Why is the butter harder? Last week, the harder butter subject hit the news. TV, radio and all over social media the subject of harder butter was the hot topic for the day.
Dairy farmers were accused of causing this hard butter problem. Some of the world’s milk cows had a little palm fat added to their ration. Milk cows make their own palmitic acid naturally and some of it is naturally in cow’s milk. However, it also is a major . . .
fatty acid in human milk that our mothers produced. Up to 86 per cent of the saturated fatty acid in human milk, but on average 25 per cent is palmitic acid.
When farmers or their university-educated nutritionists balance a milk cow’s ration, the cow’s stage of lactation, whether she is in calf or not, the temperature of her surroundings, taking into consideration her body condition (is she fat or very skinny?) are all plugged into the computerized ration program to assess what feed ingredients to add.
You may have noticed that the dairy farmers start to cut hay earlier than most other farmers and cut their hay three or four times per year. Sometimes the hay that is cut is quite short depending on rainfall. Hay that is cut before it gets mature is much higher in protein and lower in non-digestible fibre than late cut hay. The protein in hay can vary from eight to 22 percent. The early cut hay is very digestible, while late cut hay can be very woody, or like my dad used to say, “Not much better than balsam brush.”
The nutritional needs of high producing milk cows can be compared to a top athlete and she cannot produce to her potential on poor quality feed. It is always a challenge for farmers and nutritionists to supply enough effective, digestible fibre, while meeting the energy needs of the high producing cow.
Some years when it is almost impossible to get the hay cut and saved when the hay crop is at its peak more protein and energy feeds must be supplemented. When roughage (hay, haylage, and corn silage) is not as good as required sometimes even extra fat has to be added to get the energy up in the feed. There are three types of fats that are used. Vegetable fat is a part of all feeds and is usually supplied at maximum healthy levels without adding more. Animal fat is an ingredient of meat, pork, fish, and feather meal but used to be used sparingly because it was very expensive. Other fats (or inert fats) included man-made fats and palm fats. Since these added fats are very expensive, and are not needed when forages are excellent, they are seldom added unless the feed dealer advises their addition. Our farm and many others haven’t used added fat for several years. (Since these added fats are quite expensive, the markup applied by the seller is also substantial.)
So, what else can make the butter hard? When our grandparents milked cows 75 years ago many of the old time farmers separated the milk and sold only cream to the butter factory. The skim milk left over from the separator was fed to calves, pigs or hens. The little five gallon cans of cream were cooled either in the spring or creek. The cream never got very cold and was churned at the butter factory every couple days. Salt was added to the butter in the process and since salt was less expensive than cream the dairy inspectors who visited the butter factories were always checking to see if too much salt was added to the butter. On many farms. butter was churned on the farm. Some farms used a dog powered churn and frequently the dog was missing on churning day. Farmers usually made a lot of butter each fall before the cows went dry so the family would have butter all winter. When butter was made on the farm, it was well churned and worked after the butter came out of the churn. This extra churning and working the butter removed any whey and also softened the butter by breaking up the fat globules.
When bulk tanks which keep the milk cold (four degrees centigrade or colder) became common on all dairy farms, they all came with agitators to not only keep all the milk at the same temperature, but this agitation breaks up the fat globules and smaller fat globules make for softer butter. Now there is an increase in the use of robotic milkers that operate continuously, 24 hours per day. These new robotic milk farms also use an in line refrigeration system to cool the milk as it comes from the cow, eliminating the need for a refrigeration unit on the bulk tank and the need for agitation to mix the warm and cold milk during milking.
As dairy farms grow in size,(many dairy farms in the US are now milking 1,000 or more cows), they use in-line milk cooling and pump milk directly onto tractor trailers and do not use agitation. Most of today’s milk manufacturing plants also use more efficient in-line milk coolers and large vertical insulated tanks to hold the milk. These tanks do not have agitators either.
In a recent letter to all dairy farmers, they were instructed to cease feeding palm fat to all milk cows. This was done for several reasons. Dairy farmers are concerned about the firmness of butter because consumers want their butter to spread easier. The customer is always right. There is also concern that rain forests are being cut down to plant palm trees. Most of the rain forests are being cut to make more farm land to grow bananas, pineapples and mainly soybeans.
Today, there is much less palmitic acid in cow’s milk than in mother’s milk and although some margarine containers state that it might contain up to 12 per cent palm oil, many margarine containers don’t disclose all the fat sources. Grandma used to tell us, “Put the butter back in the icebox to keep it firm.” Now you can leave it covered on the table so it spreads easier.
Yes, dairy farmers feed grass, silage, grain and dozens of other necessary feeds to keep their cows healthy. However, everything is processed by these big healthy cows before their milk is either consumed or turned into a dozen other tasty dairy products.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
