ICAR scientists develop designer paneer from yak

The low fat dietary fibre enriched paneer, which is called "designer paneer", has been developed by scientists of National Research Centre (NRC) on Yak in Arunachal Pradesh.

NRC is an arm of ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research).

"This processed paneer is more nutritious as it has more dietary fibre and less fat content than traditional paneer," said K K Baruah, Director NRC Yak.

Dietary fibres have the potential to reduce low density lipoprotein cholesterol of the blood, risk of diabetes mellitus type 2, coronary heart disease, blood pressure, obesity and colorectal cancer, the NRM Director claimed.
 
Explaining the process of making low fat paneer, Baruah said the cream of yak milk is separated by using a cream separator. Then the fat content of low fat milk is standardised to 1.0 per cent.

A standardised formulation and processing steps are followed to prepare paneer from yak milk. Dietary fibres can be incorporated while adding citric acid into the hot milk.

"Value addition of low fat paneer from yak milk with dietary fibre will promote yak milk paneer as a healthy food. Yak herdsmen would also fetch higher returns, if there is a shift in processing from full fat paneer to low fat paneer, by selling the remaining portion of fat as cream or ghee in the market," added Baruah.

Yak is a useful animal as they provide milk, meat, wool, leather, dung for fuel and manure.

Of 14.2 million domesticated yaks in the world about 13.3 million are found in China whereas in India, 83,080 yaks are found in the hilly tracks of Arunachal Pradesh (14,000),Sikkim (5,000), Jammu & Kashmir (62,000), Himachal Pradesh (2,000), Uttarakhand (50) and West Bengal (30).

Yak milk is a rich source of fat with a range of 5.8 to 7.9 per cent, Baruah added.