Abstract
The fat globules of milk are surrounded by a membrane, which contains a triple layer of phospholipids. Concentrated cream is thus a very good raw material for further processing in order to make a powder, enriched in phospholipids. A powder can in this way easily be produced with 20% phospholipids using only common dairy processes such as centrifugation and membrane filtration. Milk phospholipids differ in compositions from existing commercial sources such as soybean lecithins and egg lecithins particularly with respect to the content of two bioactive phospholipids namely sphingomyelin (about 24%) and phosphatidylserine (12%). Sphingomyelin is an active agent controlling the intestinal uptake of cholesterol and triacylglycerols in human nutrition. Intake of phosphatidyl serine has clinically documented effects in maintaining cognitive performance like memory and stress control. A milk phospholpids enriched product thus offers a 100% natural alternative to the well‐established, semi‐synthetic head‐group exchanged phosphatidyl serine from soy lecithin now existing on the market for functional foods formulations.