CONDENSED MILK STANDARDS AND LAWS 179 



condensed milk and evaporated milk which went into force 

 January 1, 1907, are as follows: 



"Sweetened Condensed Milk is milk from which a consider- 

 able portion of water has been evaporated and to which sugar 

 (sucrose) has been added and contains not less than 28 (twenty- 

 eight) per cent of milk solids, of which not less than 27.5 (twenty- 

 seven and five-tenths) per cent is milk fat." 



This standard for milk solids in sweetened condensed milk 

 is reasonable, just, adequate and attainable under all normal 

 conditions. Sweetened condensed milk in hermetically sealed 

 tin cans averages about 32 per cent milk solids, and the per cent 

 of milk solids can be increased considerably above this average 

 without injuring the marketable properties of the product. Manu- 

 facturers of sweetened condensed milk well know from costly 

 experience, that it would not do to drop the per cent of milk 

 solids to or below 28 per cent. Such milk would be too thin to 

 hold the. sugar in suspension, the sugar would tend to settle to 

 the bottom of the cans, rendering the product unsalable, though 

 not necessarily unwholesome. Again, this thin milk does not 

 keep well, it is prone to undergo fermentation. The manu- 

 facture of a good quality of salable sweetened condensed milk 

 requires that the fresh milk be condensed at the ratio of about 

 2:1. With this ratio of concentration it is obvious that it is 

 not difficult to incorporate 28 per cent, or over, of milk solids 

 in sweetened condensed milk at all times. 



The Federal requirement of butterfat in sweetened con- 

 densed milk, i. e. that not less than 27.5 per cent of the total milk 

 solids be milk fat, is also, in most cases attainable. In localities, 

 however, where the factory is supplied almost exclusively w r ith 

 low-testing milk, such as Holstein milk, there is danger of the 

 product falling below the above standard in butterfat content 

 at times. Eckles 1 reports that the butterfat in milk from Hol- 

 stein cows kept by American Experiment Stations averaged 

 28 per cent of the total solids. This fact can leave no doubt that, 

 while some of the Holstein milk shows a higher ratio of fat, a 

 considerable portion of the Holstein milk produced must neces- 

 sarily contain considerably less than 28 per cent of fat in the 



1 Eckles Dairy Cattle and Milk Production, P. 33, 1911. 



