THE BUTTER GLUT PROBLEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22204, 6 March 1934, Page 4

THE BUTTER GLUT PROBLEM

ASSISTING ITS SOLUTION Written for the Otago Daily Times By Robert J. Terry. For some considerable time friends have asked me to write regarding the above, but it seemed to mo that the butter problem was not my work. It has now come to me that if I have certain knowledge which may assist the country in which I live there is a distinct duty to give the knowledge. I would preface my remarks by stating that in my youth and early manhood I was intimately connected with what might be termed the provision trade and personally knew some of the largest dealers in butter around Smithtiold Market and Toolcy street, etc., friendships which I renewed in 1915-16. For some years past 1 have been able to study the producers’ point of view. When butter-fat was about half a crown per lb I pointed out that butter must become cheap when the world again became normal. Needless to say, I was not listened to, so I again make another attempt.

Butter is low in price because in the present butter consuming market the supply is greater than the demand, therefore it is only common sense to say that we arc wasting money in any attempt to raise prices unless we can alter the conditions. There are two commonseuse methods for us to work on. Amalgamate with all the butter producing countries, in pointing out to the butter consuming public the value of butter as an article of diet and the folly of buying a cheap substitute—Margarine. It is not sufficient to tell your public to eat more butter and no margarine if you do not give them sound reasons why they should not eat .the cheap substitute. Secondly, and this can be made to apply chiefly to New Zealand, that oiir butter taken all the year round is superior to any other, but again we have to give reasons for this, and we can. . The position of the butter industry is so serious that we must face facts and be honest with ourselves. Therefore it will be as well to admit that iii all probability Danish and possibly some other butters, for five months in the year, are quite equal to ours, possibly superior. What we want to impress upon butter consuming countries is the fact that the butter or milk from a cow eating grass all the .year round, and is naturally eating that grass during many hours of sunlight* is of far more feeding value and has greater health-giving qualities than butter, milk, etc., from cows in sheds or barns for six or seven months in the year.. The knowledge is comparatively recent; therefore there is some excuse for its not being made more prominent. Prior to about a year before tie war butter was judged solely on its flavour and keeping qualities, About that time research workers were finding that there must be some mysterious substahee in the fat contained in ' butter, also the fat in the yolk of an egg. To be brief, this miniite substance may be described as one of the, life principles of food as we know it to-day as vitamins. Thirty years ago I and some others knew it as Bios. Then the war years came and experiments ceased for awhile. • ;• We should endeavour to show the consumer ’that there is a vast difference between butter and the cheap substitute margarine. First, what do they consist off Cream is churned, this causes the fat globules in the cream to run together, whilst the fluid part containing some milk sugar and casein remains in the substance known as buttermilk. When the. cream cleanly, ripened, certain organisms grow in the cream which give die aroma and flavour to the gutter. Now listen! When cream is pasteurised, especially over-pasteurised, it is devoid , of'flavour. You have a neutral fat. Its keeping qualities are enhanced. Too much attention has, been paid to this in the past. The aim has evidently been keeping qualities and the killing of objectionable aroma due to foods eaten by the cows. As a great deal more attention is paid to the feeding of cows, clean milking and handling of cream, excessive pasteurisation is not necessary in Denmark, hence my statement that they, in all probability, have butter superior to ours for five months in the year—the grass period. If traces 1 of casein are left in the butter, decomposition takes place and the butter becomes more or less rancid. If there is much water in the butter it facilitates the travel of the decomposing casein. There is a simple illustration that butter becoming rancid is due to minute particles of casein left in thd butter. In India and some other countries where butter is boiled, until the water is driven off, and then strained so that the casein is removed, the melted butter will keep indefinitely bottled. Such butter is known as Ghee, and it plight be well worth our while to investigate the markets of those countries consuming Ghee, as a possible outlet for our surplus butter. Butter contains four acids known as fatty acids, which are soluble in water. Even the fats are more than one. The chief of them is olein. i

Now the point which wants to be I stressed, why the butter consuming I I public should not buy the cheap substitute —margarine—is that the butter fats are the most easily digested and absorbed of any fats, either animal or vegetable. Butterfat has a low melting point. The fat of the human body also ‘ has a low melting point, and it may be that butterfat closely resembles human in its proportion of the fats, that that is the reasbn for its great human food value. A person at manual labour could in most cases with advantage increase the amount of butter eaten. In many cases of consumption and sugar diabetes a quarter of a pound of butter daily may be consumed with advantage. Further, it should bo poyited out to the housewife that butter may be said to be completely absorbed. Only the merest traces, under a quarter of 1 per cent, are found in the body wastes, whereas 10 per cent, of mutton and other fats may be recovered. Good butterfat often gives better results than cod liver oil j is of much greater value and more,easily digested than olive oil which we have to import. It has been found that butterfat influences growth. The cheap substitute does not. It only supplies heat or calories. Now, what is the cheap substitute made off Originally, margarine, the cheap substitute for butter, was simply beef fat with a mixture of milk, churned together into an emulsion. Then some of the more thinking housewives got into the way of finding that they could test whether genuine or not, or simply the cheap substitute, by melting small portions of each. So commercial man got to work to beat Mother Nature. No. I am wrong there —to beat his fellowman. To-day various fats are melted, then allowed to cool slowly, with the result that the stearin solidifies first. This is removed and the palmitin and olein which remain are churned up w ith some miik in an endeavour to copy butter flavour. The emulsion is then tinted and a preservative added and you have the cheap substitute which is helping to bankrupt thousands of dairry farmers.

It is not the business of the manufacturer of margarine to point out- to the consuming public that it is lacking in an essential for health and growth of the young, which that wonderful chemist Mother Nature has placed in butter-fat. Although I will admit a percentage of margarine is sold as such, and the law stipulates it shall be labelled as margarine, the law is not always carried out. Further, a very largo amount of margarine ia blended with a

proportion of butter, and the risk taken of selling it as butter. It is the business and should be the policy of the dairy farmer; the merchant, etc., of butter and milk products to point out to the consuming public that they are selling a genuine article, not a cheap substitute. ’

The consumption of the cheap substitute', margarine, is far greater than we here in Neiy Zealand realise. From data I have received from America, it is computed that margarine equals one-fifth or more of the butter consumed. In years gone by, and it is probably the same to-day, the Danish dairy farmers exported their butter and imported margarine for their consumption. Denmark was not alone in this respect. I could continue to give data in this direction but I do not wish to tire readers.

Briefly, I would point out that there is never a glut of .the article which is above the average. We could improve our butter in some respects. But the greatest possibility of all is increasing the consumption of genuine butter instead of the cheap substitute; impressing the consuming public with the fact that butter contains anti-rickets, anti-scurvy and other anti-disease properties which the cheap substitute does not contain; that sunimer milk and butter often baa eight and ten times, in this respect, the value of butter or milk produced by cows which are housed for some months in the year and dry fed. Therefore, our butter should be naturally the most valuable butter-fat produced in any part of the world. The above are hard facts.