A team at the University of Alberta has identified 2,335 ingredients in milk, 168 of them new finds.

The project took nearly five years to complete and now provides the public, researchers, nutritionists and dieticians with a valuable data base.

“It was a tremendous effort,” said University of Alberta immunobiologist Burim Ametaj who worked with biologist David Wishart and other researchers.

The data also documents differences between skim and whole milk and among milks from different mammals.