Re: where is food grown on fertile soils?

[Guest guest]

> To what degree have you been successful finding foods

> grown on fertile soils?

Hi :

Sorry to say, not very successful. The hard part, of course, is to

find fertile soil. The best food source I have found so far is food

from the bio-dynamic dairy farmer I buy from. I think his soil

fertility is good, but could still be better as his butter is yellow

in season, not pale yellow but not brilliant yellow either. There are

other indications with the vegetation on the farm that soil

fertility, while not bad, could be better. We are trying an

experiment to see if the fertility can be raised further.

Chi

[Guest guest]

> Since I started getting grass-fed stuff last year, and only

> recently found a source of raw dairy from Jersey cows rather

> than Holsteins, I don't really know what to expect. How

> yellow should the butter be at this time of year? The farm

> I'm getting dairy from feeds their cows hay during the winter

> and pastures them for the rest of the year, and they recently

> started pasturing the cows. The butter is somewhat yellower

> than before, but it's hardly a bright yellow -- but

> then again it's still early in the season, and I don't

> know exactly what to expect, color-wise.

Hi :

Don't expect the butter to be yellow in the winter. The cows need to

be back on grass to see how yellow the butter gets.

In his chapter on activator X, Price talked about a dairy herd in

Texas that was on high soil fertility. In the winter, their butter

was white, but when the cows went back on green grass the butter went

through different shades of yellow until it was a brilliant yellow.

Price found the nutritional value of the butter also varied, with the

white butter of little nutritional value, and the brilliant yellow

butter of the highest nutritional value and suitable for producing

his butter oil for his clinical experiments.

So you should be able to judge the maximum nutritional value of your

milk and butter when the butter reaches whatever its peak yellow

color is.

Chi

[Guest guest]

> >>>>Since I started getting grass-fed stuff last year, and only

recently

> found

> a source of raw dairy from Jersey cows rather than Holsteins, I

don't

> really know what to expect. How yellow should the butter be at

this time

> of year? The farm I'm getting dairy from feeds their cows hay

during the

> winter and pastures them for the rest of the year, and they recently

> started pasturing the cows. The butter is somewhat yellower than

before,

> but it's hardly a bright yellow -- but then again it's still early

in the

> season, and I don't know exactly what to expect, color-wise.

>

>

> ***, I am not chi, and he can probably answer this better than

I, but I

> thought I'd pipe up anyhow. He, or someone else can correct me if

I'm wrong.

> I believe the yellow pigment comes from beta carotene, which is

probably not

> present in great quantities in hay. OTOH, young grass, before the

jointing

> stage is LOADED with beta carotene. So, I'd expect the butter would

start

> getting much yellower when the cows begin grazing on young grasses.

The farmer who runs the biodynamic farm that I get milk from says

that in a few weeks, as the grass really starts to grow, the cream

will actually turn orange!

[Guest guest]

> Does this mean that the white butter I make from goat's

> cream is not as good nutritionally as cow's butter

> while they are on the same pasture?

Hi Belinda:

I would think your white butter from goat's milk would have about the

same nutritional value as the cow's butter while they are on the same

pasture.

Since goat's butter is always white, you can't use the amount of

yellow color to guess the overall nutritional value as you can with

cow's butter. Whenever cows and goats use the same pasture, however,

the color of the cow's butter would be a good indication of the

nutritional value of the goat's butter.

With goat's butter not turning yellow, it makes it more difficult for

a consumer to make any estimate of the nutritional value of goat's

butter. I would make it against the law to add color to cow's butter

(unless it was colored red).

Chi