Great question! Lactose is the natural occurring sugar in milk. There are a few different ways to make milk lactose free. First is by adding an enzyme to the milk, which breaks down lactose into two simple sugars, galactose and glucose. This is the process you body naturally goes through when digesting milk, but not everyone has enough of the lactase enzyme. The second is a process called ultra-filtration. The ultra-filtration process separates all of the different parts of milk (fat, protein, lactose, etc) so they can be “reassembled” how a processor wants them to be. A processor can then replace the lactose sugars with a different sweetener.
At Turner’s we prefer the way that our bodies naturally process food. By adding an enzyme to the milk that breaks the lactose down into simple, easy to digest sugars. These simple sugars give the product a sweeter taste without adding any additional sugar! This process takes 27 hours for the lactase enzyme to fully breakdown all of the lactose sugars.
Before packaging, we test every batch to verify that it is below the threshold of what is considered lactose free milk. For milk to be considered lactose free there must be less than 0.01% lactose by volume.
We simply let it sit for another few hours while the enzyme does its job – continuing to break down the lactose.
Yes! Turner’s FRESH Lactose Free Milk has the quality of nutrition as our other milk products. Lactose-Free milk is a good source of protein, calcium, phosphorus, Vitamins B12 and D, and Riboflavin.
Turner’s FRESH Lactose Free milk is a product is locally sourced from 40 family owned farms within an hour of our facility in Penn Hills, PA.
