Re: Re: Your opinion please - butter / butterfat

[Guest guest]

> I would not want to pay $11-12 a pound just to get raw butter.

Consider yourself blessed. I regularly pay $16 a pound for raw butter.

--

I will say that unless one is in some kind of daily, personal dynamic,

be it marriage or monasticism, one will never truly see themselves.

Like it or not in either of these situations there is inescapable

feedback on one's character and choices...There is a built in reality

gauge in living in an intimate vowed relationship that cannot be

simulated otherwise.

-Anonymous

[Guest guest]

Desh,

> I thought butter had too much PUFA to be optimal fat. We eat tons of it

> here anyway. . . . hope to be making more lard at the next opportunity.

Not sure where you got that idea, but butter is low in PUFA and lard

is high in PUFA.

Chris

[Guest guest]

One way to culture butter, that I was told is to skim the cream off of my

raw milk (I skim until I have collected a qt of cream) let the cream warm up

on the counter to room temp (I let it warm in a ½ gallon jar and shake

periodically). I guess it sort of clabbers a bit. It will smell slightly,

just slightly sour and then I put it in the blender and let it go until it

thickens. I can hear the difference in the tone of the blender as well as

the level of liquid drops quite a lot. Then strain through cheesecloth and

continue through the butter making process. It tastes great and it’s raw!

Chrissie

BunnyearsFamily Heritage Farm

firstclassskagitcounty.org

N. Snohomish/Camano Is. WAPF

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the info. So then is the butter sort of sour tasting? How

long does it sit out after it comes to room temp. All day, overnight?

I just let it sit out til room temp. When it is then I process it. You don't

have to let it sit out longer unless you like the taste. I think sitting out

a couple or so hours will let the bacteria grow enough to culture, that you

don't have to let it go much longer. Again, some people like it with a more

of a " bite " than others. Personal taste! Chrissie

BunnyearsFamily Heritage Farm

firstclassskagitcounty.org

N. Snohomish/Camano Is. WAPF

,___

[Guest guest]

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> , I thought you were in southern California, where raw dairy is

> legal in stores. I would have thought you could get raw butter in

> stores there at a reasonable price.

The irony is that the quality of commercially available raw dairy

there is poor and the price is high. And because it's legal,

apparently local farmers who sell at farmers' markets don't even

bother trying to compete with OP and Claravale.

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[Guest guest]

Chris-

> Not sure where you got that idea, but butter is low in PUFA and lard

> is high in PUFA.

" High " being a relative term. According to the USDA, lard is about

11% PUFA. That's quite high compared to butter, at something like

3.7% PUFA, but low compared to most vegetable oils. That said, the

composition of pig fat varies pretty widely according to the diet of

the pigs, so some of it may have appreciably more PUFA... and some

rare versions might have somewhat less. I'd love to see data on pigs

raised on a very low-PUFA diet.

-

[Guest guest]

I haven't had raw dairy other than what I get here in CA. Have we established

that the quality of Organic Pastures products is poor?

-------------- Original message ----------------------

From: " " <oz4caster@...>

> --- Idol <paul.idol@...> wrote:

> > The irony is that the quality of commercially available raw dairy

> > there is poor and the price is high. And because it's legal,

> > apparently local farmers who sell at farmers' markets don't even

> > bother trying to compete with OP and Claravale.

>

> , that is ironic, and hard to understand. I would expect high

> prices and high demand to provide incentive for more dairies to compete.

>

> Maybe the demand is soft because of the high prices?

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

,

> , if you're trying to achieve the WAPF recommended goal of no more

> than 4% of total calories from polyunsaturated fat, lard with 11% PUFA

> is not wise to use very often. I eat three egg yolks every day and

> according to USDA data on conventional chicken eggs, they are also

> fairly high in PUFA at 12% of total calories. Since even most

> pastured chickens are supplemented with grains, they may not be much

> lower in PUFA. However, three egg yolks only has 2.1 g of PUFA, so

> that still leaves plenty of room for PUFA from other foods. On a 2700

> calorie per day diet, 4% of calories is 108 calories and at 9 calories

> per gram for fat, that is 12 grams of PUFA. On a 2000 calorie diet,

> it would come to 8.9 grams of PUFA for 4% of total calories.

Moreover, I think it would probably be beneficial to go quite a bit

under 4% of calories as PUFA. Eggs are a much more useful source of

PUFA since they have much more AA and DHA than lard does.

> It would be interesting to see fat component data for pastured animals

> compared to conventional. What little data I have seen for grass-fed

> cows indicates lower total fat but I haven't found any data on the

> breakdown of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. The

> polyunsaturated CLA is supposed to be higher in grass-fed animals,

> which should be beneficial.

I have seen this for ruminant fats but not for lard. It tends to be a

little lower in fat, a little bit higher in PUFA and SFA as a

proportion of fat at the expense of MUFA, mostly from an increase in

n-3, although lower in total PUFA because of the reduction in totol

fat for the meat. However, lard and chicken fat might show a very

different reaction to pasturing, since ruminants saturated much of the

unsaturated fat and their PUFA is probably less variable.

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

>> Not sure where you got that idea, but butter is low in PUFA and lard

>> is high in PUFA.

> " High " being a relative term. According to the USDA, lard is about

> 11% PUFA. That's quite high compared to butter, at something like

> 3.7% PUFA, but low compared to most vegetable oils. That said, the

> composition of pig fat varies pretty widely according to the diet of

> the pigs, so some of it may have appreciably more PUFA... and some

> rare versions might have somewhat less. I'd love to see data on pigs

> raised on a very low-PUFA diet.

I meant it as a relative term. The poster said she was avoiding

butter because of the PUFA and eating more lard, which implies that

lard is lower in PUFA when in fact it is 3 times higher.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> I meant it as a relative term. The poster said she was avoiding

> butter because of the PUFA and eating more lard, which implies that

> lard is lower in PUFA when in fact it is 3 times higher.

Oh, somehow my eye wandered right past the part about avoiding butter.

More generally, it's awfully hard to keep PUFA down to 1% of calories

or less when eating a high-fat diet.

-

[Guest guest]

,

> More generally, it's awfully hard to keep PUFA down to 1% of calories

> or less when eating a high-fat diet.

Yeah that is a tough one but one poster I know of seems to think it is

not impossible.

--

I will say that unless one is in some kind of daily, personal dynamic,

be it marriage or monasticism, one will never truly see themselves.

Like it or not in either of these situations there is inescapable

feedback on one's character and choices...There is a built in reality

gauge in living in an intimate vowed relationship that cannot be

simulated otherwise.

-Anonymous

[Guest guest]

,

> More generally, it's awfully hard to keep PUFA down to 1% of calories

> or less when eating a high-fat diet.

I don't know if it's necessary if there are lots of other protective

factors, but you are right, it is especially hard with animal fat.

One could do it with a hefty amount of coconut oil, and perhaps some

macadamia nut oil. It would be fairly easy to do around 30% of

calories as fat, and maybe doable around 40% of calories as fat, while

including a fair amount of animal fat.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> I don't know if it's necessary if there are lots of other protective

> factors, but you are right, it is especially hard with animal fat.

> One could do it with a hefty amount of coconut oil, and perhaps some

> macadamia nut oil. It would be fairly easy to do around 30% of

> calories as fat, and maybe doable around 40% of calories as fat, while

> including a fair amount of animal fat.

I'd hardly call 30% of calories from fat " high fat " , though, or even

40%. 30% used to be what people were told to limit their fat to,

after all!

-

[Guest guest]

On 5/19/08, Idol <paul.idol@...> wrote:

> Chris-

>

>> I don't know if it's necessary if there are lots of other protective

>> factors, but you are right, it is especially hard with animal fat.

>> One could do it with a hefty amount of coconut oil, and perhaps some

>> macadamia nut oil. It would be fairly easy to do around 30% of

>> calories as fat, and maybe doable around 40% of calories as fat, while

>> including a fair amount of animal fat.

>

> I'd hardly call 30% of calories from fat " high fat " , though, or even

> 40%. 30% used to be what people were told to limit their fat to,

> after all!

I wasn't. I was agreeing that it would be hard on a high-fat diet,

but saying that it would be easy on a 30% fat diet. On a high-fat

diet (i.e. 50-80% fat) one would need to use a lot of coconut oil to

do it. On a moderate fat diet, 30-40% fat, it would be doable with

more animal fat, though one would still probably have to use some

coconut oil.

Chris

[Guest guest]

-

> , that is ironic, and hard to understand. I would expect high

> prices and high demand to provide incentive for more dairies to

> compete.

>

> Maybe the demand is soft because of the high prices?

Doubtful. Prices are about the same here, but there are more

suppliers and better dairy. (Or I should say that some of the dairy

is better, probably not all of it.)

I think it's simply a matter of scale, maybe with a frisson of habit

thrown in.

-

[Guest guest]

Gene-

> I haven't had raw dairy other than what I get here in CA. Have we

> established that the quality of Organic Pastures products is poor?

I don't know that I'd call it poor, but it certainly doesn't compare

to what I can get here from Pennsylvania, and I don't even think the

best of what I can get is actually great, just decent.

-

[Guest guest]

-

> , if you're trying to achieve the WAPF recommended goal of no more

> than 4% of total calories from polyunsaturated fat, lard with 11% PUFA

> is not wise to use very often.

Heck, I'd like to get down to 1%, but short of creating a

enstein's monster of a diet, that's not likely. But yes, pork

products as a staple appear to be a bad idea, unfortunately.

> It would be interesting to see fat component data for pastured animals

> compared to conventional. What little data I have seen for grass-fed

> cows indicates lower total fat but I haven't found any data on the

> breakdown of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. The

> polyunsaturated CLA is supposed to be higher in grass-fed animals,

> which should be beneficial.

In ruminants, the overall proportions don't change very much, but they

take longer to deposit fat than factory-farm animals, which is the

principal reason people assume grass-fed = lower in fat. I sure wish

we had better data on all kinds of foods and the influences of

different agricultural and husbandry practices on their makeup,

though. We're practically spitting in the dark.

-

[Guest guest]

-

> > More generally, it's awfully hard to keep PUFA down to 1% of

> calories

> > or less when eating a high-fat diet.

>

> Yeah that is a tough one but one poster I know of seems to think it is

> not impossible.

Of course it's not impossible -- you could eat very lean meat, maybe

skimmed dairy, and tons of coconut oil and other such low-PUFA fats --

but I doubt such a diet would be desirable, and for most people it

probably wouldn't be tolerable either.

Or is there some other technique I'm not thinking of?

-

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> I wasn't. I was agreeing that it would be hard on a high-fat diet,

> but saying that it would be easy on a 30% fat diet. On a high-fat

> diet (i.e. 50-80% fat) one would need to use a lot of coconut oil to

> do it. On a moderate fat diet, 30-40% fat, it would be doable with

> more animal fat, though one would still probably have to use some

> coconut oil.

Sorry; obviously I was too tired to go reading messages and expect to

comprehend them adequately. <g>

-

[Guest guest]

Hi Desh,

> That's because there was no part about avoiding butter. I said we eat

> tons of butter, but are always thinking about making lard again. I

> transposed lard and tallow in my post. . . . I was trying to pull that

> easily made, low PUFA animal fat other than butter out of the abyss which

> is my post-lead poisoning brain. Prior to the lead poisoning I never

> transposed anything- even years of undergraduate Latin declensions.

Well when you wrote:

=====

I thought butter had too much PUFA to be optimal fat. We eat tons of it

here anyway. . . . hope to be making more lard at the next opportunity.

=====

It seemed to me to imply that lard was a better fat, i.e. lower in

PUFA. Either way, if butter has too much PUFA to be an optimal fat,

then there are not very many optimal fats, certainly no animal fats --

coconut oil, cocoa butter and macadamia nut oil have less PUFA than

butter. Other than that, butter is among the lowest in PUFA.

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

> I'd love to see data on pigs

> raised on a very low-PUFA diet.

Sally mentioned on another list that in the tropics they feed pigs

coconut and their fat is much lower in PUFA and higher in SFA.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> Either way, if butter has too much PUFA to be an optimal fat,

> then there are not very many optimal fats, certainly no animal fats --

> coconut oil, cocoa butter and macadamia nut oil have less PUFA than

> butter. Other than that, butter is among the lowest in PUFA.

Do you have any hard data on the risks posed by high consumption of

MUFA? Obviously consuming MUFA is inevitable, but might it be a bad

idea to rely on, say, macadamia oil as a staple as opposed to

something like coconut oil?

-

[Guest guest]

,

> Do you have any hard data on the risks posed by high consumption of

> MUFA? Obviously consuming MUFA is inevitable, but might it be a bad

> idea to rely on, say, macadamia oil as a staple as opposed to

> something like coconut oil?

I haven't seen a lot of info comparing MUFA to SFA but what I've seen

indicates that they are similar with respect to oxidative stress. A

very high MUFA intake, especially with low PUFA intake (ratio of

>10:1) will elevate Mead acid, which might be good or bad depending on

whether it does anything important. I suspect it's easier to

desaturate SFA to MUFA than to saturated MUFA to SFA, so if one is

consuming way too much MUFA as a proportion of calories I suppose this

could lead to a relative deficiency in SFA. On the other hand, it

might be that it is easier to synthesize MUFA from carb than from SFA,

since the delta-9 desaturase is regulated as part of the network of

fatty acid synthesis enzymes, so it is probably similarly harmful to

consume way too much SFA relative to MUFA.

So I think it makes the most sense to consume somewhere around half

and half, which seems to be roughly what you get from ruminant fat,

which I think is somewhat of an indication of the mammalian need for

the two types.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> I haven't seen a lot of info comparing MUFA to SFA but what I've seen

> indicates that they are similar with respect to oxidative stress.

I'd gotten that impression, and yet it seems quite surprising, even

hard to believe.

> So I think it makes the most sense to consume somewhere around half

> and half, which seems to be roughly what you get from ruminant fat,

> which I think is somewhat of an indication of the mammalian need for

> the two types.

This seems like a reasonable guess, so it would seem that it might be

a good idea to balance any highly-saturated oils (like coconut) with

some highly-mono-unsaturated oils (like macadamia) if such oils make

up a significant portion of calories (in an attempt to drop PUFA down

to 1% of calories on a high-fat diet, for example).

-

[Guest guest]

Chris-

> Sally mentioned on another list that in the tropics they feed pigs

> coconut and their fat is much lower in PUFA and higher in SFA.

This makes sense. From what I've read, pigs basically deposit the

fats they consume, so the lipid profile of lard and pork should be

extremely dependent on the pigs' diet. I don't know what they convert

dietary carbs to, though. MUFA? SFA? A mixture?

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