Basic marketing principles dictate that the shiniest, brightest objects attract the most customers and catches the most eyes. But what if this attempt of making things super shiny is hurting the quality of the products? This is what precisely is happening with some of the milk containers that have been sitting under LED light bulbs. According to some taste tests conducted by Cornell University, consumers find two-week old milk shielded from the light preferable to fresh milk exposed to LED light for as little as four hours.
This could spell disaster for the dairy companies, as the shopping malls and shops are turning towards more and more efficient lighting, meaning greater use of LED light bulbs. More lights mean more attraction towards the products, but it is certainly not worth it if you are actually damaging the quality of the product itself. As written on almost every milk container, exposure to sunlight and artificial light sources can cause the quality and taste of milk to drop, and this is just another such case.
LED lighting is known to emit the blue spectrum of light, which influences the absorption of light by the nutrient riboflavin. Riboflavin along with some other photosensitive components can then, in turn, degrade the proteins in milk and oxidize the fats which lead to the taste of “bad milk”. This study goes to show that light exposure is a much greater problem in deteriorating milk quality, even greater than the age of milk.
Have anything else to add to this article? Comment below!