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How to distinguish butter from fake: top 4 effective ways

Maria Tsikhotska

How to distinguish butter from fake: top 4 effective ways
Butter quality is easy to determine

Every housewife has butter at home, which is used to improve the taste of porridge and potatoes, spread on sandwiches and add to baked goods. Regardless of how it is used, the butter must be fresh and of high quality, not fake.

The quality of butter is based on the presence of only animal fats and natural ingredients. This means that high-quality butter cannot be cheap, because it is often faked.

But how can you tell the difference between natural butter and fake?

Appearance of quality butter

Natural butter made from cow's milk has a yellowish-white color. In summer, it may have a more intense yellow hue due to the large amount of carotene that cows get from grass.

If you find fresh but yellow butter in winter or fall, it means that the manufacturer has added some components to it to make it yellow. Butter made from cow's milk has a paler shade during these periods.

White butter is made from goat's milk. In other cases, the light or white color of the butter is a sign of counterfeiting.

The color of the butter should be uniform, without any impurities, and there should be no unpleasant odor.

In addition, vegetable oils, such as spreads or margarines with natural ingredients, are not a bad alternative to butter.

How to check the quality of butter

Taste

Real butter should have a characteristic creamy flavor and be easy to spread. There should be no unpleasant film left in your mouth after eating it. If a film remains when you try to mix the butter with water, it means that it is not butter.

Freezing

Butter contains whey, while margarine and other fatty products are made up of different types of fat. If you put butter in the freezer, it will be difficult to cut it with a knife, as it will become. Spreading such butter on bread will also be difficult. On the other hand, margarine and butter with additives freeze quickly and are easy to cut even after freezing.

Read also: What to put in a plate with berries to keep them in the refrigerator for more than one week

Heat

Leave a small piece of butter at room temperature to start softening. Butter with additives or margarine will begin to release water droplets when exposed to heat.

Boiling water

Natural butter dissolves quickly in water. You can try dropping a small piece of butter into a glass of water and stirring it. If the butter does not dissolve or breaks into particles, it means that it contains additives or it is margarine.

Water

Natural butter releases a layer of fat to the surface of the water. The water can become cloudy or remain clear, depending on the amount of whey.

As a reminder, we already wrote how to make frozen butter soft in minutes