Since I never have had a problem with cholesterol, I prefer full cream butter, salted. Especially if it is sea salted.
Artificial spreads, like the varieties of margarine, leave me cold. Should it ever turn out that I must leave butter, I would go for a robust olive oil, directly, rather than processed.
There was a French brand at Coles for a while called “La Motte” by President, I think. Woolies claims to sell it still. Very tasty.
“Full cream”? Some butters, like the supermarket blocks, seem to have been made with a little fat content as possible. I like my milk full cream as well.
Devondale is a good second.
But the search goes on…
1 Like
My Mrs Butter is fortunate to have normal weight & perfect blood results (except vitamin D).
After butter, her next love is cream. Until I met her, I’d never seen/heard of eating cream on toast.
She’s volunteering now for the cream tasting!
2 Likes
At least some of those calves have a reasonable, if short life, some longer than others.
Unfortunately the male calves that I have seen or known about over the last several decades have not lived more than an hour or two after being found to be males.
There is a dairy, possibly in Victoria, where the cows are artificially inseminated in such a way that almost all calves are female. Cannot, unfortunately, remember the name…but someone could probably help with that…
It is gratifying to know that there at least some folks who do have the welfare of their animals at heart.
Scientists and those who deal with animals in non lethal activities now realize that animals do have thoughts and feelings and do communicate with each other so there is hope for a better future for animals. After all, we too are animals.
2 Likes
Indeed no - hence the smiles - no it’s not a laughing matter, but I tend to laugh at things as a preventative measure - for me. Not all alphas are male, but I’d certainly concede they are likely by far the greater representation in this market segment …
1 Like
I agree, humour is often very necessary in the current incarnation of human behaviour. What else can we do?
Also agree with alpha distribution. There is an over representative collection of both in this area! Life for animals and non aggressive humans can be just a speck challenging…
1 Like
Australian made, the factory is in Sydney. Have been eating it for years and now Pep has organic butter.
There is a full range of products… butter, ghee, buttermilk .
Over the years I have purchased brandy butter at Christmas, smoked butter & missed out on black garlic when he had it for a short time only…
Hope he will have it again.
1 Like
Mainland salt reduced butter which I only use occasionally and spread thinly.
1 Like
Try the one I mentioned above… He is a small producers.
Devondale light. The only spread we’ve used in the house for probably 15 years. When you’re on a good thing …
2 Likes
Only Devondale butter. Tastes better than margarine and is less contrived than margarine.
Never NZ after the Fonterra episode in China.
What are our farmers using to feed dairy cows?
I don’t use butter anymore as I’m trying to become vegan (presently a vego). I love the taste of butter but, as in so many cases, there’s a degree of cruelty in providing it. Newborn calves taken from their mothers at birth - females mostly kept, males crated for veal or sent to the abattoir. So I’ve been using Coconut-oil based Nuttlex - uses no Palm Oil and 5cents from each pack is donated to the Orangutan Foundation to help protect and replenish forest habitat in Borneo. It also tastes really nice.
1 Like
It might be appropriate to consider palm oil cropping has a higher productivity per hectare than coconut oil cropping.
Preferring coconut oil could lead to an even worse scenario for clearing of land in the tropics due to it’s lower productivity. It may be better to reject products containing either base oil.
The clearing of tropical land and rainforest for either crop has unacceptable environmental consequences.
A secondary consideration is that for both crops agriculture now prefers hybrid varieties. This is potentially decreasing bio diversity through monocultures. Although potential risks to the crops open the door to GM gene editing to introduce pesticides and herbicide resistance. Super weeds of the future?
Ref
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286518484_Oil_Palm_and_Coconut
3 Likes
The results are in, find out who scored the best (and worst) in our butter taste test:
3 Likes
One thing I would like to see in future Choice dairy tests is the State it’s made in. For me the taste of butter isn’t big between brands, but I always try to buy something made locally if I can as it’s fresher and has a much smaller transport footprint
3 Likes
Maybe a filter could be also added to the side to allow one to select Aussie products only. Would save opening up each product link, expanding the criteria list and reading country of origin.
Health Star rating could be another criteria where there is a range of ratings across the product grouping.
2 Likes
We have tried many of the butters and it could be our taste is abnormal, but we do not agree with the rankings for our household. It is nice to know what the experts think is top butter, but we are consumers with personal tastes and preferences rather than experts; consumers do not always buy what the experts prefer, and we shop accordingly.
A nice test nevertheless, and expert information is always valuable, if only as a place to start. Considering where our fav butter products fell in the test I’ll not reveal them in fear of being branded a pedestrian butter eater.
4 Likes
That’s a great observation that may apply to many other consumer purchases.
Taste, fashion etc is subjective.
Needs also differ!
Choice for many products does a good job of assessing performance, quality and relative value.
Our choice in butter as a spread is based on how readily it can be eh… spread, fresh from the fridge. Does it also taste OK and is it Australian product? The final consideration, is the manufacturer and brand being an Australian company is optional for most products these days.
Butter for cooking is more complex, with price being important, except for the odd bit of baking where the flavour of the butter is critical. In that instance the Choice results are useful, assuming we need to need to cater for the tastebuds of strangers?
Our preferred butter product which has a prominent space on the supermarket shelf was not assessed.
3 Likes
Thanks for the feedback all, I’ll pass on the suggestions and see if we can improve our filtering in the future. Regarding the country of origin, here’s a graphic representation of some butters on test.
4 Likes
I was disappointed to see that Pepesaya butter was not recommended & that Western Star (use for cooking) performed better.
Guess it’s all down to the taste. Personally will stick with PepeSaya for eating.
2 Likes
