The proximate, mineral content, total bacteria counts and specific bacteria organisms present in 25 samples of raw cow milk and soft cheese prepared from the same bulked raw cow milk were investigated. Results showed that the proximate composition of raw cow milk and soft cheese samples were 13.18 and 23.17% total solids; 3.60 and 3.35% fat; 9.58 and 19.82% solids not fat; 4.61and 2.56% crude protein; 2.89 and 3.83% lactose; 2.08 and 3.43% ash and 2.44 and 2.34% casein respectively. The mineral content values were, 1016.50 and 1602.40 mg/L for calcium; 893.00 and 971.00 mg/L for phosphorus; 126.50 and 122.30 mg/L for magnesium; 652.50 and 830.80 mg/L for sodium and 2200.10 and 2601.20 mg/L for potassium for raw cow milk and soft cheese samples, respectively. The raw cow milk samples had higher bacteria counts of 19.0 x 10 5, 9.0 x 10 6, 4.0 x 10 7 and 2.0 x 10 8 cfu/ml, while the bacteria counts in the soft cheese samples were, 3.0 x 10 5, 4.0 x 10 6 and 2.0 x 10 7 cfu/ml. In summary, soft cheese had higher concentration of nutrients than the raw cow milk and there were higher bacteria counts in the raw cow milk than in the soft cheese samples.
Raw cow milk, soft cheese, chemical composition, bacterial count
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