What is homogenization?
Homogenization is the process of destroying the natural butter fat cells found in raw natural milk. This process uses extreme pressure to break apart the soft buoyant fat cells, which cause the remaining small fat pieces to blend into milk and no longer float to the top making the cream line. Some European countries have studies that show that this process is dangerous and may strongly contribute to heart disease and arterial plaguing. Our FDA disputes these findings under pressure from the strong dairy lobby. Homogenization is not a required step, but rather a step of convenience to deny the consumer the ability to see how much cream is actually in the milk they buy.
Homogenization is one of the basically important processes of the dairy industry. The principle behind the homogenization is that it breaks up the already small fat globules of milk into even smaller globules and stabilizes the emulsion to an extent that prevents any noticeable rising (cream layer formation) of the fat. Milk to be homogenized is pumped under pressure of several thousand pounds through a narrow or constricted orifice, during which the native fat globules are broken down to uniform smaller size of 2μ.
