Talk:Butterfat

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--Health Effects section needed-- The health impact of butterfat on arterial plaque formation, heart disease, and obesity should be addressed in this article. While Saturated fat and cardiovascular disease controversy addresses the general impact on health of saturated fats, butterfat only mentioned tangentially in that article. Tetsuo (talk) 03:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there something specific to butterfat as opposed to other saturated fats? If not, the information should not be duplicated. --Macrakis (talk) 03:55, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fat percentages seem off[edit]

Cheddar cheese contains 50%+ but heavy creams 36%+? The later's fat percentage is way more than cheddar cheese. BecomeFree (talk) 03:18, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of cream, it is a proportion of the total weight. In the case of cheese, it is a proportion of the dry weight ("relative to the total solids"). Cheddar cheese is about 36% water; so 50% of the total solids is 0.5 * 0.64 = 32% of the total weight. See [1]. --Macrakis (talk) 04:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think a more useful metric would be fat percentage calculated in terms of calories. Knowing that Cheddar provides >70% of energy from fats is more informative than knowing what percentage of fat is in its dry matter (nobody I know thinks of cheese in terms of its dry matter). BecomeFree (talk) 13:32, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The fat content of cheese is routinely given as percentage of dry matter; see Dry_matter#Fat in dry matter (FDM). See, for example:
Percent of total weight may also be interesting, as may be % of calories from fat, but FDM seems to be a common measure of fat content in cheese.
For French cheeses, the labeling standard changed a few years ago from % of dry matter to % by weight of cheese.[2]. Formerly, Emmental was listed as having 45% MG (matières grasses), but is now listed as 28%.
The current article is quite clear about how it is measuring fat in cheese, but that doesn't mean that we can't change to the other method if we think that's clearer (as long as it's supported by WP:RS). --Macrakis (talk) 15:28, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fatty acid composition tables[edit]

Why do the two tables of fatty acid composition seem to disagree? The first one lists more palmitic acid and much less medium chain acids (12) than the sum of them in the second table (27). And yet oleic is exactly the same in both (24). -- J7n (talk) 06:52, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]