Prebiotic ice cream containing human milk discarded by human milk banks: an approach of its technological properties and composition

Human milk (HM) is a complete nutritional food for newborns and must be the exclusive single food source during the first six months of life. If mothers are incapable to breastfeed, the use of HM from donors is recommended, and for this purpose, human milk banks (HMB) were created. The donated HM is received in the HMB, analyzed, classified, and, if necessary, discarded. It is estimated that approximately 30% of the volume received in the HMB is discarded. The authors are not aware of any work that has given destination to this discarded HM until the present data. Consequently, this work aims to develop a HM ice cream, and perform its physical-chemical characterization. For this, three distinct formulations were developed, varying the concentration of HM, performed the proximate composition, technological analysis, lactose analysis by UHPLC-MS, microbiological analyzes and market research. With this, it was possible to observe that the formulations attended the requirements to be characterized as ice cream. The market research revealed that 60% of mothers would give the product to their children. Therefore, the present study is promising, as it is the first to develop a co-product of HM, which can be used in complementary.