FAO handbook 2013: donkey milk in a worldwide comparison of types of milk

Background

Who, when, what kind of text

In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based in Rome, published the edited volume “Milk and dairy products in human nutrition”. In nine chapters it brings together data on milk production, composition and nutritional questions; the chapters were written by FAO experts and external authors.

Chapter 3 by Ramani Wijesinha-Bettoni and Barbara Burlingame (FAO Nutrition Division) contrasts the milk of the “major dairy species” (cow, buffalo, goat, sheep) with the “minor dairy species”. The latter include yak, mithun, musk ox, horse, donkey, dromedary, Bactrian camel, llama, alpaca, reindeer and moose.

The book is a review: it evaluates published studies and does not collect its own measurement data. According to a footnote, the values in Table 3.3 go back to a compilation by Medhammar et al. (2011).

Content

What the source reports about donkey milk

Table 3.3 (p. 48) gives average values per 100 g for donkey milk: 90.8 g water (range 89.2–91.5), 1.6 g total protein (1.4–1.8), 0.7 g fat (0.3–1.8), 6.4 g lactose (5.9–6.9) and 0.4 g ash (0.3–0.4). The calculated energy value is 156 kJ (37 kcal); the value reported in studies is 210 kJ (50 kcal).

The section “Mare and donkey milks” (pp. 54–55) states that mare’s and donkey milk did not differ significantly in protein, fat, lactose, ash and water. Both contained considerably less fat and protein than cow’s milk; their ash content of 0.3–0.5 g/100 g was below that of cow’s milk (0.7 g/100 g).

On milk fat, the chapter reports more than 20 g of polyunsaturated fatty acids per 100 g of total fatty acids in mare’s and donkey milk, compared with about 6 g in cow’s milk; saturated fatty acids average 55 g/100 g in donkey milk. For donkey milk, 4 g of alpha-linolenic acid and 6 g of linoleic acid per 100 g of total fatty acids are given. The authors attribute this to the fact that equids are not ruminants.

For lysozyme, the book cites Uniacke-Lowe, Huppertz and Fox (2010) with 100–200 mg per 100 g of donkey milk, compared with 7–13 µg per 100 g of cow’s milk. The casein share of total protein in equine milk is given as 40–45 per cent.