[Sidenote: Virtue of naturally soured milk]
If milk producers and dairymen understood the superior food and remedial value of naturally soured milk, and would exert some effort to educate the public in its use, they would soon establish a new and profitable industry, and would give the dairy business of the whole country a new commercial impetus. The souring of milk can be prevented by cleanliness, which renders Pasteurizing unnecessary. At the time of the Paris Exposition, a dairy farm in Illinois sent pure unpasteurized milk to Paris, which arrived in an unsoured condition. This was achieved by absolute cleanliness, with the cows, dairy utensils, etc.
Cheese consists of the coagulated casein of milk, together with the fat globules that may be mechanically retained. Cheese is made by coagulating the milk with rennet, which has been extracted from the stomach of a calf, the sugar of the milk being passed off in the whey, and lost.
Schmier Käse or cottage cheese is formed by allowing the milk to sour, and to coagulate by gradual warming. This cheese is usually made from skimmed milk, hence contains practically no fat.
[Sidenote: The several processes of making cheese]
The cheese of commerce is ripened in various ways. The process of ripening is due to the action of enzyms present in the milk, or to those formed by bacterial growth. Ripened cheese is considered to be more easily digested than the unripened product. The best that can be said of this process is that the ripening of cheese is perhaps the least objectionable of all processes of decomposition taking place in food proteids. The only benefit that can be claimed is one of flavor, and, in matters of flavor, the appetite for Limburger, and similar cheeses, is at least a cultivated taste that furnishes evidence neither of merit nor of nutrition.
In the manufacture of cheese, the milk, sugar, and a part of the albumin and fat are wasted, and as there are no advantages in taking the milk in this changed form, there exists no scientific reason for the use of cheese when fresh milk can be obtained.
Butter constitutes one of the most wholesome and palatable of all animal fats, and is probably one of the most extensively used articles of food of animal origin.