Dairy Products: Butter

Butter is a water-in-oil emulsion made from cream (cream is an oil-in-water emulsion, so it could be said that butter is the inside-out version of heavy cream). It must contain at least 80 percent, but not more than 90 percent, milk fat (also called butterfat), no more than 2 percent dry nonfat milk solids, and no more than 16 percent water. “Premium” butter contains 82 percent milk fat, which makes it an arguably better product because the more fat, the better flavor and mouth feel it will have. This might justify why it is more expensive as well. Other, less expensive butters may have 80 to 81 percent milk fat, and therefore cannot be labeled “premium” by law. The difference is so subtle that many people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference. The USDA allows butter manufacturers to round the butterfat percentage to the closest whole number, so if a butter contains 81.6 percent or up to 82.5 percent milk fat, on the label it will appear as 82 percent.