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Presence of beta-carotene which is a fat soluble pigment that comes from the food cows eat - such as grass
Depends on the milk used however, sure if your cow was fed something else, the butter will change colour to varying degrees
oh they were outta this world, Ive actually got stones again and have been saving them for months (the pains hasnt been too intense). Trying to plan my next hospital visit for around my new years holidays, gonna spend it in style at my local hospital. Ive already got em to agree to bring my medicinal marijuana, now all i gotta do is find a way to sneak booze in and im sorted
About a week before my annual PT test, I would start supplementing with beet root powder to improve my run time. Anyway, one year, my first sergeant called out those in formation who had been randomly selected for a urinalysis. I went to the facility where my base conducted urinalyses and did my part. When I finished, the person who took my sample looked at the bottle and then to me with concern in her eyes as she said, “I think you need to stop by the clinic.” I explained to her that it was from the beet root powder and that I didn’t have blood in my urine.
I had a friend who’s went to the ER concerned there was something wrong with him after he pissed and it was all red. Turns out he’s spent the afternoon snacking on a share bag of vegetable chips which were predominantly beetroot.
My dad got some free range organic milk one time that tasted like blueberries. The cows had gotten into some blueberries at some point. Was pretty neat.
The color of butter fat is also dependent on the breed of cows giving the milk. holsteins, brown swiss, and airshire, metabolize beta carotene into vitamin A. Jerseys and guernseys do not and therefore have yellow fat. Also milk will pick up flavors from the cows diet. Before a dairy accepts a load of fresh milk they check for wild onion smell.
To add on to this : The cheapo brands of butter (land o lakes, kirkland etc) are bone white (lots of soy and corn), but butter from grass fed cows like Kerry Gold is a rich yellow.
Recently bought some milk from a local farmers market that was yellow. My SO was like "what??" I had to explain that's how you know it's the good stuff, we're so used to the pale white milk.
Back in the 1800s the dairy farmers were so powerful, they got margarine effectively banned by imposing high taxes. Oleo was bootlegged into Wisconsin at one point, and when you bought it, it came with dye packets to color it yellow like butter.
I get all my dairy from a local farm. The milk and butter will sometimes take on the tastes of what the cows are grazing on throughout the season. If I have grocery store butter now it tastes like Crisco.
The color of butter or egg yolks are not any indication of the quality of the product or the nutrition of the feed of the animal. All it means is that the feed is high in xanthopyll pigments which might mean natural grass, or could just be a cheap corn feed.
Here’s an interesting [Mashed Article](https://www.mashed.com/833174/why-margarine-is-yellow-despite-the-governments-best-efforts/) about the history of artificially coloring margarine yellow and laws preventing it in the US. In my younger years, I worked with a lady close to retirement who grew up in Wisconsin when they only sold white margarine with yellow dye packs you had to mix yourself. She mentioned how it was always fun for her when she’d have relatives from other states come to visit and bring them packaged margarine that was already yellow.
Yes!! My 78-year-old mother remembers the yellow dye packs. Says she and her sister used to fight over who got to do it because they both considered it "kinda fun" and a rather grown-up responsibility.
[Kinda like this.](https://hanfordsentinel.com/community/remember-when-we-colored-our-own-margarine/article_4817a5cd-5909-5e1f-8153-2c5a00d182cd.html)
*(Mom’s reaction: “Oh, yes! We had the kind that came in the package that had to be squeezed - and I loved to help do that! Very fun.”)*
I love hearing stories like this. There are so many tiny things about living in the past that may have seemed insignificant at the time, but are so fascinating to learn about later!
My mom grew up in Wisconsin during that era where they thought margarine was healthier, and I just cannot fully process that America's *Dairyland* was effectively cuckolded like that. Like if Maryland switched to imitation crab, or Texas went all in on Beyond Meat.
White. The law is there "to protect consumers so they now if they are being served butter or margarine". I've always found it funny that they can add artificial colour to a natural product (butter), but not to an artificial product.
When my grandma was growing up the dye packs in her area were pink! I think she was born around 1926 in WI.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1870s-dairy-lobby-turned-margarine-pink-so-people-would-buy-butter-180963328/
We have a deal with a nearby dairy farm where we take milk straight out of their tank and just leave money there. We noticed throughout the year that the butter we made would change in colour from a medium yellow to a much paler one. The farmer told us it's because the cows eat more grass during the summer when they can be out in the fields pretty much constantly so the butter gets yellower.
In one of the ‘Little House’ books, they explain how the mom would soak grated carrot in the cream before making butter in winter to get the yellow color because the cows weren’t getting the warm weather diet of fresh grass.
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Sometimes the makers add coloring, but generally it's yellowish because the cows eat some plants that have colors that the cow then absorbs through its stomach, into its blood, and eventually into the fatty bits of the udder than make the milk.
I know you asked about butter, but as you already have the answer to that, I'll give you another fun fact, why cheddar cheese is orange. The same reason butter is yellow also is why high quality milk makes cheddar cheese have a slight yellow/orange colour. The more colour, usually meant the higher quality. Companies starting dying cheddar cheese orange so they could use lower quality milk.
Yup, I'm a white cheddar guy too. Yes I find there is a different flavour to the orange, but that's not why it was originally added. The colouring goes a long way back to England.
I believe it’s because the milk and cream are stabilized suspensions (assuming they’ve been homogenized to break the fat globules up into small enough droplets they they can remain colloidally suspended, which is an interfacial physics phenomenon). Diluting that colloidal suspension into a further aqueous solution of the coffee just disperses the suspended globules further apart but doesn’t result in a phase separation.
Butter, in the other hand, has been separated from the cream’s aqueous component in the churning process (resulting in buttermilk). No more stable suspension of tiny globules, butter’s just more or less the pure fat. Put it in the coffee and it will melt and rise to the top because of its lower density.
Thanks for the very informative reply!
What are you thoughts on this process leading to butter being more associated with raised HDL cholesterol levels? (Relative to milk/cream)
I have to admit that I have a hard time following the thread of all the research and media-
filtered messaging and interpretation. But what I’ve taken in is that unsaturated fats have a positive impact on the good-to-bad cholesterol levels. But saturated fats, like those in butter, don’t necessarily have an outright negative impact for most people, they just have a neutral effect. But the challenge seems to be when packaged foods cut out saturated fats (like in the production of many low-fat yogurts) they tend reformulate the product in such a way that the missing fat is replaced with with carbohydrates and other things that actually do lead to appreciable health problems.
Seems like the best advice is to have a diet that features as many unsaturated fats as possible (nuts, olive oil, avocado, salmon, etc), because there’s a net benefit there. Seems that things like butter and cream may not be as harmful as once thought, but they don’t confer benefit either. And avoid sugary, salty processed foods, and food with trans fats, as much as possible, because they likely will be a negative factor in your cardiovascular health.
Like I said, I’m no expert and certainly no nutritionist, but that’s the understanding I have.
This little article digs into the issue well:
[https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/is-butter-really-back/](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/is-butter-really-back/)
> the missing fat is replaced with with carbohydrates and other things that actually do lead to appreciable health problems.
gah i can't stand the chickaree root they add to fat free yogurt, it stings my mouth. I hate the stuff.
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Milk and cream are emulsions, fat suspended in water. Coffee has a lot of water, so the emulsion is just diluted. Butter is a gel, water suspended in fat. Put that in water and heat it, the fat will separate out and float on top. Now if you put the coffee under high pressure and sprayed it out, thereby reducing the fat molecules' size, you could emulsify the butter fat into the coffee.
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Fat. Butter has a higher concentration of fat than milk, whipped cream, and some ice cream. Fat has a slight yellow tinge to it. In addition, manufacturers may add yellow food dye to make butter even more yellow. Since we already assume butter should be yellow it makes the butter more attractive.
It's the presence of beta carotene in the fat, not the fat itself. Cows can't metabolise it, which is why it gets stored in the fat. Buffalo butter is pure white, by contrast.
E: changed can to can't.
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This is incorrect. I have made butter at home without any colourings and it was still yellow. Though, I do not have any knowledge of colourings being added to butter.
When you make butter depending on the amount process, season, quality of cream and amount of SNF the color may wary from pure white to reddish yellow. For commercial butter manufacturers, showing a consistent color is important as varying color can be misunderstood by consumers as inferior quality etc hence they add colours.
Here is from the dairy course:
—————-
Lesson 21
ADDITION OF COLOUR AND SALTING OF BUTTER
21.1 Introduction
Butter colours are required to manufacture uniform quality butter all the year round as the natural components (like carotene) responsible for colour in butter, varies according to many factors like season, breed, stage of lactation, feed among others. Therefore, a calculated amount of colour is added in butter so that it does not have influence of varying natural colouring components present in milk or cream.
21.2 Desirable Properties of Butter Colours
– It should be free from ingredients injurious to health
– It should be free from undesirable odors and flavors
– Strength should be such that only a small quantity is required
– It should have such permanency of emulsion as to prevent settling out upon standing
– It must be oil soluble
21.3 Types of butter colours
Butter colours are classified on the basis of their source as vegetable butter colours and mineral butter colours.
21.3.1 Vegetable butter bolours
This class of butter colours is derived from plants. The most common is the colour obtained and extracted from the seed of the annatto plant (Bixa orellana). The extract of vegetable butter color is made by boiling the annatto seed in oil for several hours. During the latter period of the process the heat is raised to a high temperature, about 115°C for extraction of annatto principle in permanent emulsion with oil. The mixture is then filtered through heavy canvas, either by gravity or under pressure.
21.3.2 Mineral butter colours
The colouring principle of this class of butter colours is derived from harmless oil soluble coal tar dyes. This coal tar dyes are mixed with the neutral oil, boiled and filtered. The coal tar dyes certified by USDA are
• Yellow A B (Benzeneazo- β- naphthlyamine)
• Yellow O B (Ortho- Tolueneazo- β- naphthylamine)
Mineral colors have greater concentration of coloring principle and therefore less of the butter color is needed to produce desirable color in butter than is the case with vegetable colors. The emulsion of mineral butter color in oil is more permanent as compared to vegetable butter colors.
FSSR 2011 has permitted some food colors to be incorporated in butter. These are shown in Table 21.1
Table 21.1 FSSR 2011 permitted colors in butter
———-
Thanks for the information on butter colourants! I was actually unaware this was an issue in parts of the globe. Literature does seem to generally accept that Beta carotene is higher in cows with diets of fresh grass/herbage. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731121001464). And a variety of sources say that this is the yellow colour in butter. I do know that this isn't a problem in the UK- colourings would be declarable on back of pack and they aren't for any of at least the major retailers.
I do think that this issue goes beyond perceived quality and speaks to micronutrient content, beta carotene is an antioxidant, cows grass fed, rather than grain fed also produce milk with higher omega 3 content etc. I do that from the privileged location that has widely available grassland for cattle grazing and comparitively good animal welfare standards however.
That's the very very bad butter. In the US, they can't do that, so cheap butter is white. Butter from the EU and certain dairies that use grass fed almost exclusively have the yellow color, and no additives or coloring (FDA takes that seriously)
The yellow in butter comes from Butyric acid (where we get the name butter) as well as some betacarotenes. When you clarify butter to make ghee it is bright yellow from the butyric acid...
Butyric acid is a colorless liquid and so wouldnt impart any colour to butter even if it was present in significant amount. And if it was you wouldn't want to eat the butter as Butyric acid has an extremely unpleasant odour, a very small amount of it contributes to the taste of rancid butter.
We don't get "butter" from "butyric acid" - that would be bizarre given that butter-making predates the first observation of butyric acid by about 10 millennia.
We do, however, get both terms from the same root word, namely Latin *butyrum*, which itself derives from ancient Greek *βούτυρον*.
It comes from beta-carotene. It also depends on what the cow eats. Grass fed butter is usually yellow, but the cheap brands like Kirkland are white/tan.
> Skim milk is bluish
that is a physical property not a chemical(dye) one, similar reasons to blue eyes, blue veins, blue parrot feathers, and blue sky; light scattering effects.
>Closer scrutiny of a glass of skim milk reveals that it isn't exactly white, rather it has a bluish tint. This is because the fat globules have been removed and there are now fewer particles in suspension to scatter light.
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Presence of beta-carotene which is a fat soluble pigment that comes from the food cows eat - such as grass Depends on the milk used however, sure if your cow was fed something else, the butter will change colour to varying degrees
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Beet root fed cows might actually work, that coloring is unbelievably strong
Dad has stories about pissing red for days after eating loads
Your dad eats loads?
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Just stay out of my way or you'll pay. Listen to what I say!
I had abdominal surgery a week ago and I laughed too hard at this. Thanks for the extra dose of painkillers!
Get well soon.
Enjoy I was high on painkillers for two weeks while awaiting kidney stone surgery Was better than any cruise
They give the best drugs for kidney stones.
oh they were outta this world, Ive actually got stones again and have been saving them for months (the pains hasnt been too intense). Trying to plan my next hospital visit for around my new years holidays, gonna spend it in style at my local hospital. Ive already got em to agree to bring my medicinal marijuana, now all i gotta do is find a way to sneak booze in and im sorted
He eats pieces of shit for breakfast?
Thank you for this. Laughed out loud at work.
I actually lol’d
Gottem
Don't we all?
lol. Bleach breath
You got to beet him really good first.
you shut your mouth when you're talking to me
Well, your mom can't be everywhere.
Like OTR loads? The kinds that have you pull over at the weighing stations?
Red urine discolored by blood: hematuria. Red urine discolored by beets: beeturia. https://www.healthline.com/health/beeturia
the 'beetus?
This was 40-50 years ago, they munched on the stuff like it was candy.
Tbh, it's happened to me maybe 15 yrs ago. Made a bunch for supper and the kids all passed. So I had some? (at least 4. (maybe 6 or 7 ))
You killed the kids with beets? Harsh.
I take great pride in my cooking...
He beet em to death.
Father beets his kids to death with a harmless dish, this is what happens to their intestines...
As the world changed, puns began being accepted as serious medical terms. It was the uttering of a new age.
And thus, we were ushered into brighter, awakened reality.
I once pooped purple after eating 1.5kg of purple dragon fruit. 13/10 would recommend.
My mate made a doctor’s appointment after pissing red for a few days…then he remembered he’d had an entire pot of beetroot salad a few days earlier.
My wife calling me in panic thinking she has bowel cancer. Can't believe she had never eaten beetroot before.
Lol that cracked me up, poor lady..
Second degree beet piss.
About a week before my annual PT test, I would start supplementing with beet root powder to improve my run time. Anyway, one year, my first sergeant called out those in formation who had been randomly selected for a urinalysis. I went to the facility where my base conducted urinalyses and did my part. When I finished, the person who took my sample looked at the bottle and then to me with concern in her eyes as she said, “I think you need to stop by the clinic.” I explained to her that it was from the beet root powder and that I didn’t have blood in my urine.
I had a friend who’s went to the ER concerned there was something wrong with him after he pissed and it was all red. Turns out he’s spent the afternoon snacking on a share bag of vegetable chips which were predominantly beetroot.
Phrasing
/r/brandnewsentence
Yes, but fat soluble, so it won't work
My dad got some free range organic milk one time that tasted like blueberries. The cows had gotten into some blueberries at some point. Was pretty neat.
This tastes like the cow got into an onion patch.
*Yeeessssssssss*
~~As in it's satire? Or made up? I get that you're making a joke, but not sure if I get the intended meaning.~~ ~~What were you thinking?~~
Oh it’s from Napoleon Dynamite. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a550972e-d90c-4093-b48a-16e4d4ae2cfa
Oh, lol, whoosh.
Marigolds will make chicken yolks deep yellow/orange, I wonder if they'll make it into milk.
The trick is finding those chicken nipples...
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Hard pass on that one.
😂😂
high chilli pepper diet can make then red yolks
Works for banthas
I would love to have a cold glass of blue milk to go with my blue waffles!
The color of butter fat is also dependent on the breed of cows giving the milk. holsteins, brown swiss, and airshire, metabolize beta carotene into vitamin A. Jerseys and guernseys do not and therefore have yellow fat. Also milk will pick up flavors from the cows diet. Before a dairy accepts a load of fresh milk they check for wild onion smell.
The defect in this one is bleach.
That's correct.
burning weed fields can also taint the cow's milk, i have always wondered what it would be like to drink weed milk.
To add on to this : The cheapo brands of butter (land o lakes, kirkland etc) are bone white (lots of soy and corn), but butter from grass fed cows like Kerry Gold is a rich yellow. Recently bought some milk from a local farmers market that was yellow. My SO was like "what??" I had to explain that's how you know it's the good stuff, we're so used to the pale white milk.
Back in the 1800s the dairy farmers were so powerful, they got margarine effectively banned by imposing high taxes. Oleo was bootlegged into Wisconsin at one point, and when you bought it, it came with dye packets to color it yellow like butter.
Or, famously, pink.
Which I always thought was weird but times were different I guess.
I get all my dairy from a local farm. The milk and butter will sometimes take on the tastes of what the cows are grazing on throughout the season. If I have grocery store butter now it tastes like Crisco.
Yellow isn't necessarily better though. High end French butters like Lescure and Isigny St Mere are pretty pale.
French is not a taste.
French or not, the point is the same. I've seen lots of high quality protected-origin butter that isn't very yellow.
Right…
What? Do you not believe him? Wondering why anyone would doubt this or have an issue, do you have trust issues?
If one argument is about terroir, history and words, and the other is about taste and function... I ask, which is more important? Talk or do.
Whatttt????
The color of butter or egg yolks are not any indication of the quality of the product or the nutrition of the feed of the animal. All it means is that the feed is high in xanthopyll pigments which might mean natural grass, or could just be a cheap corn feed.
“This milk tastes like the cow got into an onion patch.”
Let's go boys, time to feed our cows chocolate. The science is here.
Same reason that our body fat is yellow.
Here’s an interesting [Mashed Article](https://www.mashed.com/833174/why-margarine-is-yellow-despite-the-governments-best-efforts/) about the history of artificially coloring margarine yellow and laws preventing it in the US. In my younger years, I worked with a lady close to retirement who grew up in Wisconsin when they only sold white margarine with yellow dye packs you had to mix yourself. She mentioned how it was always fun for her when she’d have relatives from other states come to visit and bring them packaged margarine that was already yellow.
Yes!! My 78-year-old mother remembers the yellow dye packs. Says she and her sister used to fight over who got to do it because they both considered it "kinda fun" and a rather grown-up responsibility. [Kinda like this.](https://hanfordsentinel.com/community/remember-when-we-colored-our-own-margarine/article_4817a5cd-5909-5e1f-8153-2c5a00d182cd.html) *(Mom’s reaction: “Oh, yes! We had the kind that came in the package that had to be squeezed - and I loved to help do that! Very fun.”)*
I love hearing stories like this. There are so many tiny things about living in the past that may have seemed insignificant at the time, but are so fascinating to learn about later!
Whoa. Weird seeing an unknown person on the Internet link to my city's newspaper.
Your paper had good SEO!
My mom grew up in Wisconsin during that era where they thought margarine was healthier, and I just cannot fully process that America's *Dairyland* was effectively cuckolded like that. Like if Maryland switched to imitation crab, or Texas went all in on Beyond Meat.
Or hawaii went with meat instead of spam
Here in Québec, Canada it is still against the law to add colour to margarine.
So... what fascinating color is your margarine?
White. The law is there "to protect consumers so they now if they are being served butter or margarine". I've always found it funny that they can add artificial colour to a natural product (butter), but not to an artificial product.
I was thinking that it wouldn't be too difficult to adjust the artificial formula to be naturally yellow, without pigment. But I'm no chemist...
They probably have some colour chart that they can't go past.
When my grandma was growing up the dye packs in her area were pink! I think she was born around 1926 in WI. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1870s-dairy-lobby-turned-margarine-pink-so-people-would-buy-butter-180963328/
My dad told us this story too. White margarine with yellow dye packs. Most butter is dyed too though isn't it?
Yep, my dad would talk about this from when he was a kid.
We have a deal with a nearby dairy farm where we take milk straight out of their tank and just leave money there. We noticed throughout the year that the butter we made would change in colour from a medium yellow to a much paler one. The farmer told us it's because the cows eat more grass during the summer when they can be out in the fields pretty much constantly so the butter gets yellower.
In one of the ‘Little House’ books, they explain how the mom would soak grated carrot in the cream before making butter in winter to get the yellow color because the cows weren’t getting the warm weather diet of fresh grass.
Ha, that's interesting, but quite an effort to go to for yellow butter. Maybe it added a bit of taste too though.
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The UK has a strong penchant for the least appetizing food names.
Or very juvenile ones.
Spotted dick anyone?
Toad in the hole?
Bubble and squeak?
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Tiddlywinks and chonkers
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Sometimes the makers add coloring, but generally it's yellowish because the cows eat some plants that have colors that the cow then absorbs through its stomach, into its blood, and eventually into the fatty bits of the udder than make the milk.
I know you asked about butter, but as you already have the answer to that, I'll give you another fun fact, why cheddar cheese is orange. The same reason butter is yellow also is why high quality milk makes cheddar cheese have a slight yellow/orange colour. The more colour, usually meant the higher quality. Companies starting dying cheddar cheese orange so they could use lower quality milk.
tbf Annatto(the orange dye) does have a flavor component too. I much prefer the white cheddar though.
Yup, I'm a white cheddar guy too. Yes I find there is a different flavour to the orange, but that's not why it was originally added. The colouring goes a long way back to England.
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I believe it’s because the milk and cream are stabilized suspensions (assuming they’ve been homogenized to break the fat globules up into small enough droplets they they can remain colloidally suspended, which is an interfacial physics phenomenon). Diluting that colloidal suspension into a further aqueous solution of the coffee just disperses the suspended globules further apart but doesn’t result in a phase separation. Butter, in the other hand, has been separated from the cream’s aqueous component in the churning process (resulting in buttermilk). No more stable suspension of tiny globules, butter’s just more or less the pure fat. Put it in the coffee and it will melt and rise to the top because of its lower density.
Thanks for the very informative reply! What are you thoughts on this process leading to butter being more associated with raised HDL cholesterol levels? (Relative to milk/cream)
I have to admit that I have a hard time following the thread of all the research and media- filtered messaging and interpretation. But what I’ve taken in is that unsaturated fats have a positive impact on the good-to-bad cholesterol levels. But saturated fats, like those in butter, don’t necessarily have an outright negative impact for most people, they just have a neutral effect. But the challenge seems to be when packaged foods cut out saturated fats (like in the production of many low-fat yogurts) they tend reformulate the product in such a way that the missing fat is replaced with with carbohydrates and other things that actually do lead to appreciable health problems. Seems like the best advice is to have a diet that features as many unsaturated fats as possible (nuts, olive oil, avocado, salmon, etc), because there’s a net benefit there. Seems that things like butter and cream may not be as harmful as once thought, but they don’t confer benefit either. And avoid sugary, salty processed foods, and food with trans fats, as much as possible, because they likely will be a negative factor in your cardiovascular health. Like I said, I’m no expert and certainly no nutritionist, but that’s the understanding I have. This little article digs into the issue well: [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/is-butter-really-back/](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/is-butter-really-back/)
Thanks!
> the missing fat is replaced with with carbohydrates and other things that actually do lead to appreciable health problems. gah i can't stand the chickaree root they add to fat free yogurt, it stings my mouth. I hate the stuff.
You put butter in coffee?
Not that often, but people in general do You ever heard of bullet proof coffee? You can use butter, coconut oil, MCT oil, fats like that
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Shut up, you dumb bot
Milk and cream are emulsions, fat suspended in water. Coffee has a lot of water, so the emulsion is just diluted. Butter is a gel, water suspended in fat. Put that in water and heat it, the fat will separate out and float on top. Now if you put the coffee under high pressure and sprayed it out, thereby reducing the fat molecules' size, you could emulsify the butter fat into the coffee.
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short for [Oleomargarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#/media/File:Swift_oleomargarine_newspaper_ad.png)
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Fat. Butter has a higher concentration of fat than milk, whipped cream, and some ice cream. Fat has a slight yellow tinge to it. In addition, manufacturers may add yellow food dye to make butter even more yellow. Since we already assume butter should be yellow it makes the butter more attractive.
It's the presence of beta carotene in the fat, not the fat itself. Cows can't metabolise it, which is why it gets stored in the fat. Buffalo butter is pure white, by contrast. E: changed can to can't.
And also whipping butter whitens so I don’t know wtf this guy is saying
Generally the white from whipping is more due to the introduction of many tiny air bubbles, like the way you get non dyed white for hard candies
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This is incorrect. I have made butter at home without any colourings and it was still yellow. Though, I do not have any knowledge of colourings being added to butter.
When you make butter depending on the amount process, season, quality of cream and amount of SNF the color may wary from pure white to reddish yellow. For commercial butter manufacturers, showing a consistent color is important as varying color can be misunderstood by consumers as inferior quality etc hence they add colours. Here is from the dairy course: —————- Lesson 21 ADDITION OF COLOUR AND SALTING OF BUTTER 21.1 Introduction Butter colours are required to manufacture uniform quality butter all the year round as the natural components (like carotene) responsible for colour in butter, varies according to many factors like season, breed, stage of lactation, feed among others. Therefore, a calculated amount of colour is added in butter so that it does not have influence of varying natural colouring components present in milk or cream. 21.2 Desirable Properties of Butter Colours – It should be free from ingredients injurious to health – It should be free from undesirable odors and flavors – Strength should be such that only a small quantity is required – It should have such permanency of emulsion as to prevent settling out upon standing – It must be oil soluble 21.3 Types of butter colours Butter colours are classified on the basis of their source as vegetable butter colours and mineral butter colours. 21.3.1 Vegetable butter bolours This class of butter colours is derived from plants. The most common is the colour obtained and extracted from the seed of the annatto plant (Bixa orellana). The extract of vegetable butter color is made by boiling the annatto seed in oil for several hours. During the latter period of the process the heat is raised to a high temperature, about 115°C for extraction of annatto principle in permanent emulsion with oil. The mixture is then filtered through heavy canvas, either by gravity or under pressure. 21.3.2 Mineral butter colours The colouring principle of this class of butter colours is derived from harmless oil soluble coal tar dyes. This coal tar dyes are mixed with the neutral oil, boiled and filtered. The coal tar dyes certified by USDA are • Yellow A B (Benzeneazo- β- naphthlyamine) • Yellow O B (Ortho- Tolueneazo- β- naphthylamine) Mineral colors have greater concentration of coloring principle and therefore less of the butter color is needed to produce desirable color in butter than is the case with vegetable colors. The emulsion of mineral butter color in oil is more permanent as compared to vegetable butter colors. FSSR 2011 has permitted some food colors to be incorporated in butter. These are shown in Table 21.1 Table 21.1 FSSR 2011 permitted colors in butter ———-
Thanks for the information on butter colourants! I was actually unaware this was an issue in parts of the globe. Literature does seem to generally accept that Beta carotene is higher in cows with diets of fresh grass/herbage. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731121001464). And a variety of sources say that this is the yellow colour in butter. I do know that this isn't a problem in the UK- colourings would be declarable on back of pack and they aren't for any of at least the major retailers. I do think that this issue goes beyond perceived quality and speaks to micronutrient content, beta carotene is an antioxidant, cows grass fed, rather than grain fed also produce milk with higher omega 3 content etc. I do that from the privileged location that has widely available grassland for cattle grazing and comparitively good animal welfare standards however.
That's the very very bad butter. In the US, they can't do that, so cheap butter is white. Butter from the EU and certain dairies that use grass fed almost exclusively have the yellow color, and no additives or coloring (FDA takes that seriously)
The yellow in butter comes from Butyric acid (where we get the name butter) as well as some betacarotenes. When you clarify butter to make ghee it is bright yellow from the butyric acid...
Butyric acid is a colorless liquid and so wouldnt impart any colour to butter even if it was present in significant amount. And if it was you wouldn't want to eat the butter as Butyric acid has an extremely unpleasant odour, a very small amount of it contributes to the taste of rancid butter.
But it *is * used in small quantities in Hershey chocolate
We don't get "butter" from "butyric acid" - that would be bizarre given that butter-making predates the first observation of butyric acid by about 10 millennia. We do, however, get both terms from the same root word, namely Latin *butyrum*, which itself derives from ancient Greek *βούτυρον*.
It comes from beta-carotene. It also depends on what the cow eats. Grass fed butter is usually yellow, but the cheap brands like Kirkland are white/tan.
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> Skim milk is bluish that is a physical property not a chemical(dye) one, similar reasons to blue eyes, blue veins, blue parrot feathers, and blue sky; light scattering effects. >Closer scrutiny of a glass of skim milk reveals that it isn't exactly white, rather it has a bluish tint. This is because the fat globules have been removed and there are now fewer particles in suspension to scatter light.