The disruption of the milk fat globule membrane can
lead to an excessive accumulation of free fatty acids in
milk, which is frequently associated with the appearance
of rancid flavors. Solid-phase microextraction and
gas chromatography techniques have been shown to be
useful tools in the quantification of individual free fatty
acids in dairy products providing enough sensitivity to
detect levels of rancidity in milk. Therefore, the aim
of this study was to characterize the short-chain and
medium-chain free fatty acid profile in i) raw untreated
goat milk; ii) raw goat milk passing through pumps
and heating units (plate-and-frame heat exchanger and
ohmic heater); and iii) processed goat milk by conventional
and ohmic pasteurization to determine the influence
of each treatment in the final quality of the milk.
Multivariate statistical analysis has shown that the
treatments studied were not responsible for the variability
found on free fatty acid contents. In particular,
it was possible to conclude that ohmic pasteurization
at 72°C for 15 s did not promote an extended modification
of free fatty acid contents in goat milk when compared
with that of conventional pasteurization. Furthermore,
principal component analysis showed that
the capric acid can be used to discriminate goat’s milk
with different free fatty acid concentrations. Hierarchical
cluster analysis showed evidence of the existence
of correlations between contents of short and medium
chain free fatty acids in goat milk
