Butter fat

“ All fats do not contain vitamines. The latter are found in butter, but are not present in vegetable oils and fats and in pork fat.
Butter is one of the most expensive foods of a household. Its use, therefore, must be carefully considered. Because of its pleasing flavor, for some purposes no fat is as desirable as butter. If, however, fat is to be combined with foods of pronounced flavor, i.e. foods whose flavor is strong enough to cover up other food flavors, other fats may be substituted with satisfactory results. ”

“ Food fats are of both animal and vegetable origin. Fats separated from milk (butter) , meat fats (suet, lard) are animal fats while those separated from seeds (cottonseed and peanut) , cereal (corn) , fruit (olive) , nuts (coconuts) are vegetable fats. A discussion of various food fats follows:
(a) Butter is made by churning ripened cream so as to separate the fat from the other ingredients contained in milk. It is salted and usually colored before putting it on the market.
The popularity of butter is dependent upon its flavor, for its fuel value is not greater than any other fat. ”

“ Butter is perhaps the most digestible of all animal fats, and the most delicately flavored. So many substitutes for the genuine article are now on the market that it needs to be selected with great care. Fat being one of the elements of food depended on for the production of heat and energy in the body, butter has a place of some importance in the average invalid’s diet. For use on the tables and trays, a good quality should be procured and a cheaper grade secured for use in cooking. ”

“ The fat of milk, which yields cream and butter, differs in some important respects from other 51 fats. Like these, it is made up chiefly of stearin, palmitin, and olein, but, in addition, it contains an abnormally large proportion of compounds of certain of the volatile fatty acids. It is these which give to butter its agreeable flavour. By the methods of Duclaux, the following is the approximate composition of butter fat:
Myristin occurs in nutmegs ”

“ Much more frequent and much more difficult to deal with is the sale of mixtures of butter and of margarine. In order to show the difficulties inherent to this subject, it will be necessary to consider the chemical nature of butter-fat, and to compare it with other fats that may enter into the composition of margarine. Butter-fat is butter freed from water, curd and salt and extraneous matter. Like the greater number of natural fats it consists of a mixture of triglycerides, that is, combinations of glycerin with substances of the nature of acids. ”

“ Good butter, well made and well worked, should contain somewhere about 88 per cent, of pure butter fat, and the highest class of butters will contain rather more than this. To get the butter fat, however, in a state of purity, the butter must be melted with the water, soluble matters and curd separated ”

“ The yolk of eggs and butter-fat contain this unknown something which is absolutely essential for the growth of the child and which is missing in most substitutes, especially in lard and vegetable fats.
The rat on the left got five per cent of cottonseed oil and the one on the right got instead one and a half per cent of butter-fat, otherwise their rations were alike. These results are typical for any ration made up of purified foodstuffs with butter-fat in them as compared with any fat of plant origin. The plant fats lack an unknown something without which growth cannot proceed. ”

“ For the sustenance of the body we must recognize that fat is fat, whatever its flavor. A calorie from butter yields neither more nor less energy than a calorie from lard or bacon, olive oil or cottonseed oil. The common food fats are all very well digested if judiciously used—not in too large quantities, nor over-heated in cooking, and not “cooked into” things too much as in pastries, rich sauces, and fried foods. Whether we spread our bread with butter or beef drippings amounts to the same thing in the long run; the main point is which we are willing to eat. ”

“ Its colour, due to lactochrome, varies from white to yellow, according to the breed and food of the cow. The fatty constituents of butter are butyric, caproic, caprylic, capric, myristic, palmitic, stearic, and oleic acids, which are combined with glycerine as ethers; the first four are soluble in hot water, the remainder insoluble. It is very probable that butter fat is composed of complex glycerides, i. e. tri-acid (presumably oleic, palmitic, and butyric) ethers, of the following character ”

“ But the composition of perfectly genuine butter-fat varies within somewhat wide limits. The milk from a cow fed on good and ample food in warm weather yields a fat that is rich in characteristic butter-constituents, while a poorly fed animal, kept in the open till late in the autumn, when the nights are cold, gives milk exceptionally poor in fat, the differences expressed as “insoluble fatty acids” lying between 86 and 91%, and in volatile acids, expressed as “Wollny” numbers, between 18 and 36. ”

“ Owing to this subdivision of the fat, and perhaps to the composition of the fat itself, butter is a more digestible fatty article of food than lard or oil. It is not possible by mechanical means to remove the whole of the water and curd of the milk from the butter; indeed “overworking” the butter with the object of removing the water as completely as possible ruins the structure to such an extent as to make the product unmerchantable. ”

“ There is an altogether different class of butter adulteration which concerns itself with the substitution of other fatty matters for the whole or part of the really valuable portion of the butter-fat. Margarine is the legalized and therefore legitimate butter-surrogate, prepared by churning any suitable fat with milk into a cream, solidifying the latter by injection into cold water and working the lumps together, precisely as is done in the case of the churned cream of milk. ”

“ Never touch the butter with your hands.
Well-made butter is firm and not greasy. It possesses a characteristic texture or “grain,” in virtue of which it cuts clean with a knife and breaks with a granular fracture, like that of cast-iron. Theoretically, butter should consist of little else than fat, but in practice this degree of perfection is never attained. Usually the fat ranges from 83 to 88%, whilst water is present to the extent of from 10 to 15%. [11] There will also be from 0.2 to 0.8% of milk-sugar, and from 0.5 to 0.8% of casein. ”

“ Fresh butter is a palatable form of fat, which digests easily. Like all other milk products, it must be kept clean and cold, or it will soon spoil. Butter absorbs other flavors quickly and should therefore not be placed near odorous substances. It is best unsalted and in Europe it is very commonly served thus. When people learn to demand unsalted butter they will get good butter, for no one can palm off oleomargarine or other imitations under the guise of fresh unsalted butter. Unsalted butter must be fresh or it will be refused by the nose and the palate. ”

“ But we may rest assured that with a fairly liberal amount of milk and some green vegetables, possibly some beef fat, we need not fear any disastrous consequences from the substitution of some other fat for butter. Where the diet is limited and the entire quantity of fat is not very large, it seems prudent to select oleomargarine made largely from beef oil and, where circumstances permit its use without the sacrifice of any other dietary essential, to use butter in the diet of growing children unless they get a full quart of milk apiece a day. ”

“ In case butter is selected for this purpose, it should first be melted and then allowed to stand until the clear fat that rises to the top can be gathered. However, fats that are less expensive than butter are perfectly satisfactory for greasing pans, and so butter should not be used unless other fats are not available. ”

“ Hence we see that some people are wrong when they believe butter to be a mere luxury; on the contrary, butter is a very important article of food, more especially so to children.
The reason of this is, that the fat performs a conspicuous part in the human body; it serves to keep up the process of respiration. The oxygen which is inhaled, decomposes the fat in our body and from it forms water and carbonic acid. The water evaporates through perspiration; the carbonic acid is exhaled again. Now, if there is fat in us, this perspiration and exhalation will diminish it ”

“ The principal animal fats are butter, cream, lard, suet, the fat of mutton, pork, bacon, beef, fish and cod liver oil. The vegetable fats and oils chiefly used as food are derived from seeds, olives, and nuts. The most important fats and oils for household purposes are:
BUTTER.
Butter, which contains from 5 to 10 per cent. of water, 11.7 per cent. fat, 0.5 per cent. casein, 0.5 per cent. milk sugar (Konig) . The addition of salt to butter prevents fermentation. Butter will not support life when taken alone, but with other foods is highly nutritious and digestible. ”

“ Butter.—Of all articles of food butter has most fully received the attention of the sophisticator, because it is the most costly of the ordinary articles of diet, and because its composition is so intricate and variable that its analysis presents extraordinary difficulties and its nature exceptional and various opportunities for admixture with foreign substances. It is the intention of the producer of butter to separate the fatty portion of the milk as completely as is practicable from the other constituents of the milk without destroying the fat-globules. ”

“ Our chief sources of fat supply are cream and butter, vegetable oils, nuts and the flesh of animals. Most meats, especially when mature, contain considerable fat. When the fat is mixed in with the meat, it is more difficult to digest than the lean flesh. Fresh fish, most of which contains very little fat, is digested very easily, while the fattest of all flesh, pork, is tedious of digestion.
There is an instinctive craving for fat with foods that contain little or none of it. That is why we use butter with cereals and lean fish, and oil dressings on vegetables. ”

“ Young animals fed on a diet of highly purified food materials in which lard is the only kind of fat may seem fairly well but do not grow normally, while those fed the same diet in every respect except that the lard is replaced by butter grow as young animals should and are more resistant to disease. Study of other food fats shows that they may be divided into two groups, one with this growth promoting property and one without it. In general, the vegetable oils do not have it, while butter and beef oil do ”

“ When a child can take bread crumbled in a little of this fat, it will not be necessary to give him cod-liver oil. Bacon fat is the much better fat for building tissues. Then comes cream, a natural emulsion, and butter. He further says there is one form of fat not commonly looked at in its proper dietetic value, and that is "toffee." It is made of butter, sugar, and sometimes a portion of molasses. A quantity of this, added to the ordinary meals, will enable a child in winter to keep up the bodily heat. ”

“ There are various methods of conserving fat. First, the economical use of table fats; second, the saving of cooking; and third, the proper use of all types of fat.
Economy in the use of table fats may best be secured by careful serving. One serving of butter is a little thing—there are about sixty-four of them in a pound. In many households the butter left on the plates probably would equal a serving or one-fourth of an ounce, daily, which is usually scraped into the garbage pail or washed off in the dishpan. ”

“ What I wish to call particular attention to is that all these precautions necessary for the making of first-class butter relate to its Flavor. Persons buying butter for any other purpose than the enjoyment of its Flavor are extremely foolish, for they can get the same amount [109] of fat and general nourishment very much cheaper in a hundred other ways. ”

“ So far as its food substances are concerned, butter is composed largely of fat, but it also contains water, protein in the form of casein, and mineral matter. The quantity of water contained in butter determines to a large extent the weight of butter, since water is heavier than fat ”

“ Ghee, the East-Indian form of butter, is simply fresh butter clarified by melting, and is used as a dressing for the meal of rice. Butter, though counted as a pure fat, is in reality made up of at least six fatty principles, there being sixty-eight per cent of margarine and thirty per cent of oleine, the remainder being volatile compounds of fatty acids. In the best specimens of butter there is a slight amount of caseine, not over five per cent at most, though in poor there is much more. ”

“ By measurement it has been found that one pound of butter gives to the body almost two and one fourth times as much energy as does one pound of tapioca.
Fats and oils are not only used as food (butter for example) and as constituents of foods (fat in pastry) , but as a medium for cooking. The use of fat as a cooking medium follows:
EXPERIMENT 31: TEMPERATURE AT WHICH FATS AND OILS DECOMPOSE OR "BURN."— Into each of 6 test tubes put 2 teaspoonfuls of butter, cottonseed oil, corn oil, beef drippings, lard, and Crisco. Gently heat each one of the fats or oils until fumes first arise from them. ”

“ Fat is available in various forms, with differing flavors and a wide range of prices. To many people it is unpalatable in some of its cheapest forms; yet its use is important, and some kind should be included in the diet. Fluid and emulsified fats are the most easily digested, hence olive oil, cream, and egg yolk are highly desirable. Bacon and butter belong nearly in the same class. A vigorous man at hard labor can digest fat of any kind without difficulty, and needs it because it gives so much fuel in proportion to its bulk. ”