Mother's milk, like the milk of many other animals such as dairy cows,
can acquire a variety of flavors from not just what the mother eats
but presumably how the milk is handled.  When we first started doing
the flavor analyses of the milk, we decided to do work on fresh milk
samples only because of the development of off-flavors (it's
interesting to note that this nomenclature also applies to flavors
from the mom's diet - there's nothing "off" about that!!).  Because
of the high lipase activity in milk, I often tell moms to
gradually bring the milk down to room temperature after freezing and
not to shake it since this may change its flavor.

The possibility that the vitamins or tums is altering the milk flavor
is likely; we always have the moms in our studies take their
multi-vitamin in the evening because we sometimes noticed a sour odor.  But
infants usually readily accept their mother's milk.....perhaps some
type of reaction occurs once it's expressed.

The issue of applying dairy standard to human milk is an interesting
one that was first investigated at the University of Manitoba in the
70s. Using adult sensory panels to evaluate the taste of milk, they found
that the sweetness and textural properties varied
from mother to mother.  (Each baby's experience is unique!) When we started
researching whether the flavors from the mother's diet could be transmitted to her
milk, we were unable to use taste panel because of the issue of HIV.   Since
then we have developed methods where panels evaluate the odor of milk
(odor is the primary component of flavor) and we have also developed
methods where mothers evaluate their own milk.  In summary, I think it will
be difficult to apply dairy standard to human milk but perhaps some evaluation could
be done on its odor profile.

Regards,
Julie Mennella
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Julie Mennella
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