protein, fat, calcium and most vitamins; vitamin C suffers most, but milk is not a significant source of it anyway.