New LED lights that are being installed in milk display cases across the country do more than just reduce energy bills -- they also help milk taste better, Virginia Tech researchers have found.
Exposure to certain types light changes the flavor profile of milk. Milk fresh from the dairy should taste sweet and rich but when people describe milk that was exposed to conventional fluorescent lights, they used words like “stale” and “painty.” The Virginia Tech researchers found that the new LED lights reduce those negative profiles, but said there is still work to be done in packaging to ensure milk tastes like it should.
“We want to help figure out ways to return to the fresh taste of milk that our grandparents experienced when it came straight from the dairy,” said Susan Duncan, a professor of food science and technology in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Duncan's findings were recently published in the Journal of Dairy Science.
Milk consumption has been decreasing for several decades and Duncan said that the lighting in retail display cases may be one of the factors for this decline. One of the nutrients in milk — riboflavin — oxidizes when it is exposed to fluorescent lights, changing the taste and affecting the nutritional content of the milk. Duncan's tests showed that milk stored in translucent plastic jugs can change taste in as little as two hours.
Duncan conducted a series of tests at the Virginia Tech Sensory Evaluation Laboratory that showed the new LED lights leave milk with a more satisfactory taste that consumers prefer over milk that has been exposed to fluorescent lights.