Abstract: Milk consumption is one of the basic food habits that a person consumes for proper calcium and phosphorous required for the healthy growth of bones and teeth. It is also an essential ingredient for the growth and proper functioning of the body. However, a recent report published by DU professor ABM Faroque on the presence of antibiotics in pasteurized milk has brought about this topic in limelight. Consumers are now showing diversified consumption attitudes towards consuming pasteurized milk. This study has tried to analyze the factors that affect the consumption of pasteurized milk. For this, the consumption frequency has been selected as the outcome variable and the determinants of milk consumption (family income category and strength of belief on antibiotic scandal report) have been measured on the identified outcome variable. Interestingly, this study has found an inverse relationship between the family income category and the consumption of pasteurized milk. The estimated result with the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method for the family income category indicates that if a person graduates from one income category to another then milk consumption decreases by .254 unit. This study also found a negative relationship between the consumption of pasteurized milk and the strength of belief in this report and this result matches our expectation. Therefore, concluding remarks is that believing this report has a significantly negative impact on the pasteurized milk consumption of Dhaka university students.
Keywords: Pasteurization, Antibiotic scandal, Whole milk, Semi-skimmed milk, Food contamination