Carryover effects of feeding tropical fresh or air-dried roughage to Holstein-Friesian crossbred dairy cows on nutritional, techno-functional, and sensory properties of mozzarella cheese

This study investigated how different dietary roughages, Napier-Pakchong (NP), jumbo sorghum (JB), and rice straw (RS) fed to Holstein-Friesian (HF) crossbred cows affect the nutritional, techno-functional, and sensory properties of mozzarella cheese under tropical conditions in Bangladesh. Iso-nitrogenous (≈12.54% CP) and iso-energetic (ME ≈2.35 Mcal/kg of DM) diets were fed to cows in a 33-d long trial, and mozzarella cheese was produced from milk collected over the last 3 d. One-way ANOVA was performed using SAS (version 9.1) to assess the effects of roughage sources on different attributes of the mozzarella cheese. The JB and RS groups had greater moisture-corrected cheese yield and fat content than the NP group. However, cheese from NP and RS had a greater protein content (20.7% vs. 17.7%) and lightness index (L* 95-97 vs. 90) than the JB. Cheese from RS group had greater hardness, gumminess, and chewiness, JB cheese had greater melting, and the NP group had greater stretching properties. In sensory analysis, the NP group cheese had a better mouth feel and was juicier but had reduced elasticity. Although saturated fatty acids did not differ, NP cheese contained more unsaturated fatty acids (C18:1 trans-9; C18:3 cis-9,12,15) and a lower thrombogenicity index. In conclusion, roughage sources altered the nutritional profile, color, textural, functional, and sensorial characteristics of mozzarella cheese.