Butter and Grass
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays sponsored this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Spring Butter Ball (l) and Winter Butter Ball (r)
Springtime grasses are green. Combined with the rumen and mammary glands of the bovine, that green grass turns butterfat from white to a golden yellow.
In times past, people knew that yellow butter and cheese meant higher quality milk & dairy products. In fact, the yellow or even orange color of high quality dairy was so well known that cows like the Jersey & Guernsey breeds were selectively bred to produce a more yellow butterfat. Annatto is still used today to dye cheeses that unnatural orange to fool you into thinking it is a higher quality product. And Ma Ingalls used the juice of carrots to turn their winter butter orange in On the Banks of Plum Creek from the Little House on the Prairie series.
So why did people in centuries past value dairy products by the richness of their golden color? They may not have known why but today we do:
- The yellow is an indication of high Vitamin A content.
- Golden butter means more Conjugated Linoleic Acid.
- The darker yellow tells us the butter is higher in Omega-3 Fatty Acids.
Lois Grazing in the Garden
In our experience, it doesn’t take a lot of grazing to get that golden yellow color. An hour or two on our limited pastures is sufficient to change the color as you see in the above picture.
Looking for more information?
- Check out this excellent post on butter, including a myriad of ways to use it, from GoFrolic.
- Kelly the Kitchen Kop blogged about the Health Benefits of Real Butter for a recent Real Food Wednesdays Carnival.
- Learn how to make butter using your food processor right here at SolarFamilyFarm!
And of course, EAT MORE BUTTER!!
June 10th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
That picture is so neat – simple, yet cute. Is that your very own cow? How blessed are you?!!
Thanks for joining in on Real Food Wednesday!
Kelly
June 10th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
What a perfect post! I particularly love the references to Ma Ingalls and annatto-colored cheeses. Somehow it helps to know that there’s history behind what we do, what we prize, what we value. In the U.S, we’re so far removed from any sense of the historical.
Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade)
June 10th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Get that cow out of the garden!
June 11th, 2009 at 1:02 am
Fantastic info — that yellow butter makes me drool. And I too always remember how Ma liked everything to be pretty and added carrot juice to winter butter!
June 12th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Kelly – Yes! It is our cow! We are very blessed. We have 2!
June 12th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
You are so right, Food Renegade. Another reference to the Little House Books, Farmer Boy specifically: Almanzo’s mother got $.50 a pound for her butter, wholesale. In REAL, non-inflated dollars, that’s BIG dollars compared to the priciest butter today! Something like $20/lb.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Last week I got my first batch of organic cultured raw butter. I was so excited at the difference in the color, i was almost jumping with joy. The taste is incredible and my kids and i were eating it with a spoon.