Efficacy of herbal flavoured sterilized milk-a dairy based nutraceutical

People all over the world are becoming more health conscious, besides taking regular exercises they pay more attention to what they eat in order to maintain a healthy body. As a result, herbal products, in the form of food supplements and health drinks, have gained increasing popularity among consumers of all ages. Therefore an attempt has been made to incorporate herbs in milk. The experimental herbal flavored sterilized milk was coded as T₁, T₂ and T₃ from double toned milk with the addition of sugar and honey in the ratio 1:1, 2:3,1:2, herbal extract (10%,15%,20%), kesar flavor (1,1.5,2) ml/l, colour (0.4,0.6,0.8) g/l and stabilizer (0.2%,0.3%,0.4%). T₀ represented the control with the addition of 8% sugar,0.5 ml/l flavour,0.2 g/l colour and no honey, herbal extract and stabilizer. The different samples were replicated six times and evaluated for organoleptic, physic-chemical and microbiological quality. It was therefore, concluded that the treatment T₁ (1:1 sugar and honey ratio,10% herbal extract,1 ml/l kesar flavor,0.4 g/l colour and 0.2% stabilizer) was at par with the control in terms of organoleptic and physico-chemical attributes. All the treatments were equally good in terms of microbiological quality. The product has good palatability and can be of great importance as a general health drink as it can be consumed to lower the blood sugar and cholesterol level. Thus, it can be said that the herbs can be incorporated in the milk.