Milk is a great source of nutrition. It is regarded as a complete meal with which a human body can fulfill all his body needs. Buffalo milk is the second most-produced milk in the world. It differs from cow’s milk in richness and composition in many ways.

Advantages

• Buffalo milk has lower cholesterol but more calories and fat compared to cow’s milk which is good for healthy bones, dental health, cardiovascular health, and weight gain.
• Due to it’s higher fat content, it can be preserved for a long time than cow’s milk.
• Buffalo milk is extremely rich in calcium and is a good source of minerals like sodium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus.
• Buffalo milk is rich in high milk solids (twice than that of cow’s milk), so it is helpful to produce thick and creamy dairy products; especially mozzarella cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.
• Buffalo milk contains more vitamin A than cow’s milk and only traces of carotene that makes the milk whiter in appearance than the cow’s milk. So it is more suitable for producing skim milk powder.
• It is also suitable for people who suffer from cow’s milk allergy.
• Compared to cow’s milk, buffalo milk has higher casein to protein ratio and renneting ability. The high casein content of buffalo milk is known to influence the curd firmness.
• It is also less susceptible to oxidative changes compared to cow’s milk due to the presence of natural antioxidant tocopherol in the large amount.

According to the literature,

• World total buffalo milk production is 95.815  metric tonnes per year where India comes in at the top with 65.140 metric tonnes, Pakistan stands at second number with a production rate 22.955 metric tonnes of buffalo milk and in Bangladesh, the buffalo milk production is 0.037 metric tonnes.
• It takes about five liters of buffalo milk to make one kilogram of cheese, compared with 10 liters of cow’s milk to make the same amount.
• The presence of higher levels of various bioprotective factors such as immunoglobulin, lactoferrin, lysozyme, lactoperoxidase as well as bifid genic factors, render buffalo milk more suitable than cow milk for the preparation of a wide range of special dietary and health foods.

Typical composition of buffalo and cow milk (Anonymmous, 1995) are given below:(click here)