Check sterilized milk drinks

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-29 10:33

Sterilized flavored milk drinks have fewer vitamins than similar drinks made from pasteurized or ultra-high temperature milk, notes Germany's Saxony Consumer Advice Center.

It says consumers could tell that chocolate or vanilla milk has been sterilized if it has a shelf life of a year or more. Such products often are not kept in refrigerated display cases, it adds.

The center advises consumers to carefully read the list of ingredients in flavored drinks made from milk, yogurt or whey. Producers are required to state the percentage of the ingredient that gives the product its name, for example chocolate or strawberry.

The center points out that the percentage is often very small, or the taste is created wholly with food coloring, artificial flavorings and thickeners.

It says flavored milk drinks are unsuitable as thirst quenchers because their richness in calories made them comparable to a snack. Exceptions, it says, are buttermilk drinks and fruit whey diluted with mineral water.