We can’t talk about healthy food without mentioning milk. In fact, milk is so rich in nutrients, it’s the first food consumed by babies. Milk is also incorporated in a lot of cooking thanks to its creamy textures and rich taste. The colour white is commonly associated with milk that even in the English language we have the phrases milky white and as white as milk to explain the white colour of something. So where does the white colour in milk come from? Let’s look at the components inside milk. Milk is made up of about 87% of water, which is colourless and several molecules that don’t absorb colours such as the protein casein and fats. We are only able to see colours on objects surrounding us due to the ability of the objects to absorb certain colour while reflecting other colours, which is the colour we see on the objects. However, in the case of milk, molecules like casein clump together to form tiny particles known as micelles. Micelles cause light to scatter and refract as the light hits the particles. As most of the light is scattered, it prevents milk from absorbing any of the colours and thus refract all the colours which when combined will appear to be white.
