I’ve often said that whenever I see “new” or “improved” on a food product, that’s a red flag that it’s processed and probably something I don’t want to eat. How can humans improve upon God’s creation, the food given to us in nature?
On the other hand, I myself released a second edition of Healthy Snacks to Go, for example, touting some of the “new and improved” recipes that I’d tweaked, made more tasty, or figured out an easier way to create. Is there anything wrong with improving a recipe or streamlining a traditional foods process, as long as it doesn’t adulterate the food?
There really are very few “rules” in eating that can’t be broken, that shouldn’t be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Kerrygold’s New “Naturally Softer” Butter
My first interaction with Kerrygold brand’s new butter was through a blog post at the Healthy Home Economist titled alarmingly “Beware the New Kerrygold Butter.”
I hesitate to even include a link to the article, because I hate to send traffic to what I feel strongly was an unfair post verging on slander, particularly after the author would not update her post when she heard directly from the company that she was dead wrong in her assessment, mostly because of a labeling snafu at their factory. I believe in forgiveness here at Kitchen Stewardship®, and I see no reason to automatically distrust the people behind a brand simply because a large company is involved.
The author’s tub of “naturally softer” butter inadvertently had the wrong inner label, so she assumed sneakery. I might have, as well, but I would rescind the post and update it at the beginning once the mistake was explained to me.
Here’s what the real inner label on Kerrygold’s “new” butter says:
The Healthy Home Economist’s tub had their “reduced fat” butter label on it, which was understandably surprising.
She thought that since the nutrition facts matched regular butter, but the inner label said “reduced fat,” that she had been hoodwinked by a bait and switch, and she vowed never to buy Kerrygold again and advised her many readers to do the same.
Unfair, I say.
Here’s the bottom of the container:
The nutrition facts match the other butter in my fridge.
I, too, am a little wary about butter in a tub. In fact, when my daughter saw it on the table, she wouldn’t let me put it on her bread. I kid you not.
I thought, “Wow, this girl has been trained well. She doesn’t trust “new” butter!”
And usually, anything in a tub is bad news.
However, I’m not one to go with assumptions, at least when I might be able to get to the bottom of the story.
I emailed the company:
Their response:
In answer to your question; Kerrygold full fat butter and Kerrygold Naturally Softer Butter have the same fat and calorie content.
Cream is the primary ingredient in the production of all Kerrygold butters. For our new Naturally Softer Butter, we use a patented method to churn this butter to make it even more soft. During the production of both this new Naturally Softer Butter and our Reduced Fat Butter, cream is churned so as to increase the total solids content to the required level.
Kerrygold full fat butter (80% fat) is produced when the cream is churned until it achieves a total solids content of 84%- 85%. Kerrygold Reduced Fat Butter (60% fat) is produced when the cream is churned until the product reaches a total solids content of 63% – 64%. This is to facilitate consumers who love the taste of Kerrygold but would like to reduce the fat in their diet. Unlike many dairy blends, margarines or spreads, Kerrygold Reduced Fat Irish Butter is 100% all-natural butter made without the addition of oils, preservatives or synthetic ingredients.
Here is some additional information on Kerrygold Irish Dairy products.
Kerrygold Key Benefits
- Kerrygold products are entirely hormone-free.
- Kerrygold uses natural farming methods and centuries-old processes to make butter and cheese.
- Cows are entirely grass fed and only summer milk is used, which is richest in Beta-Carotene.
- Beta-Carotene, nature’s own pigment, gives Kerrygold dairy products distinctive golden color and flavor definition.
- Ireland has the longest grass-growing season in the world, which means dairy herds enjoy fresh pastures
I still had some questions, and I was pleased to see some of the responses (although that “proprietary we-won’t-tell-you” stuff gets in my craw a bit):
- Are the cows dry in the winter months then? As per our note yesterday, farming in Ireland operates on traditional methods and follows seasonality.
- Do the farmers use pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, or fertilizers? The use of growth hormones in cows is prohibited under Irish law. All Kerrygold products are regularly tested to ensure compliance with national testing plans which confirms the safety of our foods and to ensure that there are no antibiotics or pesticides present in Kerrygold products.
- Is the cream used in the regular salted butter different or from a different time (later summer, etc) than the cream for the softer butter, or is the only difference the churning method? The inside wrapper makes it sound as if it’s the time of year that makes the difference. All of our products are made from summer milk, although for our Softer Butter milk is selected during a limited time at the peak of summer.
- What “solids” – solid fat, casein, cream? I’d love a butter-making terminology lesson; it’s just the kind of thing my readers enjoy understanding as well! The following site may be of help to you for more technical information on butter: http://www.realcaliforniamilk.com/products/dairy/butter/
- I see on the website that the softer butter has 80 cal/Tbs and the salted butter has 100 cal/Tbs, but you said they’re nutritionally the same. What am I missing? This was an error on our site. Note from Katie: You’ll see, above, that the softer butter has 100 cal/Tbs, and Kerrygold would get into big trouble if they were dishonest on the packaging. I believe them about the website, but what a silly place to make an error!
Is the Butter Better?
Kerrygold butter may not be organic, but it’s a much better option for many people who can find it in stores than the conventionally grown store butter. You can see the difference:
That’s Meijer butter on top, Kerrygold’s softer stuff on the bottom.
Once I served it to my discerning 3-year-old without showing her the tub, she began calling it “the good butter.” It really does taste marvelous, and the yellow coloring that signifies the grass that the cows are eating makes me so happy.
The softness of the butter is quite nice, able to be spread right out of the fridge and actually super soft if left out until it reaches room temperature.
You’ll get grassfed nutrition out of the regular Kerrygold brick butter, so the real question is how does this product compare to the original?
Is it “new and improved,” the same with a twist, or a “real-washed” product that’s too good to be true?
Readers from Ireland Weigh In
Here are two interesting comments from The Healthy Home Economist’s page:
And:
Just wanted to shed some light on where kerrygold gets it’s butter. In Ireland, the milk from dairy farms is collected in the tanker truck & it goes to the local creamery. The local creamery then pasturise the milk & make the dairy products.
Kerrygold is the commercial side of the government department, An Bord Bainne (the Milk board) so you are buying your butter off the Irish government. They have first choice of the butter made in the creameries & as far as I understand, they get all the “summer” butter. Then whatever kerrygold don’t buy is bought by supermarkets for “own brand” butter.
So Kerrygold butter is made from milk from literally every dairy farm in the country. Irish cows are grassfed cows. We have plenty of grass & it’s free so farmers would be mad to pay for grain over the free grass. We don’t really have weather in Ireland, just lots of rain (lol) so there is very little time that cows would not be able to pasture. There was snow here yesterday, just a little sprinkle (which is the most we ever get) & the neighbours cows were still out in the field behind my house. When the cows are in sheds, they are generally fed hay or silage which is fermented hay (even better). There is a certain amount of farmers who give their cows grain on occasion but from what I understand from the farmer down the road, not many do it so there would not be very much grain fed cow milk in the system and I would doubt there is any at all in the “summer” milk that Kerrygold use.
All that said, very few Irish farmers farm naturally. There is fertilisers on the grass & the cows are injected with anti-bs when needed. The cows do need far less anti-bs then a factory farmed animal though.
I must admit I buy the cheapest butter I can get when I am buying. Since it is all grassfed Irish butter, I don’t need to buy kerrygold only. And I honestly do not see a difference between the “summer” only kerrygold butter & the other Irish butters. They all look & taste the same so I wonder if their summer butter thing is only a marketing thing. I also wonder at the colour of kerrygold in the U.S that you all mention. I would consider butter to be a very pale yellow ( but not almost white like some U.K butters I have seen).
Hope this has been helpful.
Evaluating Kerrygold
As we’ve done with meat and cheese during the Sourcing Quality Animal Products series, let’s look at the pros and cons:
Kerrygold is:
- grassfed
- hormone-free
- from summer milk
It is not:
- organic
- cultured
- local
If the inner label says anything to me, it’s possible that the softer butter is even better than the bricks. Butter at the peak of the season, when the grass is growing quickly and sunshine is abundant, should be higher in Vitamins A&D, CLA fats, and even omega 3s.
And Sarah threw hers away, telling readers to do the same. Actually, she took it back to the store, which is the same as throwing it away.
Since I can’t understand the “proprietary” churning process, I can’t speak to whether anything is missing – or, like whipped butter, if you’re paying for air. The fat content is the same, however, so I don’t think this is a case of whipped butter or adding air or any other additive ingredients. My guess is that it’s partly what I learned when I made butter myself – springtime butter really is softer – and partly something else.
I’ll still buy Kerrygold butter, with a preference for the bricks because they’re easier for baking, but I do like having the softer butter on hand as well.
For my default butter, I have recently found a better one that fulfills more of my “consciously raised animals” requirements…more on that in today’s “How to find quality butter” post!
Would you buy the “new” Kerrygold?
Disclosure: Kerrygold did send a box of butter and cheese, but it wasn’t to pay me off. This is all my own opinion after purchasing Kerrygold’s products myself. See my full disclosure statement here.
Wow!
I am recently seeing the softer Kerrygold here in Jamaica ( Caribbean). I was pretty skeptical When I I first saw, – a tub! I will possibly try now, having read your article.
I buy the regular unsalted by the week, so may consider the spreadable for my meats!
Thanks for this info. I am a Kerrygold girl through and through! :-).
Jan
No, I will never buy Kerrygold again unless they change back this ‘new thing’ to the GOOD OLD REAL BUTTER.
How about this ‘New Taste?’ What happened to the old taste? It’s gone. It doesn’t taste like real butter anymore.
I was furious when I first bought this new butter. I felt cheated because I was so used to Kerrygold. It was one of the last and best butter left in the country. I’m still very annoyed because I could not find anything else to replace it. But I’m sticking to my guns – I won’t buy this ‘STUFF’ ever again.
Carlos,
That is interesting – I had never had Kerrygold before, so I don’t have anything to compare to. Does their regular gold package stuff taste differently, too?
Organic Kalona butter from Tropical Traditions is pretty awesome butter…
🙂 Katie
I’m a little late to the party but I bought this tub the other day despite me being suspicious of it. I’m so happy that you’ve already covered this topic for me.
Also, I can _taste_ the difference between standard grocery store butter and grass-fed butter of any kind. I can’t describe the flavor but it’s definitely different. I’ll never forget when I got all excited to try grass-fed ghee and spit it out in disgust. lol It was the same flavor as the GF butter but 10x more concentrated. I need to re-train my taste buds! Thank you KS. 🙂
Agree with the estimation that Sarah is often off putting in her attacking approach, but, unless she altered her post after you read it, you were as unfair/incorrect in regards to her actual statements when you wrote that she vowed to never buy Kerrygold again, when she only said she was returning the tub. Later, in her update, she said she’d stick with their foil wrapped butter. But, yeah, she could use some toning down. The rampages do nothing to lend her credibility. Then again, you went on an equally attacking rampage against her. Disagreeing is one thing. Thrashing is another.
I’ve had the Kerrygold sticks and the butter is so yummy. Unfortunately, we use enough butter that I can’t afford to use it regularly. I use Tillamook because it’s local and I know they do not use any antibiotics or hormones.
I’m disappointed in some of the stuff that has come out of the HH blog. I sent one of the posts about eating too many green veggies to my naturopath and she said so many of the points in the post were completely invalid.
I like the blocks of KerryGold butter. I get it at Trader Joe’s for about 6$/lb. Otherwise I buy Organic Valley’s Pasture Butter which is local for me but usually more expensive then Kerrygold.
I would buy it, if I couldn’t get organic local – but luckily, I can. As for soft butter, that’s easy – we keep our French butter bell on the counter so we always have some spreadable at hand. The sticks we keep in the fridge (or freezer) for cooking. Best of both worlds!
Given what you quoted about total milk solids, I’m guess the answer is this: Less milk solids means more water (solids are everything except water: whey, casein, butterfat, lactose, vitamins). They probably just don’t churn it as long or have some other method that keeps them from getting as much water out. Another factor might be that there are more omega-3’s due to the rapidly growing spring grass … omega-3’s are liquid at room temperature.
wow, thanks so much for this post and the clarification! i had read the other post and really wondered about the accuracy. i do read her blog regularly but often do find her overly harsh, and she seems to have a very black and white way of looking at things. most of us need some gray in our lives!
i will try this butter now that i know the truth!
Thanks for saying something. The particular blogger you mentioned does sensational posts for just that reason- it adds to her blog traffic and more blog traffic is more money! Anne Marie, from CheeseSlave quoted her saying “If you aren’t pissing people off, your blog won’t grow.”
It seems she is willing to do this at the expense of others and that is so sad. Slander to make money is pretty deplorable.
I read the link you posted, TLO, and I am now so sad. And kind of shocked it came from AnnMarie. I may be the most gullible person on the planet but I never guessed people would incite controversy, stretch the truth or even possibly lie just to amp up their businesses, especially abou real food and better living. I mean, I stopped reading Sarah’s blog for a reason (because I just didn’t need her brand of craziness in my “email life”) but reading your link made me think that many of these real food bloggers are just toying with me via sensationalism. I’m a little disgusted. And I feel used.
Well for me personally, this doesn’t work. For one, I never click on advertisements on blogs. Second, I just read a REALLY outrageous post Cheeseslave posted about letting your children watch unlimited tv, play videos, and computer time. I’ve decided I just can’t read her blog anymore. It’s not that I can’t disagree with someone on some points, but this one (along with some other things that have been nagging at me) really call her judgment and reasoning into question. I have noticed that AnnMarie and Sarah have both been VERY aggressive and nasty in their responses to readers….frankly, that turns me off. There is enough negativity in the world. I prefer to focus on positive people :o)
Katie, I didn’t read through quite all of it, but here’s what I know.
When I churn my butter (from local, grass-fed cream) when it is at room temperature, it churns very quickly (in minutes) and is usually slightly “fluffier” immediately after churning, and harder in the fridge.
When I churn my butter when it is cold from the fridge, it takes much longer, but it is thicker and stays softer when it is cold in the fridge. It also tends to be more deep yellow.
So given my experience, it is entirely possible that this is “normal” to have naturally softer butter.
I don’t often have time to write out comments, but I wanted to make sure I did so here. I really, really, REALLY appreciate you (and other) bloggers that strive for integrity in your blogging. I believe that there are some causes that we should absolutely be militant about, but even then, we can be militant with grace (duh! that’s our whole calling as Christians…). However, getting the wrong label on one tub of butter is not a cause I think we need to be whipping the troops into a frenzy about. I read a lot of the comments on the post that sparked your post… I was honestly a little frightened by the amount of readers who seemed to take Sarah’s word as gospel truth.
The straw that broke the back of my reading her blog, however, was the acrimonious rant she posted against drinking green smoothies, and raw vegetables in general. I understand that there is some reputable research showing that some vegetables are healthier cooked, but the condescension she showed towards the thousands of people trying to take the first step towards good health by vilifying green smoothies and salads (yes! she railed against SALADS!) turned me off her blog forever. Posting controversial and opinionated posts may help your numbers, but it is woefully lacking not only in integrity, but compassion also.
Thanks for fighting the good fight, Katie ;).
I totally agree with you Sarai!
I had never come across her blog until this post, but I am a little saddened by all her posts. She’s just a blogger, sure, and her word doesn’t stand as fact, but she has a lot of followers and I know how easy it is to take one blogger’s word for it when you’re pressed for time to do your own research. Even if only 1/20th of her readers see that post and stop buying kerrygold (or stop drinking green smoothies or stop eating salads), that’s a lot of people who have been turned off of a healthy food. I feel like bloggers like this are working AGAINST the real change the real food movement wants to accomplish.
excellent post. i felt like i got more information that i didn’t know before and i appreciate you went straight to the company as well. i am not to the point of doing all local organic butter yet (great goal though!) and usually buy butter at costco. i would pay a bit more for kerrygold now. i like the info you shared.
Nice job, Katie. I too thought something was amiss w/ her post since I saw the Kerrygold at Costco w/ an “A-OK” label. :-). Yummo butter!
I just barely found this butter at a grocery outlet, for $1.50/tub! I stocked up 🙂 Mine shows lower fat content, 8 grams per tablespoon, rather than 11.
Laura,
I think that’s the reduced fat version, according to the website. ??
$1.50 a tub, though, I’d fill the freezer too! 🙂 Katie
Another Katie here chiming in to say that, for me as well, posts like these are *precisely* the reason I stopped reading her blog. She comes across as very alarmist and elitist, and I do not need that in my life. But to answer your question, yes, I would purchase that butter. We’re currently using generic Costco butter, and I shudder to think what “natural flavors” means. Next time, adios generic and hola kerrygold.
Katie! I did read this post – you’re titled hooked me. 😉
I wouldn’t buy it only because we get our butter from a local farmer and therefore I don’t need to put the brain time into thinking about some of the questions raised in this specific situation.
BUT! What I really wanted to comment on here were two things…
1- Thank you for holding up grace, forgiveness, humility, and the reservation of judgement as qualities to be practiced and modeled always.
and
2- I love that you ask questions to dig down as far into things as you can go. Everyone weighs out value differently, but I find far too often in far too many cases that people just look at things like sticker price or marketing claims (you know, the info on the front label of foods, products, etc, rather than the info on the back label and the things that go on in the manufacturing facilities and fields, etc) and make quick judgements, without taking time to ask the deeper questions. Thanks for sharing your caring, principle-centered, investigative approach and findings with us all.
PS – I don’t know how you find the time to crank out as much written content as you do! You’re amazing. 🙂
I type fast. 😉
And…thanks.
Thanks for this post! (and all the work that you put into it!). I’m bookmarking it so I can send it to friends/FB acquaintances who might bad mouth/turn against Kerrygold because of following the HHE blog.
I am not even curious about the tub butter. Love my Kerrygold bricks; they soften nicely at room temperature, taste fabulous, look beautiful. Why mess with perfection? Also, the tub butter is in a tub. Made out of plastic. Nuff said!
I do appreciate your research and info, though. Thanks!
Jamie,
So true abt the plastic! It’s just that my darn Costco didn’t carry the sticks/bricks, so I had to look into the tub…
🙂 Katie
I hear you on that. Can’t waste a membership; those fees are so high! I’m glad to know the tub is a safer option than it was purported to be. You never know when you’ll be in a pinch and this kind of info sure comes in handy. Thanks for doing the research. 🙂
Yes. Thank you for telling the truth, not a pushy, controversial version of the truth.
I don’t like to bag on bloggers, since I am one, but the blog you speak of keeps doing this. She makes outlandish statements and doesn’t follow them up.
Thank you for being someone who actually does research and also says ‘whoops’ if there is something to say sorry about. It happens to everyone, so why not admit that sometime we’re wrong? We are human, after all.
Yeah…although it does bag her 50 gazillion likes and stumbles, whereas my humble, non-militant, non outlandish truth got 3. 😉
I just gotta be the balance! 🙂 Katie
This is what I really respect about your site, Katie. Not only are you fair, well researched and honest about your own topics, but you are not afraid to defend another against untruth/unfairness. Thank you.
Michaeleen,
You know it! ‘;) Katie
Thank you for clearing this up. I had decided to just stick with the regular Kerrygold bricks thanks to Sarah’s post (although I don’t hang on her every word as she is militant and over the top quite often). It is good to know what the real deal is with this “tub” butter.
I splurge on Kerry Gold once and a while. The distance troubles me, but I don’t have a good local source.
Grrrrrr….. I really don’t like the new tub butter. It literally melts right on my counter!!! We have always kept our butter on the counter because we went through a cup every couple of days, now I always have to refrigerate it. I guess my bone to pick is with Costco since I always buy it there and they switched to the tubs 🙁
Interesting blog post- nice to know more info about the company!
Mary Jo,
That’s true! It’s SO soft if you leave it on the counter. Having the option of refrig AND soft butter is cool, but I don’t like that Costco only carries the tubs right now. I’d like both!
🙂 Katie
GOOD to know! I saw this the other day at my local Sam’s Club and almost grab a tub, but chickened out. Now I think I’ll definitely try some on my next visit.
My milk cow is not giving me much cream right now, since we have 2 calves on her (*sob*), so I’m stuck buying store butter for the time being- and this looks to be my best available option.
And THANK YOU for being willing to “stand up” and share your opinion, even if it goes against a popular blogger. Lately I’ve been very turned off at the alarmist and elitist tone in many real food blogs. It’s refreshing to hear a voice of reason. 🙂
Thanks, Jill…
I sincerely hope “alarmist” and “elitist” are two words that never apply to me…I’m happy to be counter cultural, even in the counter culture! 😉 Katie
Gosh, I totally agree. What really struck me about this is the idea that we should be throwing away (essentially) real, good food because it’s got an incorrect label? And someone with that massive a following is recommending all her readers do the same? It REALLY struck me as I thought of all those through out the world who don’t have enough food to eat, who go to bed hungry every single night, and here we are in America encouraging people to just throw their food away because it’s got a bad label. It just breaks my heart.
The elitist/alarmist tone is definitely VERY alive and well among the natural foods blogs, which give us a bad name, though not this one, and it’s why I will read your blog forever and ever. 🙂
I buy kerry gold brick and tub butter. I do because it’s grassfed. If there were a local option, I’d pick that instead but there isn’t. I occasionally stock up on the Organic Valley Pasture Butter when we’re traveling and near a big city that carries it, but most of the time kerrygold is our best choice and reasonably priced for a grassfed dairy product. Thanks for doing the research!
I’d have to say I wouldn’t buy it. The biggest reason is that it’s shipped from Ireland. Anything I CAN buy locally I do.
Thanks for sharing the facts. Nice to make a better informed decision!
So…even the “Reduced Fat” stuff is still good, grass-fed, butter?! Hooray! I know where there is a BUNCH of it, really cheap–it’ll get us through till I can find a new source for the butter we’d been using, as my source dried up.
Heather,
I’m sorry if I was unclear – I’m talking about the “naturally softer” butter, which is NOT the same as reduced fat. (There was a snafu with some inner labels getting mixed up between the two, but nothing you can see from the outside.)
I just checked out the stats on reduced fat, and the ingredients are still “cream, salt” – the only difference is that there’s 80 cal/Tbs instead of 100 in real butter, but it’s still 100% fat! They must whip in air or something on that one…BUT if you can’t find the regular butter or reduced fat is less money, it sounds like it’s “real” butter alright! 🙂 Katie
I’m like the other person who posted….I’ve got Grocery Outlet nearby (the closest thing the SF Bay Area has to a salvage grocery store), and they have piles of the low-fat Kerrygold tubs at $1.50 each For that price, they can tide us over while I find a new better butter source for less than the $6/pound of Kerrygold bricks. Costco organic butter works out to about $3.75/pound…but it’s some pale stuff.
Bread and butter are a guilty pleasure. So is Starbucks. Then Starbucks started serving bagels. Not every store has butter, but those that do have Kerrygold, and it was love at first bite! I still haven’t found it in stores, but I’m looking!! 🙂
Thanks for this informative and much more fair presentation of Kerrygold’s new butter. I had to leave a comment on the original post when it came out because, having worked in a dairy processing facility, I was more than familiar with the types of packaging errors that can occur. It’s called human error. It happens. In all processing facilities. While I still would tend to suspect a “tub” butter, I really appreciate that you did all that research and emailing for us. There have been times when a product I liked came out with a tub version and I hated it because they changed or added ingredients that were either bad or totally changed the consistency I loved in the original product.
That kind of attitude is why I quit reading her blog. Thanks for sharing the facts.
I just bought Kerrygold butter in the tub but haven’t tried it yet. I was skeptical When I first saw it but there were no extra ingredients. Then I wondered if it was whipped with air making it cost more per pound but the price pound was about the same so I decided it was safe to buy. So I am really glad you gave it the thumbs up.
I want to try butter from a local farm but it’s so much more expensive. I buy Kerrygold for about $7/pound at Sam’s Club but the local butter through my food coop would be $11.
I am from Ireland and now live in the States, have been for 3 years. I buy it because it reminds me of home and…it tastes right to me! Yellower, creamier, sweeter…better. 😉 Putting aside questions of organic, cultured or local, I think that all Irish dairy products *taste* much better. I really look forward to having dairy when I visit home!
I would buy the new Kerrygold butter. I keep both sticks and tubs in my house. My sticks are for baking and tub isn’t full of fake fats or anything, but it would be nice to replace it with pure butter. Although it’s not local, I don’t buy sticks from a local farm anyway. The fact that it’s not organic is balance with grass-fed, hormone-free and no additives. I could be wrong (still wet behind the ears), but I liken it to getting chicken/beef/produce from local farmers who have similar farming practices but do not pay for the “organic” title.
Looking forward to the “finding quality butter” post!
Great post, I agree… her post was really harsh given it was a labeling issue. I just started using Kerrygold butter and I am sorry I waited so long. I couldn’t justify the price.. until I tasted it.