Boiling milk and nutrition?

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Mellouk89
Mellouk89 Posts: 469 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Does boiling milk affect its nutrition content like vitamins, minerals and protein quality? I like to cook oatmeal on the stove and I use milk because it tastes better, I boil milk for 5-10 mins on average.

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  • peggy_polenta
    peggy_polenta Posts: 310 Member
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    im not sure. but usually, heating foods does change them chemically. i would imagine (but you'll have to check to confirm) that it would at least raise the sugar level.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
    edited July 2020
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    Are you boiling it that long out of sanitation concerns? (I.e., is your milk unpasteurized?) *

    I ask because there's no need from a cooking standpoint to boil the liquid you cook oats in for the entire cooking time. Once you bring it to a boil, you can reduce the heat and cook it at a low simmer.

    I wouldn't overly worry about loss of nutrients. If you boil it long enough you could start denaturing some of the protein in the milk, but you would then have solids in your milk that you would notice and that to me would be somewhat unpleasant, but maybe it doesn't bother you. In any case, the amino acids are still there. If cooking protein made it unusable by the human body, people wouldn't be doing too well eating grilled steaks, roasted chickens, and boiled eggs.


    * ETA: meant to that if you are doing it for sanitation purposes, 10 minutes at a boil seems like overkill.

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