Removal of fat from cow's milk decreases the vitamin E contents of the resulting dairy products

The present study was undertaken to determine whether decreases in fat cont ents result in lower vitamin E contents. Milk samples of varying fat conten ts (half and half, whole milk reduced-fat milk, low-fat milk, and nonfat mi lk) were obtained from a local dairy on six different occasions. alpha -Toc opherol was the major form of vitamin E (>85%); gamma -tocopherol and alpha -tocotrienol were present to a lesser Extent. As the fat contents of milk products decreased from 11 to 0.3%, the vitamin E contents decreased. For e xample, raw milk as compared to nonfat milk had both higher alpha -tocopher ol contents (45.5 +/- 4.6 vs. 4.5 +/- 0.5 mug/100 g; P less than or equal t o 0.0001) and higher total lipids (3.46 +/- 0.49 vs. 0.30 +/- 0.07 g/100 g; P less than or equal to 0.0001). Vitamin E, cholesterol, and total lipids increased as cream was added back to nonfat milk during production. For eve ry 1 mg cholesterol increase, there was an increase of approximately 4 mug of alpha -tocopherol; for every 1 g total lipids increase, the alpha -tocop herol content increased by 17 mug. These data demonstrate that removal of m ilk fat markedly decreases the vitamin E content of various milk products.