The Case for Butter

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http://realmilk.com/butter.html

 

by Trauger Groh

Biodynamic Farmer, Author & Lecturer

 

 

 

Butter and Honey shall He eat that He may know to refuse the evil and

choose the good

—Isaiah 7:15

 

The use of butter for human nutrition and the processing of milk into

cream and then butter is as old as the keeping of cattle as domestic

animals. It goes back to prehistoric times. The process is simple and

has been in use for thousands of years. Raw milk is put into vats and

placed in a cool place. After twenty-four hours, most of the cream rises

to the surface and can be skimmed off with a flat spoon, owing to the

fact that the fat globules are the lighter part of the milk.

Traditionally the cream is then fermented by acid-producing germs. This

process takes about 24 to 36 hours in the summer and when it is

completed the sour cream is mechanically beaten with wooden tools until

the butterfat globules stick together and the protein-carrying liquid —

the buttermilk — is released. Then the butter is washed thoroughly to

get out all remaining protein particles. Finally, the butter is kneaded

to remove as much water as possible, then salted and formed.

 

Since man began to make and use butter, he made it from ripened matured

cream — sour cream. A change to unsoured or sweet cream butter came only

during the 1940's. The reasons for the change were purely technical.

Machines work most economically and profitably when they run

permanently. Buttering machines were constructed that transformed sweet

cream endlessly into butter. Sour cream at this time resisted this

process. You had to fill the churn with one batch of sour cream, finish

buttering, clean the churn and start again. Thus for purely technical

reasons, people became used to sweet cream butter.

 

The standard book about butter making from 1915, Principles and Practise

of Butter Making by McKay and Larson, does not even mention sweet cream

butter. Here is what the authors say about making butter:

 

" To Produce Flavor and Aroma: The chief object of cream-ripening is

to secure the desirable and delicate flavor and aroma which are so

characteristic of good butter. These flavoring substances, so far as

known, can only be produced by a process of fermentation. It is a well

known fact that the best flavor in butter is obtained when the cream

assumes a clean, pure, acid taste during the ripening. For this reason,

it is essential to have the acid-producing germs predominate during the

cream ripening; all other germs should, if possible, be excluded or

suppressed. . . . When cream has been properly ripened, it is

practically a pure culture of lactic-acid-producing germs, while sweet

unpasteurized cream contains a bacterial flora, consisting of a great

many types of desirable and undesirable germs. "

 

Here a very important point is touched on: Lactic-acid-producing germs —

very helpful for our digestion — are able to suppress all other

unwanted, even pathogenic, germs. Lactic-acid fermentation is far

superior to the heating of milk (pasteurization) in suppressing

pathogenic germs. The pasteurization of the milk dramatically changes

the fine composition of the raw milk. Even warming to 120 degrees

Fahrenheit alters this fine composition that includes various proteins,

vitamins, sugars and enzymes. Homogenization destroys the butterfat

globules so much that the cream can no longer rise in the milk. The milk

is denaturalized.

 

Buttering cream is, as we have seen, a purely mechanical process. The

quality of the cream is the deciding factor, and this means that the

cream should be properly ripened and contain a preponderance of

lactic-acid producing germs. The cream ripening is usually achieved with

the help of a starter. Besides a pure culture obtained by a laboratory,

we can use as a natural starter a great many dairy products which are

supposed to contain a preponderance of those germs involved in producing

the desirable flavor in butter: buttermilk, sour cream, whey, sour whole

or skimmed milk. A great advantage of sour cream buttering is that it

produces, besides the butter, the refreshing and highly digestible

buttermilk. The buttermilk coming out of modern sweet cream buttering

tastes flat and cannot be used for human consumption. True buttermilk is

no longer on the market. What is on the market under this name is not

the result of the buttering process of sour cream. It is usually

pasteurized skimmed milk, fermented with a laboratory culture.

 

At the beginning of this century we still had experienced, old country

medical doctors. When they were called to a baby that had an intolerance

of cow's milk, they often gave the farmers the advice to separate a cow

from the herd and to feed her only good hay— no grain, no silage (which

was not in use anyway), no mangels or rutabagas— and feed the child with

the milk of this cow. Most babies then could digest this milk. If in

some cases the child could not take this milk, then doctors recommended

feeding buttermilk from farm-produced butter. I have myself experienced

such a case in my youth where a starving child could be helped that way.

 

The point I want to make here is that the quality of the butter depends

on the quality of the cream and its proper fermentation. The quality of

our cream depends on the quality of the milk and the quality of the milk

depends on the way the animals are fed on the farm. Cows that are fed as

it is usual in this country with concentrates containing grain and soy,

in addition to large amounts of corn silage and with only a little hay

produce large amounts of milk— 20,000 pounds and more per year— but have

constant light diarrhea and often have diseased livers, a fact that

shows up only in the slaughterhouse. Their milk is of a totally

different quality than the milk of a cow fed with grass and hay. Their

lives are on the average ended within five or six years instead of

twelve to fifteen years that a properly fed cow can reach.

 

After the suffering of the cow comes the suffering of the milk. The milk

has to be deep cooled on the farm because the milk truck comes only two

or three times a week (energy use). In the factory it has to be warmed

up for the separator that separates the cream (energy use). Then the

cream and the de-creamed milk have to be pasteurized with another high

use of energy. Then cream and skimmed milk have to be united again into

" whole milk. " Part of the cream goes into butter. Everything then has to

be deep cooled, transported and deep cooled again before it comes into

the hands of the consumer (more energy use). In the whole process, many

vitamins are lost. No problem, synthetic vitamin A is added. Who expects

this white liquid or this whitish, tasteless butterfat to have any

life-giving properties? In addition to all that is mentioned, the milk

has to be pushed and sucked through miles of pipes that have to be

chemically cleaned. Here —more often than you think— a late new germ

infection is happening in the pasteurized matter.

 

Farm to close-to-farm processing saves huge amounts of energy and leaves

the life forces of the milk intact. The consumers have to fight for the

right to choose raw milk and raw milk products from farms they know and

trust. They have to fight for their rights against the close cooperation

of dairy industry and state veterinarians.

 

This country was based on a concept of freedom. We have to fight to

reestablish the freedom of choice on all levels! The right to choose the

medication I trust; the right to choose the school I trust for my

children; and the right to choose the food I trust from the sources I

know and can trust.

 

A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of The Weston A. Price Foundation

PMB 106-380, 4200 Wisconsin Ave, NW, Washington DC 20016