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Milks Fortified With Specialty Minerals Precipitated Calcium Carbonates (PCCs)

Most of us don’t get nearly enough calcium in our diets. Milk, of course, is one of the best sources of natural calcium, but in North America and many parts of Europe, milk consumption had steadily dropped, even among children. In other parts of the world, especially Asia, milk was never part of the traditional diet to begin with. Fortunately, this is beginning to change, as governments and medical organizations worldwide institute osteoporosis-awareness programs, as well as school milk programs, where every child gets milk each school day.


Calcium Fortified Milk
This begs the question: But why fortify milk? After all, doesn’t it already contain plenty of calcium?

Yes, it does. Typical cow’s milk contains 300 milligrams of elemental calcium in an eight-ounce/250 milliliter glass, or 120 mg per 100 ml. The U.S. government recommends that adults get 1,000 mg of calcium each day, and that teenagers get 1,200 to 1,500 mg. Click here to see the full list by age of calcium Recommended Daily Intakes (RDIs). If adults drank three glasses of milk each day, and teenagers five, they would get most of the calcium their bodies need. Trouble is, that seldom happens, even in countries with long histories of milk drinking.

The food industry is providing two pathways to increased calcium consumption: getting people to want to drink more milk, and putting more calcium in the milk they do drink.

Milk producers encourage people to drink more milk by making it more appealing to drink. Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, and other flavored milks are especially popular with children. They can be bought refrigerated, in small bottles ready to drink, or as powdered mixes, which are added to plain milk or to water. It’s a good way to get an extra serving of milk into a child (as well as an adult with a sweet tooth).

As for the second approach, many countries are already using high-calcium milks in which the calcium level has been raised as much as 40 percent—from the base level of 120 mg/100 ml to 165 mg/100 ml, or about 415 mg of calcium per eight-ounce glass. These milks can be plain or flavored, and either pasteurized and refrigerated or in ultra high temperature (UHT) shelf-stable packages. Some of the popular milk-flavoring mixes add extra calcium to the dry mix itself. Dry powdered milk, either whole or non-fat, also can be calcium fortified, an especially useful tactic in areas of the world where refrigeration is uncommon.

These approaches can apply not only to cow’s milk, the form most commonly consumed, but to the milks of goats, sheep, camels, and other animals as well.


Fortifying Milk With Calcium Carbonate
Calcium carbonate is frequently chosen as the fortificant in liquid milks and flavored powdered milk drinks and mixes. Calcium from calcium carbonate offers high bioavailability—it is absorbed by the body as well as the calcium in the milk itself. Because of its high elemental calcium level of 40 percent, only small amounts are needed to add the extra fortification. Just ¼-gram of calcium carbonate provides 100 mg of elemental calcium. This, coupled with its being one of the least expensive forms of calcium used in foods, makes calcium carbonate an extremely cost-effective choice.

Unlike soluble forms of calcium, calcium carbonate interacts only weakly with milk proteins. Milk also has natural buffers, so there is little change in pH when calcium carbonate is added. Click here to read more about the milk and soymilk protein interaction study carried out by the Specialty Minerals Inc.’s (SMI’s) Healthcare Laboratory.


Fortifying Milk With Specialty Minerals Precipitated Calcium Carbonates (PCCs)
Consumers, especially children, will not drink what tastes (or looks) bad. Accordingly, the choice of calcium carbonate to be used in fortification has a make-or-break effect on whether consumers accept the resulting drink. In liquid milks, a small particle-size, solid precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) should be used; this will leave the milk’s smooth, delicious taste unaffected, and ensure that the added calcium stays in suspension rather than settling out to the bottom of the container. Click here to read more about the role of particle size in the suspension of calcium carbonate in liquid beverages, and about the stabilizers recommended.

SMI’s ViCALity Albafil® and CalEssence® 70 PCCs are USP/FCC products that are only 0.7 microns in size. Particles this small offer far less sedimentation than the ground calcium carbonates (GCCs) of 4 to 10 microns or larger often used in solid foods. These PCC grades are made by SMI in Adams, Massachusetts. They are suitable for milk products that must comply with the Proposition 65 lead limits in California, with the ViCALity® PCC having less than 500 ppb (parts per billion) lead and the CalEssence® PCC having less than 125 ppb.

Even better suspension comes from using a true nano PCC, the 70 nanometer, 0.07 micron Multifex-MM® USP PCC or Calofort® U EP PCC. These products are manufactured in SMI’s plant in Birmingham, U.K. They are harder to disperse than the 0.7 micron products and require higher shear mixing, but once dispersed, they will stay in suspension better and longer. While their lead levels meet the requirements of the U.S. Pharmacopeia, they will likely not be usable in products concerned with California Proposition 65.

For powdered milk and milk flavor mixes, a slightly larger particle, but one with an open structure, is a viable alternative. ViCALity® Extra Light PCC is a scalenohedral PCC with a “starburst”-type structure. 

ViCALity® Extra Light PCC is excellent in powdered mixes as it disperses easily while also helping to separate the particles of other ingredients and facilitate their own dispersal in the liquid. The ultra-low lead version is CalEssence® 160 PCC. This type of product is also manufactured by SMI in Birmingham, U.K. as Calopake® Extra Light PCC, a EP, BP and E170i-compliant product. All of the SMI’s healthcare PCCs are also certified as Kosher.

Use the links below to read more about these products and their uses in beverages and other liquid food applications.

 

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