FROM FARM TO CONSUMER 267 



than 10,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre; inspected milk 

 less than 100,000; market milk should not exceed half a 

 million. This has been discussed under the question of 

 bacteria in milk. 



Milk is also graded upon the information obtained from 

 inspection. This has also been discussed in another place. 



Milk products 



Government estimates show that about two thirds of 

 all the milk produced for sale by the farms of the United 

 States is used for making butter and cheese, while the re- 

 maining third is consumed directly as milk and cream. In 

 addition to the products mentioned, milk and cream enter 

 into the composition of a very large number of dishes that 

 appear upon the table. Further, we have such products as 

 ice cream, whey, clabber, junket; also buttermilk, kefir, 

 koumiss, and other fermented milk products. Some of 

 these deserve separate consideration, as they have a direct 

 bearing upon health. Most fresh-milk products are cap- 

 able of conveying the same iiifections that may be con- 

 tained in the milk from which they are made; some of 

 them, in fact, as cream or butter, are apt to contain these 

 infections in concentrated form. 



Cream. The composition of cream and its general prop- 

 erties have already been alluded to. The subject, however, 

 deserves special consideration, for the reason that it has 

 already become a special industry and contains distinct 

 problems of its own. 



Cream may be the dirtiest part of milk; that is, it may 

 contain many more bacteria than the milk from which it is 

 drawn. When cream rises, it carries the bacteria along 

 with it just as a snowstorm washes the air. For example, 

 Anderson has compared the number of bacteria in cream 

 and whole milk. The average number of bacteria in the 

 twenty-six samples of whole milk examined was 14,338,000. 

 The cream obtained by gravity from this milk contained 



