You can’t feed grass to a stick of butter

Paleo and keto diet (low carb) writers want me to melt a stick of butter in my coffee for a “power start” to my day. There are a number of problems with this advice. For one, butter does not turn into a silky cream alternative in coffee. It turns into an oil slick. Sacrilegiously, I use half and half, 1 gram of carbs per two tablespoons be damned.

You can’t use just any butter in your coffee, either. It must be “grass fed”, a term I just can’t get used to on a package of butter. It brings to mind a stick of butter lying naked in a field as someone, presumably a farmer, holds up to (either end, really, of) the butter stick, a diminutive handful of grass. “Here, eat.”

Meanwhile, the stick of butter melts away. His friend, grass-fed half and half, is equally unhappy, turning sour in the mid-summer heat. They are so very far from their refrigerated homes, squished under-hoof by cows who can’t understand their presence.

The cows themselves are for some reason being grass-fed, too, because for presumably they cannot stick their heads down low enough to reach the grass at their hooves. Someone, a different farmer, say, has pick and proffer them handfuls of grass. All of which is not nearly as bad as what I imagine happens when I read “grass-finished beef.” But, dear reader, I’ll spare you.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a very good idea to allow cows to eat grass rather than some “feed” made up of stuff their digestive systems were not evolved to process. I buy “grass fed” butter and half and half and yogurt and sour cream. My curmudgeonly problem is the labeling.  I don’t like my food animated, even via semantics. If you let the cows roam and eat their natural food (grass), there must be some way to express this at least a little less ridiculously on a package. Say, “made from grass-fed cows.” Does this not drive anyone else screaming out of the dairy aisle? Or is it just me?

One Comment:

  1. My Google search of “How do you feed grass to butter?” led me to your post. Thankfully I am not alone in seeing how ridiculous labeling can be in a futile effort to sound ‘chic’. I thank you for restoring my faith in common sense food terms.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *