March 15, 2004

I can't believe it's not partially hydrogenated soybean oil!

Posted by apostropher

Cows fed rapeseed yield naturally spreadable butter.

Rapeseed is rich in unsaturated fats, which pass through the cow's digestive system into its milk. One of these fats, called oleic acid, makes butter produced from the milk spreadable when cold. [...] The butter tastes just like normal.
To be marketed as 'butter', the product must be made entirely from milk fat. If any vegetable oil is present, the substance is relabelled as a 'spread', which is often less attractive to consumers. "We just put the vegetable oil in at an earlier stage," says Fearon. [...] Rapeseed is used to supplement the normal diet of food pellets and grass. "If we feed them raw seeds alone, they come straight out of the other end of the cow," says Fearon.

Cows have always struck me as so weird that they definitely merit a suspicious, watchful eye. Particularly the crafty "wetback cow" that, aside from flaunting our immigration laws (la vaca dice el MOO!), can carry the oddly named Boophilus tick, spreader of the nasty bovine piroplasmosis. Giant hive-mind mammals are not to be trusted, no matter their accent. Lucky for them that they are made entirely out of beef.

TrackBack
Comments
1

I don't know about you, but this disturbs me much more than genetic alterations or irradiation. What else will they start feeding these cows? Can you get garlic butter this way?

Posted by: paul at March 16, 2004 09:28 AM
2

Reminds me of a friend of mine in college who spent a summer at a bovine feed research lab. His job was to measure the bovine caloric intake of different feeds. I know the questions you will have, so here are the answers:

1. Burn a quantity of feed before.
2. Burn the residue after.
3. Pink styrofoam peanuts.

Posted by: Tripp at March 16, 2004 11:25 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?