By: Thomas Siebertz

Milk has been a vessel with which to deliver enhanced nutrition for decades and this could prove to be very beneficial. Seafood also has many health benefits, but can be inaccessible to some consumers because of location or affordability. What we have seen is many frozen, deep fried, “value-added” products being consumed as a cheaper alternative to fresh fish. Although these products may be cheaper, there is a nutritional trade off when you cover fish with batter/breading and fry it in oil.

Researchers at Virginia Tech have found a way to mix fish and milk. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not a fish smoothie! What they’re talking about here is actually fortifying milk with fish oils to get the added health benefits. It sounds easy, but how will they be able to get around the fishy aroma? Food science, of course! They have formulated a mixture of butter oil and fish oil, so there are no off-flavors in the finished product that delivers 432 milligrams of heart-healthy fatty acids per cup.

Fortifying milk with fish oil sounds like a good idea, especially if there is no flavor or odor of fish in the finished product. However, they are still in the initial stages of product development and testing, so they didn’t mention price; but I’m curious to know what a gallon of this milk would cost. With the current economy and rising food prices, are people going to shell out extra cash to get that added benefit? If people consume more milk because of this, will the benefit of the fish oils outweigh the increased fat intake from the milk itself?

What do you think of this product? Is it something you would consider buying even it caused the price of milk to increase?

Photo Credit: http://www.cartinafinland.fi/en/picture/881/fish+and+milk.html