21 - Butter, Butter Oil, and Ghee

Abstract

The butter used in the early years of recorded history was churned directly from milk and in many parts of India, butter for the preparation of “ghee” is still made by the direct churning of milk. However, with the development of the centrifugal cream separator, fat test, butter churn, artificial refrigeration, etc., factory butter-making developed rapidly. Depending on the manufacturing process, three main types of butter exist, each having a specific flavor: (i) sour-cream butter, obtained from cream inoculated with starter cultures; (ii) sweet-cream butter, derived from unfermented cream; and (iii) acidified-cream butter, produced with sweet cream, to which lactic acid and flavor concentrates are then added. Butter oil is described as the fat recovered from butter and the fat obtained directly from cream by de-emulsification and direct centrifugation. Ghee is obtained by the clarification of milk fat at a high temperature. Ghee is almost completely anhydrous milk fat and no similar product exists in other countries. It is the most ubiquitous indigenous milk product and is prominent in the hierarchy of the Indian diet. Butter, butter oil, and ghee are considered to be fat-rich dairy products. These products provide energy, fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K), and essential fatty acids. They have anti-carcinogenic, anti-tumor, anticaries, antibacterial, and fungicidal properties. The physicochemical properties of butter, butter oil, and ghee mainly depend on the initial milk-fat composition, the fatty-acid profile, as well as different types of processing methods.