What butter do you use?

[Trillian]

N2L, buy NZ made Grain feeding is a very rare practice in NZ - most farmers cut hay/silage for winter feed. That is why our diary products taste much better than the Australian ones (my opinion, not trying to pick a fight lol).

As for the actual thread, I would just buy anything and leave it in the cupboard. Only takes a couple of seconds to microwave it if it does go hard.

I can guarantee that the hay and silage they use will have grain in it. There is zero nutritional value in hay and silage that has had the brain harvested from it first. If you do that then it's called straw So your 'grass fed' cows are actually getting grain from the hay and silage.

I suspect "grassfed" will become more of a selling point and more dairy producers will get on board.

Nope, can't see it happening for dairy products, not on a large scale. If it became a specific marketing point then I imagine that the price would go up. Now I realise that you would probably still be happy to pay a premium for it, but I can't see it taking off and becoming the mainstream product. Dairy farmers are getting ****ed in the arse by woolworths and coles as it is with their cheap homebrand milk etc and they are struggling as it is without the added cost of producing 100% grass fed products. So if you think your homebrand butter is cheap, think of the farmer who gets paid stuff all for his milk.

Ok few thing I learnt from working with a few dairy corporations.

Grain fed equals a white product. Which is why our cream gives a yellow tinge, our butter is yellow etc. something to do with our sun and the high level of chlorophyl in our grasses. The rumour that colouring is used is baloney due to labelling required. So whilst our dairy isn't always 100% grass fed. The level at which it is isn't always for laziness but for the welfare of the animal when there is no grass and they need to eat. Second to that areas that have year round grass fed cows provide milk to other companies in times of need. I know KID does this with a few of their other brands at certain times of year. My understanding was that in order to sustain year round grass fed animals you need to have the climate and environment to sustain that. And that isn't something doable with our huge level of dairy needed. And if everyone went 100% grass fed what impact would that have on the industry? The welfare of the animals etc?

This. Australia simply does not have the climatic conditions to produce this type of product in large volume. I would also suspect that those companies that are producing 'grass fed' products either have a very small production run or they are supplementing australian product for imported products to keep supply happening year round. There is also an environmental cost to all of this too. For many farms to continue to produce green feed all year, they need to irrigate, which places a larger burden on the water system. I think this is a factor that no one ever considers when they are buying their trendy products. Afterall, it's easy to just shut that side of it out so people can think they feel better about themselves by only buying grass fed.

Now, from an animal heath point of view, they need grain. It's their protein source just like meat is to you or me. Without the protein, they lose body condition and when they are not as healthy as they can be, how can they possibly produce good quality milk? If you are buying a product that claims to be 100% grass fed dairy, I would be HIGHLY suspicious that they are supplementing the diet of those animals with something else because they cannot have healthy animals that exist on plant matter alone and I'd be wanting to know what that supplement is.

This info is from the Dairy Australia website;

Cows need a balanced diet which gives them enough energy to keep their bodies working and to produce milk. Cows enjoy a diet which consists of five main types of food, so they have five food groups just like you!

The main food for dairy cows is pasture, which is a mixture of grass and legumes growing in the farm paddocks. Legumes provide protein, and clover is the main legume found in pasture.

When cows are producing milk they sometimes cannot get enough energy from eating pasture alone. Farmers usually give the cows some high-energy grain when they come into the milking shed as encouragement to be milked.

Cows eat about 40 kg of nutritious food a day (40 kg of food equals 206 baked potatoes or 1,440 slices of bread!).

What a cow eats affects how much milk she gives, so farmers need to ensure that their cows have a nutritious diet.

Dairy cows have five main types of food in their diet. These are:

Pasture - the name for the plants growing in the paddocks in which cows graze. Pasture plants can be grasses such as rye-grass, or legumes such as clover. The largest part of an Australian dairy cow's diet is fresh pasture.
Hay - extra pasture that has been dried, cut and made into bales to give to the cows later.
Silage - pasture that has been cut and stored while it is still green to retain the nutrients.
Grains - cereals such as wheat and barley provide more energy than pasture and help cows make more milk. Grains can be crushed and mixed with vitamins and minerals to form pellets. These are usually given to cows at milking time.
Forage crops - special crops are sometimes grown for the cows to graze on during summer. These plants include lucerne, maize (corn), millet, turnips and oats. Cows love to eat the green leafy plants and also dig up the turnips from under the ground and eat these too.

[nothing2lose]

Thanks for the info Trill

Due to everything Ive read over the past few months, I'm sticking with grassfed when I can get it. I guess it comes down to personal choice in the end.

[Trillian]

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with choosing to use that product if you prefer it. I would just expect that when people choose it, they do so because they know 100% what goes into producing it and the implications of production and not just do it because it's become some new trendy thing they have read about on hipster/paleo/vegan blogs. Australia prides itself on it's quality of agricultural produce and millions of dollars are spent on R&D each year to make sure that we (the farmers) are growing our product according to world's best practice. You will not meet a regular, family farmer that would put his bottom line ahead of the welfare of his animals health and if someone did do that so they could satisfy some city numpty's conscience, then I wouldn't support that farmer on ethical principles.

[Beach Mama]

Thanks for all the info Trill, really interesting to read a farming perspective, we live in dairy country now and I'm learning alot from lots of people I work with who are farmers too.

We were using the Aldi butter but recently have just been using block butter (still Aldi) and covering it and leaving it in the pantry. It's still pretty cool here at the moment but not sure what we will do in summer when it melts too much! It's amazing how much nicer it tastes!

[nothing2lose]

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with choosing to use that product if you prefer it. I would just expect that when people choose it, they do so because they know 100% what goes into producing it and the implications of production and not just do it because it's become some new trendy thing they have read about on hipster/paleo/vegan blogs. Australia prides itself on it's quality of agricultural produce and millions of dollars are spent on R&D each year to make sure that we (the farmers) are growing our product according to world's best practice. You will not meet a regular, family farmer that would put his bottom line ahead of the welfare of his animals health and if someone did do that so they could satisfy some city numpty's conscience, then I wouldn't support that farmer on ethical principles.

Well it's true I'm a city numpty, but definitely not a hipster Either way, pretty sure vegans don't eat grass or grain fed butter Love ya work xx

[Artechim]

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