Consumption of Cow Milk and Goat Milk: A study among 1AB School A/L Students in Jaffna Municipal Council Area

Abstract

This paper presents the investigation on availability, consumption pattern, and factors affecting the consumption of cow milk and goat milk among A/L students of 1AB schools in Jaffna Municipal Area. From each school more than 10% of the students were selected randomly and questionnaires were given. Data was analyzed using SAS. Proc frequency was used to analyze the data. The data set analyzed contained 134 and 197 questionnaires for males and females, respectively. This included 192 students from urban areas and 139 students from rural areas. Out of 331 students, 67.67% of students consumed cow milk while only 10.87% of students consumed goat milk. Higher percentage of rural area students consumed cow milk and goat milk compared to urban area students. Consumption of both cow and goat milk by male students was higher than female students. About 80.95% of students from urban area obtained cow milk from milk centres, while 62.66% of rural area students obtained cow milk from their own cows. Among goat milk consumers, about 97.22% of students obtained goat milk from their own goats. About 91.96% of students consumed less than 200 ml of milk per day while all of the goat milk consumers consumed less than 150 ml of milk per day. Students who obtained cow milk from their own cows consumed more milk than others. However, some factors such as the living area, gender, availability, price, health reasons related to throat phlegm and milk allergy, flavour of milk, and usage of spray dried milk powder had an effect on milk consumption.