Intrinsic Thermal Stability and Improvement Strategies of Goat Milk: The Roles of Protein Composition and Structure

Goat milk has gained increasing attention as a nutritionally rich and digestible alternative to cow milk, yet its industrial utilization remains limited by its low thermal stability. Proteins play a central role in determining this thermal fragility. However, current understanding of goat milk thermal stability remains fragmented, and a systematic synthesis is still lacking. Focusing on goat milk proteins, this review synthesizes current evidence and compares goat milk with cow milk to clarify how differences in protein composition and structure contribute to its relatively low thermal stability. Furthermore, an integrated temperature-dependent framework is proposed to unify the structural transitions and aggregation behavior of goat milk proteins reported under different thermal processing conditions. Within this framework, current stabilization strategies are comparatively evaluated, with particular emphasis on their mechanisms and practical feasibility. Overall, this review provides an integrated and systematic perspective on the heat instability of goat milk proteins. At the same time, the synthesis highlights several remaining knowledge gaps, particularly in protein interaction mechanisms within complex milk matrices and in the lack of standardized methods for evaluating thermal stability, which deserve further investigation.