Characterization of infant formula milk

Although breast milk is the best source of nutrition for infants and the World Health Organisation recommends that breastfeeding should take place especially during the first six months, it is not always possible and, in some cases, not adequate. As a result, people resort to using commercially available infant formula or baby milk, which attempts to mimic the nutritional components of breast milk as closely as possible. However, the commercial preparation of infant formula requires certain treatments to make the product healthy, hygienically safe and nutritionally sound. In particular, stability is the most important requirement since variations in temperature and/or relative humidity may occur during preparation and storage, which may favour the formation of molecules potentially harmful to the baby's health. In this work the influence of temperature on the formation of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and Maillard reaction products was evaluated. The use of reflectance spectroscopy and colorimetry by means of Diffuse Reflectance Accessory (DRA) also made it possible to detect a browning of the milk samples studied, proportional to the increase in Maillard products, despite the absence of a colour change perceptible to the human eye. Finally, the ABTS measurement confirmed that the antioxidant molecules, in particular, are subject to more or less constant changes that predispose the infant to a greater risk of accumulation and intoxication in the long term