Bovine Colostrum for Human Consumption—Improving Microbial Quality and Maintaining Bioactive Characteristics through Processing
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
See the document attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.docx
Author Response
Dear editor, dear reviewer 1,
Thank you for the constructive criticism given in your comments. We have elaborated the manuscript using your proper comments. We have used most of them in the elaboration. Thus, we, the authors, hope that the changes improve the quality of our review.
According to our opinion, we would like to keep our structure. We have renamed the first chapter to BACKGROUND ON BOVINE COLOSTRUM, CONTAMINANTS AND PROCESSING. Our intention in this review is to write from a different perspective on the three topics 1) bioactive components in colostrum, 2) microbiology in colostrum and 3) heat treatment options and effects on bovine colostrum. Thus, we chose the given order in the manuscript.
Our responses to your comments can be seen in the attached file. Thus, we hope that this solves all the questions and you see our point of view on this topic.
Best regards,
Sylvia Fasse, Jarmo Alarinta, Björn Frahm, and Gun Wirtanen
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper review current state-of-the-art related to colostrum processing. With raising interest in colostrum and its bioactive ingredients, there is a need to understand how different processing approaches wll affect the quality of colostrum, expecially in terms of product safety and IgG content.
Specific comments can be found in the pdf file attached.
It could be valuable to the readers if the authors provide information on the composition of colostrum in form of the table, especially how the composition changes with time.
Another important issue would be to discuss the methods used to analyze IgG content in colostrum.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear editor, dear reviewer 2,
Thank you for your comments and suggestions and the positive evaluation of our review.
Most of the remarks you gave are adapted and we are sure it is improving the quality of our work.
Line 13, 22, 26, 27, 48, 65, 72, 112, 170, 173, 177, 190, 352, 353, 369, 371, 385 and 440, 541 and 574 have been amended according to the suggestions.
The comment from line 95, wherein the question is, when colostrum becomes milk is now discussed in the introduction in line 33-34.
The comment from line 321, mentioning that the shortening “UTI” has to be written out the first time was not changed, because UTI was mentioned earlier in line 283.
In lines 362-365 lactic acid bacteria in bovine colostrum is described. We now restructured the paragraph and we hope this makes it clearer to understand.
In line 385 and 440 the suggestion is to change the terminology from “colostrum produce” to “colostrum products”. In our opinion both would have been fine, but now we changed to products.
In line 548 an additional information was inserted.
The in line 581 mentioned plate heat exchanger is described more detailed now.
The comments on table 3 concerning the indices a and b are now irrelevant because the table has been deleted.
As you see, we almost fully implemented the improvements you were giving.
Best regards,
Sylvia Fasse, Jarmo Alarinta, Björn Frahm, and Gun Wirtanen
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled “Bovine Colostrum for Human Consumption - Improving Microbial Quality and Maintaining Bioactive Characteristics through Processing” has improved considerably in clarity and concretion. However, there is a very important point that MUST be reviewed:
- EVERYTHING MUST BE EXPLAINED IN ALL FIGURES AND TABLES, in a good quality manuscript...EXPLANATION ABOUT COLORS MUST BE INCLUDED. THIS EXPLANATION MUST BE ACCURATE, sentences like “The colors are differentiating various groups of constituents” are not enough and useless to the reader.
I strongly recommend this to the authors. It doesn’t take much effort to do and the result will be much better for the manuscript and the journal.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers,
in this document you find our correspondence to your latest comments. We have used the track changes function to make the changes visible. The given rows are including the text, which was deleted but visible.
Figure 1 caption is on rows 107-108 and is now rewritten to “The various colors are differentiating groups of constituents; green is used for proteins, blue for carbohydrates, orange for vitamins, lilac for minerals and red for lipids.” (on lines 108-110)
Table 1 caption, which is on row 336 is now changed to “Table 1. Harmful bacteria detected in bovine colostrum with pathogenic potential for humans, which is based on the literature given in the table.” (on lines 336-337)
Figure 2 caption is on rows 454-459 and is now rewritten to “Figure 2. Feasible colostrum heat treatment procedures are either decentral on-farm or central at the dairy. The steps within the boxes display options for heat treatment of colostrum, which can be: 1) pasteurization in batches i.e. Low Temperature Long Time (LTLT) pasteurization, 2) continuous Low Temperature Short Time (LTST) pasteurization or 3) continuous High Temperature Short Time (HTST) pasteurization. A part of the heat-treated colostrum is used as feed for the calf. The rest is available for use in food. The green color indicates activities on the farm except heat treatments. All heat treatment alternatives are colored in blue. Further processing of colostrum products and collection of liquid colostrum for human consumption are given in lilac.” (on lines 454-461)
Table 2 caption, which starting on row 523 is now changed to “Table 2. Summary of the effects of processing methods reported as microbial inactivation or microbial inactivation rate in bovine colostrum. The inactivation rates are given based on the measured reduction as standard plate counts (SPCs) before and after treatment (in log CFU/mL). The detected loss in antibody concentration (IgG) is given in percentage (%). [4, 113, 117-119]” (on lines 523-527)
Additionally, we have rewritten a sentence on rows 595-597 to “Numerical results obtained by Lazaar et al. [125] point out that the turbulence depends on the angle of plate corrugations inclination.”
Hopefully the changes have increased the readability of our manuscript.
Best regards,
Sylvia Fasse
On behalf of all authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript was greatly improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers,
in this document you find our correspondence to your latest comments. We have used the track changes function to make the changes visible. The given rows are including the text, which was deleted but visible.
Figure 1 caption is on rows 107-108 and is now rewritten to “The various colors are differentiating groups of constituents; green is used for proteins, blue for carbohydrates, orange for vitamins, lilac for minerals and red for lipids.” (on lines 108-110)
Table 1 caption, which is on row 336 is now changed to “Table 1. Harmful bacteria detected in bovine colostrum with pathogenic potential for humans, which is based on the literature given in the table.” (on lines 336-337)
Figure 2 caption is on rows 454-459 and is now rewritten to “Figure 2. Feasible colostrum heat treatment procedures are either decentral on-farm or central at the dairy. The steps within the boxes display options for heat treatment of colostrum, which can be: 1) pasteurization in batches i.e. Low Temperature Long Time (LTLT) pasteurization, 2) continuous Low Temperature Short Time (LTST) pasteurization or 3) continuous High Temperature Short Time (HTST) pasteurization. A part of the heat-treated colostrum is used as feed for the calf. The rest is available for use in food. The green color indicates activities on the farm except heat treatments. All heat treatment alternatives are colored in blue. Further processing of colostrum products and collection of liquid colostrum for human consumption are given in lilac.” (on lines 454-461)
Table 2 caption, which starting on row 523 is now changed to “Table 2. Summary of the effects of processing methods reported as microbial inactivation or microbial inactivation rate in bovine colostrum. The inactivation rates are given based on the measured reduction as standard plate counts (SPCs) before and after treatment (in log CFU/mL). The detected loss in antibody concentration (IgG) is given in percentage (%). [4, 113, 117-119]” (on lines 523-527)
Additionally, we have rewritten a sentence on rows 595-597 to “Numerical results obtained by Lazaar et al. [125] point out that the turbulence depends on the angle of plate corrugations inclination.”
Hopefully the changes have increased the readability of our manuscript.
Best regards,
Sylvia Fasse
On behalf of all authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
