September 7th, 2009
Dairy produce is made from the extraction and processing of milk. The milk is typically from cows, yet can often be made from goats, sheep, horses and buffalo.
A dairy farm usually rears cows specifically to produce milk to enter the human or animal food chain. Dairy farms are common in across world civilisation, although the degree of mechanisation differs. Large dairy farms will use machines to milk cows that produce a high yield of milk, simply milking by hand is now relegated to smaller farms or small holdings that may have a few cows. Managing the production of sufficient milk is tricky for the large dairy farms, as they must ensure cows are milked at least once a day.
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February 7th, 2010
Butter is a dairy product that is derived from churning milk or cream. It’s most common uses in everyday life are as a spread or as a cooking aid, particularly for frying, baking and mixing sauces. Butter can be made from the milk of any animal although the most popular commercial butters are derived from cow’s milk.
Butter has a soft consistency when left at room temperature which makes it an ideal food stuff to be used as a spread. When kept refrigerated it will harden to a solid state. It will melt to a liquid after gentle heating which makes it a perfect ingredient to cook with. Butter consists of a mixture of water, butterfat and milk proteins.
The process of making butter starts with milk or cream. These substances both contain butterfats in microscopic pockets but these fats are prevented from joining together by tiny membranes that surround each one of them. To create the solid butter the milk or cream needs to be agitated to break down these membranes and allow the butterfats to come together.
Butter falls into two main categories; sweet cream butter and raw cream butter. The type of butter depends on whether the original dairy product was pasteurized (the process of killing bacteria and microbes) or not.
Butter made from pasteurized milk or cream is the sweet type and butter made from an unpasteurized source is the raw type. Sweet cream butter is traditionally more popular across the United States and United Kingdom and raw cream butter is preferred across continental Europe.
Other types of butter include salted butter, which as it’s name suggests has salt added during production, and clarified butter, which is made by removing most of the water and milk content from the butter through a process of heating and cooling, leaving almost pure butterfat.
Most butter contains about 50% saturated fats and a relatively high amount of cholesterol. The health concerns that this raises has seen the growth of a range of healthier alternative products for today’s consumer.
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December 22nd, 2009
With the pressures of modern day teaching in schools and the wide array of curriculum requirements that are put in place should schools make more of the opportunities provided by external providers?
The benefits are numerous, ranging from an unknown person teaching a class. This in itself can really provide an insight into how students react and cope with someone who they know very little. Giving the opportunity for the teacher to observe such interactions.
A huge benefit is the range of specialties that can be taught. Nobody can expect teachers to know everything, yet by bringing in outside providers the different topics that can be covered are endless.
A great workshop idea is visits by authors and illustrators, who have published books, provides a great experience to see how books are created from the initial ideas to the finished product. The students can have either study the book previous to the authors visit or after the visit, both can have their merits.
If its not literacy that’s the focus then maybe numeracy. The range of maths workshops ranging from sessions using the number to others using more practical maths where the use of numbers is limited but such criteria as sequencing, pattern and problem solving are more the focus.
This is not to say that all the school workshop choices that are available are the more traditional subjects. There are animal workshops, circus skills, music, dance, and team building or world culture workshops. This is to name but a few. The subjects that are available are all there to really enhance our children’s exposure to different experiences, and really should not be missed.
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November 25th, 2009
Dairy products are foodstuffs that are produced from milk. Usually these products will be derived from cow’s milk, although other types of milk, such as goat, sheep or buffalo are also used. The most common dairy products include milk, butter and cheese.
Milk will usually be processed in a dairy factory after being collected from dairy farms, although some dairy farms will do their own processing on-site.
Milk
Probably the most common dairy derivatives of milk is simply the milk itself. It can be pasteurized to help preserve the milk and extend its shelf life and graded to ensure the correct level of fat remains in the milk. It can then be sold as milk, or further processed to create products such as cream, milk powder or condensed milk.
Butter
Butter is produced by churning milk or cream which agitates the molecular structure of the milk and allows the fats within the milk to join and separate from the other parts of the milk. The liquid left by the churning process is called buttermilk and can be used as a dairy product itself.
Cheese
Cheese is formed when milk is coagulated, or curdled, by the addition of the enzyme rennet. This separates the milk into liquid called whey and a solid material called curds. The curds are removed and will be processed in a number of different ways to form cheese.
There are a number of varieties of cheese which take on individual flavours and textures according to how they are treated, which includes how they are aged, how much they are dried and the specific ways that they are flavoured.
Dairy products are a good source of calcium and protein and parents are encouraged to make sure their children get plenty of dairy in their diet to help promote healthy bone growth. People who are lactose intolerant however will not be able to enjoy dairy produce.
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October 3rd, 2009
Dairy farming is a form of agriculture that is concerned with the production of milk. This milk will be processed and manufactured into a range of commercial products, including cheese, butter, yoghurt and of course milk itself.
Dairy farms will house their own herds of dairy cows that will provide the farms milk. The herds will be left out to pasture for much of the year (depending on the climate) and will have their food supplemented by food sources grown at the dairy farm. Many modern dairy farms will also process the milk they collect on-site rather than sending it out to a dairy factory.
The female cows, known as sows, are the only ones that will produce milk, so dairy farms will sell any male calves born on the farm to be used for veal or sometimes for breeding. The sows produce milk whilst they are lactating – a side effect of the cow having given birth. As such, the sows are on a constant cycle of insemination and pregnancy and rest, a cycle that takes between 12 and 16 months.
Dairy farming has been part of farming tradition for thousands of years and started with farmer’s hand-milking their cows directly into pails. In the beginning, dairy farming would be one small activity of a regular farm, although nowadays dairy farming is a large industry and many specialist dairy farms exist around the world.
More modern milking parlours have automatic milking cups that are attached to the cow’s udders via a gentle vacuum pump. In rotary milking parlours, cows will stand on a moving floor and circle the parlour whilst being milked. The milking process takes around 5 minutes per cow.
The largest producer of dairy products worldwide is India, followed by the United States, Germany, Pakistan and China. New Zealand is the largest exporter of dairy products whilst Japan is the largest importer. The top four dairy states in the United States are California, Wisconsin, New York and Idaho.
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