Browsing by Subject "vertailu"

There has been demand for enhancing organic production in the dairy. Organic milk is the most popular organic product at the market in Finland. Bovine milk has many valuable nutritious ingredients; protein, fatty acids and vitamins. Still, there are also some nutrients in the milk, which are considered harmful for human health. Milk contains medium chain saturated fatty acids (SFA), which are suspected to increase the risk of cardiovascular dis-eases, obesity and type-2-diabetes in human. The omega-6 fatty acids are appropriated to increase the risk of some cancers. Organic cows have to graze during the grazing season according to the rules of organic production. Grazing increases the content of multiunsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) in the milk and at the same time decreases the amount of SFA. Grazing enhances the vitamin content of the milk from organic cows according to some previous studies. The cows in the conventional production have higher milk yields than cows in the organic production. The aim of the study was to examine if there are some differences in the composition of cow`s milk between organic and conventional production. The study used meta-analysis, a method which uses all the available results from the previous peer reviewed studies. There were small differences between organic milk and conventional milk. Organic milk contained more alfalinoleic acid, conjugated linolic acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and omega fatty acids than conventional milk. The ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids was greater in organic milk than in conventional milk, which is regarded healthier for hu-mans. On the contrary the content of linoleic acid was greater in organic milk than in con-ventional milk. No difference in the vitamin content was observed. The milk yield per cow was about 3 kg d-1 greater in conventional production than in organic production.