Butter

• Butter dates back all the way to the first domestication of animals
• Butter has changed a lot throughout history including methods, look, and taste
• Early butter often was made from the milk of yak, sheep, or goats
• There is a theory about how butter was discovered by accident: A man was traveling with sheepskin bag of milk attached on his pack animal. The terrain was rough and bumpy, which caused the milk to be constantly agitated. When he tried to drink his milk there was solid kernels that had formed.
• Archaeologists are unsure about when butter making went from accidental to purposeful.
• A common method used to make butter in the past was using milk pouches from animals and tree branches. People would remove the milk pouch from their animal and hang it like a cradle from a tree branch. They would then continuously "agitate" it to from golden kernels.
• Butter had many different uses besides being a food throughout history: The Ancient Romans used it as a cosmetic and a healing balm. Many other cultures believed the transformation from milk to butter was "magical", and they would sacrifice butter to their gods.
• By the Middle Ages, butter had spread throughout Europe and hooked most people.
• The Pilgrims were the first to bring butter to the new world.
• However, Spanish explorers were the first to bring cows over to the New World. This would lead to the ability to make more milk and butter in the future.
• Today, butter is one of the most common cooking and baking ingredients.

Largest Butter Producers in the World

1. India: 5,035,000 tons per year
2. United States: 830,000 tons per year
3. New Zealand: 570,000 tons per year

India is the largest producer of butter and milk in the world. They produce around 5,035,000 tons of butter per year, which is 18% of the world's butter production. They do not export a lot since their consumption is almost all of what they produce at 5,026,000 tons of butter. America is number two in butter production, but New Zealand is the largest exporter of dairy products in the world. New Zealand processes more than 90% of its produced milk into dairy products for export.

France is the largest consumer of butter in the world per capita. France consumes 8.2 kg of butter per capita.

California is the state with the largest dairy production. Today's dairy farms are very different than the image of a family farm with one or two cows that we are all used to. Today's farms can have hundreds to thousands of cows.

86% of milk is produced on farms with more than 100 cows

Milking a cow used to be a very natural process. Today, it is anything but natural. It has evolved in order to meet the demand for more milk and less time. Cows are now artificially inseminated, given specialized milk producing hormones, and selectively breaded to maximize milk production. Cows are often separated from their calf shortly after birth. An average dairy cow produces milk 305 days out of the year. Cows can only handle this for 3-4 years before they are shipped off for hamburger meat.

Holstein cow's genome has been altered by 22% over the last 40 years.

Conditions for workers and cows on dairy farms are not exactly ideal. The cows are confined to a tiny space and put through a very rigorous lifestyle. Workers on dairy farms have also created some controversy lately. At dairy farms all over the country there have been claims of unsafe working conditions, wage theft, and unbearable hours. Many dairy workers are expected to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, without a day off guaranteed. There are also many undocumented workers on dairy farms that are scared to leave the farm. Dairy farms need to be investigated and improved if we want to continue having milk, butter, and cheese present in our supermarkets.

1. Milk is taken put through a separator. This separates the cream from the milk.
2. Cream is taken and pasteurized at 95 degrees C or more to kill microorganisms.
3. Bacterial cultures may be added at this step to ferment milk sugars to lactic acid
4. Cream is aged at cool temperatures for 12-15 hours in order to crystallize the butterfat globules. This ensures proper texture of butter.
5. Cream is then put into a churner and churned until granules of butter form.
6. The cream is now split into butter grains and buttermilk
7. Butter is not worked more and mixed with salt, which adds flavor and acts as a preservative.
8. Butter is packed into shape and wrapped in wax paper
9. Butter is stored in a cool place until it is shipped to a store.

I interviewed my mom for the commodity chain interview. She said that polenta is the food that she remembers the most from her childhood. Polenta is an Italian food. Whenever we make it, it reminds my mom of her grandma. Her grandma came to the United States from Italy, and she was the one that made polenta a family tradition. It is just corn meal mixed with water and baked, so they would often top it with butter and parmesan cheese. The Land O Lakes butter that we buy from the store can be used to spread on top of the polenta that we cook for dinner.