Milk fat adulteration is a common issue in Central Asia. To assess the current situation in the commercial milk market, 17 milk samples were checked for fatty acid (FA) and sterol profiles to detect potential adulteration using multivariate analysis. Analysis of FA and sterols was performed using gas chromatography with flame ionization detection and gas chromatography with mass-spectrometric detection, respectively. Cluster analysis of FA profiles revealed 3 types of milk samples: (1) samples containing a higher proportion of short-chain FA, (2) samples containing a higher proportion of long-chain FA, and (3) samples with significant amounts of C18 FA. Analysis of sterols showed that samples included (1) milk fat containing 100% cholesterol, sometimes with traces of phytosterols, (2) milk fat with high proportions of β-sitosterol and campesterol, and (3) milk fat containing high proportions of brassicasterol. We found significant relationships between FA profiles and sterol profiles. The profiles were compared with vegetable oil patterns reported in the literature. More than 50% of the samples appeared to be counterfeited. We conclude that identification of adulteration in milk can be based solely on determination of sterol patterns.

The organoleptic properties of traditional dairy beverages done with non-conventional dairy species (horse, camel), popular in Central Asia, were rarely described in the literature. To characterize the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) profile of fermented mare milk, 12 samples of cow milk, used as matrix were inoculated by different strains from two types of bacteria (bacilli and cocci) isolated from natural fermented mare milk. The analysis performed by Gas Chromatography coupled with Solid-Phase Micro-Extraction allowed identification of 160 different compounds from the 12 strains, and 90 from natural fermented mare milk. After cluster analysis, 3 types of profiles were observed. Those profiles were distinct by the amount of acid compounds (low, medium, high), negatively related to aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons. The analysis of the mean volatile compound profile of each type of bacteria (bacilli andcocci) by factorial discriminant analysis showed that 3 molecules (oxime-methoxy-phenyl, propanedioic acid propyl and 2-propanamine) allowed to well class 100% of the samples. Further researches on bacterial identification and experiments with different fermentation matrices from other dairy species will beconducted.