Whole Foods Organic Butter (Sweet Cream) Review

I've tried a number of different organic butters for cooking, as a spread, and as a topping. 365 Organic Salted Butter (Organic Sweet Cream) from Whole Foods is a real good choice, especially when converting from a pollutant-and-pesticide-filled butter that isn't organic to an organic butter. I find it's consistently a good-tasting butter and compared to other organic butters, a great price.

Buttery Taste of 365 Organic Butter from Whole Foods

How buttery a butter tastes depends on several factors. "Sweet cream butter," such as the Whole Foods Organic Sweet Cream Butter of this review, simply means the butter is made from sweet cream rather than milk or sour cream, and it's not made from both sweet cream and milk, like some butters. 365 Organic Everyday Value Salted Butter from Whole Foods is pasteurized sweet cream from cow's milk, with added salt. Pasteurized sweet cream has a less creamy taste than raw cream butter. That's because the sweet cream is tinged from the heat of pasteurization. Less creaminess means less buttery taste.

Salt is a preservative. It's also a flavor element. Most butter is salted. However, adding salt to butter detracts from a pure buttery taste. The Whole Foods organic butter of this review has added salt and that's why it tastes less buttery than the most buttery butters. (Note: Whole Foods does offer an unsalted organic butter too.) However, the added salt in this organic butter is in no way sharp or gritty. And that's good for me and my personal preference. I like salted butter, but I like it salted very little.

Butterfat content is the single, most influential factor in how buttery a butter tastes. By definition, the USDA says American made butter has to have "not less than 80 percent by weight of milkfat." Slight incremental differences in butterfat content between butters are discernible. I'm almost certain Whole Foods keeps the butterfat content in this line of its organic butter right at 80 percent. The taste reflects it.

An organic butter's butteriness is also determined by breed of cow as well as a dairy cow's diet. Organic butter comes from dairy cows only pastured on grass, or a combination of both pasture and other organic feed. Certain pastures lend themselves to better milk, and thus, all things equal, better-tasting butter.

The Cornucopia Institute reports, "Whole Foods has been diligent in their efforts to secure a source for their organic milk that is of high integrity and comes from family farmers..."

Whole Foods itself says, "Whole Foods does not support the use of synthetic growth hormones like rBGH in dairy production...365 Everyday Value Organic Butter (is) sourced from vendors that do not use these synthetic hormones."

365 Everyday Value Organic Salted Butter (Sweet Cream Butter) from Whole Foods: Grade A

The 365 Everyday Value Organic Salted Butter from Whole Foods of this review is U.S. Grade A. That means the USDA finds it "possesses a pleasing and desirable butter flavor." I concur, and I would describe this particular organic butter just about the exact same way. It has a pleasing buttery taste.

I've opened a pound of 365 Everyday Value Organic Salted Butter from Whole Foods only to notice its color was mottled, and another time after tasting it found it to be rather flat in taste. However, those are the exceptions.

Whole Foods Organic Butter (Sweet Cream) Review Conclusion

How I started out this review basically says what I've concluded about 365 Everyday Value Organic Butter (Sweet Cream Butter) from Whole Foods. It's a real good choice, if only that it isn't contaminated with harmful persistent pesticides and pollutants, like butters that aren't organic. Add the price into the equation-I buy it for about $4.99 a pound in NYC-and this butter churns you.

Sources:

Cornucopia Institute, Organic Dairy Report and Ratings, http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/FarmID_119.html

USDA, The United States Standards for Grades of Butter, http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3004470

Whole Foods Market, Private Lable Brand: Milk and Eggs FAQ, http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/faq/milk-eggs-faq.php

Wikipedia, Butter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter