What is butter?
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life.
Melissa:Cozy edition.
Jam:Cozy cozy edition.
Melissa:Getting into you. Yeah. The for those of you who are watching on YouTube, you can see I'm wrapped up in a little blanket, all cozy on the couch today.
Jam:Yeah. And we are in a general sense ever since we moved to or added in YouTube. Yeah. We did literally move over to the couch. Mhmm.
Jam:So there's a general coziness that is new to the show.
Melissa:Yeah. It almost feels a little bit more like a Like, oh, we're just friends chatting Yeah. Instead of being at a desk. That felt a little more teacher y.
Jam:I wonder if there has been a notable Notable difference that comes to the audio side. It's like, they sound cozier.
Melissa:They sound oh, I can hear their coziness.
Jam:If anyone's not seen that we actually changed settings a bit, But a little more comfy than a desk, which is kinda nice.
Melissa:It is. It's definitely nice. Yeah. Okay. Guess what, Jam?
Jam:What is it?
Melissa:I'm really excited about today's episode, and I know I'm always excited. And people are like, you gotta pick a new word. You're always excited about everything, but that's just how chemistry makes me feel. It's just excited is the best word.
Jam:I I'm thrilled to find out what it is.
Melissa:Thrilled. Okay. Well, I just think it's really exciting. I'm gonna go all in on it. Okay.
Melissa:Okay. But you actually already heard this question because, many of you know, Jam and I go to church together.
Jam:Yep.
Melissa:And we did a big meal to celebrate Easter. And while we were sitting at that meal, like, in our church, a friend of ours, she's also a woman in STEM. Yep. And she came up and said, listen. Why does shaking milk make butter?
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:And, Like, why milk specifically? Why don't other things do that? Right. And I was really excited about that question. And then later that day, One of our other friends left a little bowl with some butter in it Uh-huh.
Melissa:And a little butter knife, and I was playing with the butter. It was so satisfying, and I just kept thinking, what Is this Yeah. What is this that I'm, like, spreading with this knife around? So it's a question from our listener and friend, Clarissa, but also it just took root in me. And it's one of those that I was like, yeah.
Jam:That is pretty cool thing because I was just sitting there when it happened. Yeah. Like, A lot of the questions or ideas that come in are things that I may also see too if they came through one of our, like, email or whatever website. And I may just see them pass by at some point, and I have no idea when Melissa might pick it up and use that one or report she's planning next. But it is odd that just only a few short days ago, I heard this question get asked right next to Melissa, and then, here we are recording
Melissa:it now. Yeah. Now we're recording it. So that's fun. A very interesting incident.
Jam:I'm super I'm excited to find out.
Melissa:Did you have any thoughts when she asked that question about what it could be? And listeners, y'all can also Take a minute to think about what it could be.
Jam:Yeah. I know that there's a lot of fat in milk. Mhmm. And that we we talked about back a long time ago, butter and margarine
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And about the The structure of it and something about the the fat is able to, kinda combine in a structure where it becomes solid. Yeah. If it's given the right conditions and that kind of stuff and that we had to you had to do some fancy stuff to get oil through the same thing
Melissa:Yes. In the
Jam:case of trying to make a butter substitute or whatever. But that's somewhere in my brain still, a little bit of that.
Melissa:That's impressive. That's still in your brain.
Jam:And then I have seen videos of people making butter, and I've thought, I don't wanna do that. But I I watched the video Anyway because I was like, this is interesting, but it wasn't someone who could explain exactly what was
Melissa:Did how did they make the butter? They,
Jam:I think they put it in a stand mixer and had a specific attachment to it.
Melissa:Yeah. I don't know if you need a specific attachment.
Jam:Oh, I don't know anything about that. I don't know what's a normal attachment, but they had something attached to it So they could mix it up in, and sort of churn it in the Yeah. In that way instead of, like, a old
Melissa:Once I accidentally made butter when I was trying to make something else. I'll tell you that story at the end. That's a good you have a good understanding of that.
Jam:But that's all I kinda know. And, also, my thought is I wonder if there's fat in milk. What's what else is in there? Like, what is the what's the other stuff?
Melissa:So we're gonna talk about that too. Some of our listeners probably have done this, so I wanna bring it up. There's also, an experiment that a lot of little kids will do where you put cream in a jar and shake it up, and that also will make butter.
Jam:Okay. Interesting.
Melissa:Just a little bit. It's more similar to the churning method. You know? Yeah. So that's also a way that people make butter that I've saw on the Internet when I was doing this research, and I'm guessing a lot of our listeners have done that or, you know, in, like, elementary school or, you know, depending on you can do that at a lot of different ages depending on what concepts you wanna pull out.
Jam:Here's a question I have too, but and maybe I'll answer on our way. But If you're wanting to make butter at home, do you do you have to get, like, whole milk, or can you do lower fat milk, or is that make it way harder because a lot of fat's gone?
Melissa:Yeah. So I'll talk about milk here and what happens to milk. But, really, you want whole milk From the cows, like, straight from the cow. Not whole milk that you see at the store, but, like, raw milk, I guess, is a better way Okay. Or heavy Cream or double cream is sometimes called in Europe.
Melissa:Okay. So we'll talk more about that. Okay. That's a good question.
Jam:I definitely have bought heavy whipping cream for various recipes Right there.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:So I'm guessing that has way more fat in it. Mhmm. Got it. Okay.
Melissa:Okay. So good job. You have a lot of this already in your brain, so that's really exciting. Okay. So before we talk about butter, like you asked about what else is in milk, we have to talk about milk.
Melissa:Okay. So raw milk from a cow is made up of fats, proteins, Minerals, vitamins type thing, water and sugar, also known as lactose. Yep. Okay. So Something that should stand out to you is that there's fat and water.
Melissa:Yes. Do those things mix together?
Jam:Normally, no.
Melissa:Normally, no. But sometimes they do. And so the reason they normally don't is because of intermolecular forces. Right. Quick it's the return of intermolecular forces yet again.
Melissa:And a quick overview of intermolecular forces. We go a lot more in-depth on this in other episodes, even actually The margarine versus butter episode. It's like the 2nd one we ever did. But, essentially, intermolecular forces are literally the forces that act between molecules to attract them to each other. So it's not as strong as, like, a bond, but it's definitely not nothing.
Melissa:So sometimes molecules are drawn to one another. Mhmm. And in one of the things we talked about is there's the intermolecular forces of sort of like is attracted to like. So
Jam:Right.
Melissa:If the electrons are evenly distributed around a molecule, There's not a positive area or a negative area. They're all kind of neutral. Mhmm. That can attract to other molecules that are similar in with dispersion forces.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So I think if the electrons are evenly dispersed, then dispersion forces bring them together. But if they're unevenly distributed, sometimes you'll get a concentration of electrons in one area and a lack electrons in another area making 1 area negative and another area positive causing sort of poles like in magnets.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And the negative side of 1 molecule is strongly attracted to the positive side of another.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So it's just easier for those 2 to interact with each other. That's called dipole dipole or for dispersion forces to interact, you know, on nonpolar molecules. Yeah. So So that's why we get this thing that happens where if you mix water and oil together or fat and oil I'm sorry. Or fat and water, Or you'll have the nonpolar molecules finding each other really easily and the water finding each other really easily, and they don't really want to interact because It's just, easier, I guess, to interact with itself is a good way to think of it.
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:The water polar And oil slash fat, nonpolar. Yes. Okay.
Melissa:And in our very first episode about soap, we talked about how soap has A non polar side and a polar side, and it can kinda bring them together.
Jam:Right. And actually allow them to interact where otherwise, they would basically avoid
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Interacting. Okay.
Melissa:Mhmm. Right. But, milk, okay, is sort of special because you have the The fat distributed in it and you have water in it. I mean, the major component of milk is water. And the thing that brings them together is actually proteins.
Melissa:So the protein in the milk, for some reason, acts as a really good agent to bring fat and water together. K. And there's a name for this type of agent. You've probably heard about it before. It's called an emulsifier
Jam:Oh, yes. Okay.
Melissa:Or an emulsifying agent. K. And so milk proteins are able to make milk be essentially an emulsion where All this fat and the proteins and the vitamins, everything is sort of evenly distributed in the milk, Not separated out in oil and water layers. Okay. Okay.
Melissa:But here's something fun that I love. So I was like, why? Why do milk proteins do this? And I always love when the answer is we don't know, but it Seems like that's the answer is we don't know. Uh-huh.
Melissa:So they found a paper that's recent as 2019 that stated that little is known about why, let me let me make sure I got this right. Little is known about the detailed physics and molecular mechanisms of milk Emulsions, which is so exciting to me. Interesting. The detailed physics and molecular mechanisms of milk emulsions isn't well known. Wow.
Melissa:And I'm guessing that there's something in the proteins that's nonpolar on one side and polar on the other. But if it was that Simple to identify that. I think it would have happened already.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So I'm I'm curious about why there's so little known. Yeah. So that's exciting.
Jam:It's also it's one of those great scenarios where nature is doing something super cool that it's been doing forever.
Melissa:Yeah. And
Jam:it's like, we figured out so probably by accident, but still it was a human like effort of like, oh, we figured out this this plan or this whatever. We do this thing. It's able to, like, get you know, say the early humans were trying to get some some animal fat off of their pan. Yeah. Figured out if I do this thing, it actually gets it off.
Melissa:Plant. Yeah. I remember our friend, Vianette, who's also on the show, sending us some indigenous people. I don't remember where she's visiting, but indigenous people in that land used a plant Yeah. To basically make soap.
Jam:Yeah. And so it's, like, it's already occurred, but we figured out how to combine the things. In this case, it's like, oh, nature has been Making fat and water work together with this protein, and we call it milk. And it's been around forever. It's like, that's just so crazy.
Melissa:It's so crazy. The other thing that's interesting that is important also is if you zoom into the molecular level, the flat the fat isn't like individual Molecules of fat, they're sort of grouped together in little globules. Okay. And it seems like there's maybe a slight membrane around the globules that sort of keep them together.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So maybe that has something to do with how the protein works as well. But, essentially, milk is just water Uh-huh. With a bunch of other things dispersed in it evenly in an emulsion.
Jam:K. Wow. Nice. Interesting.
Melissa:And that's called a, let me make sure I get it right. I think it's called a fat in liquid emulsion Because the fat is distributed in the liquid.
Jam:Got it. Okay.
Melissa:Or maybe fat in water. Right. So now what does that had to do with the butter? To you
Jam:Seems like nothing. Just like unrelated random trivia to me.
Melissa:Yeah. Definitely. That's I'm well known for doing that.
Jam:Yeah. Thanks for those fun facts, but I just don't get how we're gonna get the butter Here.
Melissa:Well, you actually kind of got it already because, essentially, butter is just undoing that emotion and getting the fat together. And you basically said that there's fat and butter and that, you know, there's fat and milk, so they must have something to do with each other. That's essentially right.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:What we're doing is Putting energy in by shaking up or using a stand mixer or whatever. We're putting energy into this body of Molecules Mhmm. Meaning that the molecules can move around more and more, and it's getting agitated. And Sometimes that energy may even break the membrane around the globules, which would allow the fat to leak out into the rest to the milk. Ah.
Melissa:And as it's being agitated more and more, the molecules are moving more and more, which gives them a higher chance to interact with other fat molecules. And because there's more fat molecule interaction, they're it's easier for them to interact with each other than the water. So when they find each other, they're gonna cling on to each other Uh-huh. Making larger and larger globules or accumulations of fat Uh-huh. Which eventually become visible to our eyes.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And that is butter. Interesting. I know.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:So, literally, you're just Basically, putting energy in to overcome that emulsion Uh-huh. And provide the opportunity for fat molecules to meet each other and hang out together. Yeah. With those intermolecular forces, they'll be drawn to one another.
Jam:Yeah. Wow.
Melissa:And so that's like a a quick overview.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:But I think it's important to talk about the fact that butter is it's, like, kinda easy to be like, okay. So that's what butter is. Butter is milk and we just separate out the milk fat by letting it interact with each other. You know? That's it.
Melissa:But it is a lot more complicated than that, and I don't think that that's Worth kind of diving into on the show, but I just wanna underline that the chemistry of butter is Pretty complicated. So, according to a 2021 paper, at the molecular level, butter is made up of a continuous liquid fat phase. So there's still liquid fat in there. It's not all solid at room temperature. Mhmm.
Melissa:It has a crystalline network of fat, which it's not just, You know, slam together, they do crystallize as they meet each other similar to the way snowflakes do. There's, like, a nucleation site, and then they kind of grow out from there. Mhmm. There's an underlying crystal structure that makes butter spreadable and nice the way it is. If you've ever melted butter and resolidified it, you know it's different the 2nd time.
Melissa:There's water within the fat still. It's not completely devoid of water, so there's a dispersed water phase. There's intact fat globules and fat globules that have, you know, lost their membrane. Mhmm. There's air, and, essentially, it's still an emulsion.
Melissa:It's just what we know as a phase inversion. So The fat in water emulsion switched to be there's water now distributed in fat. So it Still got fat and water combined as one thing, but instead of it being combined in the liquid form, the water is distributed in the solid form where the major thing is fat.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:When before the major thing was the water.
Jam:Got it. Okay.
Melissa:And that's known as a phase inversion. That's, like, More complicated chemistry. I would say that's more in polymer chemistry range and, even the the membranes around the fat globules, I think, would go into, like, surface. There's, like, a type of chemistry that looks at sort of the interface between different either liquids or things like that. So That's really all of that is really complicated chemistry, and it has to have this nice structure so that it's solid but still spreadable.
Melissa:And there's tons of different fats in there that, you know, some are saturated and some are unsaturated. So there's just all kinds of stuff going on in butter. And I'm giving you the eagle eye view, but there is much more complicated stuff going on if you wanna zoom in on butter. So So it
Jam:has mysteries. It's still holding on to many other things that are going on that are cool.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:But the The main chemistry is how we get from kinda milk to butter is what we covered in detail.
Melissa:And we talked about you asked about milk straight from the cow versus, you know, whole milk. Yeah. So then I was wondering about that same thing. Like, When we're talking about milk and all of these resources that I'm finding about butter, what milk are we talking about? Yeah.
Melissa:So Then I found, Michigan State Extension, which they've done work that we've used before. Mhmm. And an extension is a part of a university which Takes scientific information or information about maybe, like, agriculture and distribute it distributes it to the public or farmers, people who need to use it. Got it. And if you wanna learn more about that, you can listen to our episode about the sea level rising because my sister, the other doctor Kolini, was on for that.
Melissa:Yeah. And she worked in extension. Although she's I think she's accepted a new position maybe at a different thing that's not quite extension anymore. Nice. But still.
Jam:Yeah. The episode's cool super cool, and she does explain extension
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:In detail. I'd never heard of that until we talked about it, or you'd probably hope told me, but she explained it in a way that I was like, oh, okay.
Melissa:And it's really helpful. Like, I use extension a lot of times, if I'm not finding good science that I'm confident about, like, You know, follow the American Chemical Society hasn't really done anything. That kinda happened this time where there'd be really basic information, but not more in-depth that I was looking for were things that weren't from a good reputable source. So I just typed in extension butter, and then then I found The from the Michigan State Extension. I was really excited.
Jam:Oh, cool.
Melissa:So they, I've linked to it in our show notes, but they talked about what happens when milk goes to a plant sort of to be processed. Mhmm. So that raw milk has enough fat in it that I think you could use that to make butter. And I'm assuming that's what was done previously.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:But the way that milk is processed now, it's separated into 1%, 2%. You know, it's standardized based on fat content, and the extra fat from that is skimmed off that floats to the top or whatever. And it's the excess fat is made into cream or is used to make things like butter.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So for us, I think you would need to use heavy cream. You could maybe use whole milk, but there's just so much less fat in there that I think it would be really difficult to Have enough that would even make those globules happen. You know?
Jam:Where I watched one of the videos I watched, there's just was The person said I think they probably were using for the heavy cream, but they but they said there's always some leftover liquid, which is probably mostly water, and maybe some some globbies you can break up.
Melissa:And protein and prop maybe Yeah. Probably vitamins and stuff. Yeah.
Jam:Yeah. All the other stuff. But there's always something left, which kinda makes sense because you're gonna try to do the what'd you call it inversion?
Melissa:The phase inversion.
Jam:Phase inversion.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And try to make a situation where there's a lot more fat, but there's water in that Yes. You are probably gonna have to have some leftover water.
Melissa:Yeah. If you didn't have water left over, it would have been better to start with.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, the they they talked about getting you need to get rid of that and kind of pat it and dry it off and stuff like that. But, But it seemed like maybe if you did use whole milk, you might have a ton of leftover water
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And lactose and all the other stuff in there. And maybe you only get a little bit of butter and that kinda wasteful in that
Melissa:sense. That's what I think.
Jam:It'd be it'd be kinda interesting to see, like, A comparison of, like, yeah, you can make butter with all these, but look how much yield you get. Like Yeah. You could use you could do 1%, and it's like, look at this little bit of butter. Yeah.
Melissa:You could get it in 2%.
Jam:The whole bowl.
Melissa:You're, like, spending hours trying to make it work. Yeah.
Jam:That'd be interesting.
Melissa:Like, this is a visualization of the fat content in this milk. Yeah.
Jam:That's cool.
Melissa:That is cool. That's fun to think about. Okay. So that's a good overview of milk to butter chemistry.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:If you want to explain it back to me. Then I'll give you some fun facts
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:That include the time I accidentally made butter and, also some other fun facts.
Jam:Good deal. I have an analogy that's working in my head a little bit. We'll see if it works out loud. About how milk becomes better. Okay.
Jam:So when I was in high school, I before I was the cohost of America's number 1 chemistry podcast, at Humble Beginnings in student council. And I was The student council I was member and then treasurer and then president my senior year.
Melissa:Nice. And
Jam:so that meant I was going to student council. We had these, I guess I guess I can't remember if you called them convention or what it was called, where the student councils from our whole city Got together
Melissa:Oh, yeah.
Jam:Twice a year for something. I just can't remember what they called it. But so all these schools Got together all the student council, leadership, and and stuff like that went to these. And one of the things I always did, we always spent the first Bit of try time basically trying to shake up the fact that you have people from all these different schools coming together.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Their core of course, they're gonna be kinda stuck to each other. Right? Yeah. And so they that's their most comfortable state at the moment, and they come that way. That's like the globule kind of thing, I
Melissa:was thinking. And so
Jam:what they do is they had multiple, not just 1, multiple icebreaker type of games
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:That weren't just like Break the ice cube to talk, but literally getting you to move around.
Melissa:Get up and move around in your like, away from your seats. Yes. Okay.
Jam:And so there is things like, some one game was called, like, Amoeba, and you're moving around. Other one was like a, A, I think, a kind of a version of of rock, paper, scissors, something like that.
Melissa:So, like, where everybody cheers. Yes. That's a fun one.
Jam:And there are other ones where, like, you had to find certain people that had like, I remember one of them was they kinda had some questions out there, and you had to find somebody who had the same answer to the question that you so something like Mhmm. Yeah. This is not perfect, but something like, you gotta find someone who's The same favorite color as you.
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:Something like that.
Melissa:Or the same, like, the youngest kid.
Jam:Yes. The
Melissa:youngest sibling. You have the same number of siblings.
Jam:Yes. Yeah. Same birthday a month. Something like that. The things he had to do to to find someone like you
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Meeting certain criteria or whatever. But what that makes think of is, like, the globules, you you they're they're already existing in that state. But if you can disrupt them some
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And create Some conditions, they will try to find someone like themselves
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:That's not necessarily in the current State that they're in or the group that they're in or connected to the protein that they're currently connected to and stuff like that. And so if you can do that by agitating the milk up and Mixing things up and kinda breaking things up, the fat will start to find itself and other fat and grow to a group of that being like.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:And then the water, likewise, will stay together and want to be with itself.
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:And if you keep doing that enough, you had a lot of time, you can get to a a kind of maximum, of the most like or hear In these 2 groups,
Melissa:so to
Jam:speak, in the case of Milk, and trying to make butter out of it. And that's what it reminds me of. You had to Really put some effort into agitating the groups of people in the Yeah. Student council situation around and really break it all up.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Get them out of their little groups, And then you were able to actually put create potential to for them to find each other, meeting totally different criteria.
Melissa:In this case, I'm gonna say that the milk, Like, the water and the proteins in the milk Uh-huh. Is awkwardness.
Jam:There we go.
Melissa:So the awkwardness is separating us all and keeping us in our little groups, all the little Student council's separate. Uh-huh. And then as you shake it up, then the awkwardness leaves, and the people start to find each other in form connections. So it's One big unit of student council group.
Jam:Yes. And then there's always a few folks who who are resistant
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:To the fun and the that icebreaker and the unity of the group. And those people out of the water. Who knows? This every
Melissa:the fat molecules that you left behind.
Jam:Yeah. Every analogy breaks down
Melissa:at some point. But yeah.
Jam:Does that kinda make sense?
Melissa:Yeah. I think that's a really good one. The only thing I want is
Jam:Oh, wait. Let me say real quick.
Melissa:Oh, okay.
Jam:I I obviously, I'm leaving some chemistry on the table.
Melissa:Yeah. That's what I was gonna say. I want some more chemistry. G.
Jam:Yeah. So the, to get more detailed, the fat is nonpolar. Uh-huh. There's an even distribution of electrons in the fat molecules, Which means that if given the opportunity, they will be friendly with and connect closely with and dispersion forces with Yes. Other fat molecules Mhmm.
Jam:And hang out together. There still is water to put that in there like you mentioned.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:But it just is a higher concentration of the fat if they can get a chance to get together.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Water polar where there's a heavier concentration of Tron's on one part of the molecule than the other. Yeah. And that side is very attracted to the less negative, meaning positive Yeah. Side of Other water molecules? Yes.
Jam:So and so that makes them want to hang out together and where Mhmm. The negatives and the positives can link up and stay in close quarters and not let a lot of things in between them if possible. And just by doing the agitation thing, we allow that natural desire of those Different types of intermolecular forces to find each other
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:More and more even if it's not completely a 100% pure and perfect. Yeah. It creates, obviously, a visual difference for us. Mhmm. We can see the fat of the butter to form and
Melissa:Come together.
Jam:Come together Even though there's still some water in there or whatever.
Melissa:Also, like, how much is really pure in life that's good and tasty?
Jam:Totally.
Melissa:Not a lot. Yeah. So it's okay that there's still butter water in the butter.
Jam:Yeah. I mean, in the in the case of, like, spreadability and whatever other else else, it's probably all good that it has a Has the mixture of things it has.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:You know?
Melissa:Well and there is some of the studies that I ended up citing that talked about some of the content of butter. They're looking at how does heat treatment before or after, like, how does this impact the spreadability or the crystal formation or the crystal structure of the butter? So Joey Oh, yeah.
Jam:And his wife, Kristen.
Melissa:Do they have a cute dog named Maple?
Jam:They do have a cute dog named Maple. Yes. I'm a
Melissa:big fan of Maple.
Jam:Yeah. She's very cute. And they were talking about how, one of them, Kristen, can't have dairy, and so they're talking about the different things they have to do to substitute for cooking and stuff like that. But they with the time, I was like, it's actually kind of amazing how easy butter is to change out. We threw that out just a long time ago.
Jam:You know? And, like, that was back to the older episode. But so many things are so hard. Yeah. But you think about it really is kinda mind blowing.
Jam:Like, butter's complicated and really confusing and interesting and amazing. And the fact that we're actually able to replicate it close enough just for our taste buds, not for, like,
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:You know, everything molecularly, but, like, for our taste buds is actually kinda mind blowing.
Melissa:Yeah. Like It is not surprising to me, though, that initially, they kinda messed it up with all the trans to me though that initially they kinda messed it up with all the trans fats.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:That doesn't surprise me too much.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But They they have better alternatives now without trans fats in them even. And I think they have some natural naturally occurring, like, plant Yeah. Bats that are salad and stuff.
Jam:Yeah. I've seen some, I don't know if this is where this would land, but I've seen some butter substitutes that are, like, Like, a good amount of it is olive oil. And so it's, like, not just some lab thing, but but it's a very common and relatively healthy type of oil is being used there. And that's a good chunk of what's making it up. But, but on the, like, taste side, it's it is kind of impressive.
Jam:Like, some of the things are hard to do without dairy.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And, like, you have to just work hard to to figure it out or change up recipes. But butter is like, ah, no. It's easy.
Melissa:Yeah. They did it. They figured it out.
Jam:Yeah. Go science.
Melissa:Well, on that note, I I have 2 things. Is 1, the episode that we're going to release again or rerelease Uh-huh. Is going to be the trans fats. What are they, and are they evil?
Jam:Nice. Okay.
Melissa:Because it goes so well with this topic about trans fats, saturated fats, unsaturated fats.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:So if you wanna learn more about the pitfalls and joys of hydrogenating oil and making it solid, You can listen to that one next week.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:But also, I have a fun fact about canola oil that I found.
Jam:Okay. Sweet.
Melissa:So Just as a very quick overview, saturated fats usually are, they don't have any they have some Let's see. Saturated fats have no double bonds. They have all the hydrogens that they possibly can, so they're solid at room temperature. But unsaturated fats have double bonds in them, and some are more desirable than others. Okay?
Melissa:So, canola oil has been promoted because it has low saturated fat, which is good.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And canola oil is actually the oil of a the rape seed plant. Mhmm. But I was like, so why is it called canola oil? Well, Originally, it wasn't edible because it had a high acid content. And so it was used for a lot of other things like lubrication and industry and stuff, But some conventional breeding techniques, they were able to reduce the acid content, and they made this Edible version of rapeseed oil.
Melissa:Uh-huh. And they called it canola oil because it's Canadian oil with low Acid content.
Jam:Oh my god.
Melissa:So c a n from Canadian, o from oil, low l, and acid
Jam:A. Wow.
Melissa:I know.
Jam:That's so interesting.
Melissa:I know. I was like, technically, this is a butter episode, not an oil episode. But we're gonna talk about oil on the re release episode anyway, and so this is a fun fact to get you excited about it. Totally.
Jam:Yeah. We've used colo quite a bit, and I had read some things about it being, like, Relatively good, and I know there's a lot of debates about that stuff, so I'm not trying to get into it. But we just switched from something else that probably was less good. But somehow, that never came up. Like, I knew it was from the rape seed plant Mhmm.
Jam:And stuff, but I never knew why it was called that.
Melissa:Or even wondered.
Jam:Yeah. Totally. I mean, this seems like, probably normal. Probably fine.
Melissa:It's just in one of my textbooks. It's just like a little aside in one of my textbooks. I was like, this is amazing. Okay. So Yeah.
Melissa:I was really excited about that.
Jam:I love that.
Melissa:The other fun facts I was gonna tell you is we've talked about butyric acid before.
Jam:I have
Melissa:a lot of fun facts, so buckle in. But that's The main chemistry is over. Yeah. And we've talked about butyric acid before. It's in blue cheese.
Melissa:It's in American chocolate. Mhmm.
Jam:And
Melissa:I thought it was butyric acid because it has 4 carbons. So, like, butano butinone or butinane is like how, butane is how that's usually said. So Mhmm. The acid name of that, the proper chemistry name is called butanoic acid. So I just figured that's why it was called butyric acid.
Melissa:Mhmm. Wrong. Butyric acid is one of the bad smells that we get from butter going rancid, and Buterum is the Latin word for butter. Uh-huh. So that's why it's called butyric acid, not because of butane at all.
Jam:Wow. Interesting.
Melissa:I know. So that's 2 crazy name things that I found out.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:They also used to use a butter yellow dye. Here's another margarine failing. I mean, it's impressive that they were able to make butter substitutes, but They used a dye called butter yellow dye, but is was known to be carcinogenic, and it's not permitted anymore.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Yeah. So just another example of sometimes new technology is amazing, but they sometimes don't do great. Yeah. Like, we didn't need it to be yellow.
Jam:Right. Right. And I get I get that the, you know, bigwig marketing folks were like, it's gotta be yellow. Yeah. And and, initially, it probably did need to be, but not the not the Expensive people's health.
Melissa:Nope. Definitely not.
Jam:On the carcinogenic side and on the trans fat side and all that stuff.
Melissa:And then the last fun fact I have for you is, I have this Chocolate raspberry cake that I make.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:You've had it before?
Jam:Yes.
Melissa:And the, the There's a mousse layer in there. Uh-huh. And that mousse layer is whipped cream mixed with mascarpone cheese.
Jam:Okay. Yes.
Melissa:And You're supposed to use, like, a a hand beater, but I got a new stand mixer. So I was like, I'll use my stand mixer. Mhmm. And it'll go so much faster, and I just used the whip attachment because I thought the whip will be good for the whipped cream in there.
Jam:Totally.
Melissa:No. It curdled, which means the fat started to clump together Mhmm. And Made butter out of the fat from the mascarpone cheese and the whipped cream, and it already had chocolate in it Because it was, like, okay, and then I added chocolate, and then it curdled. And then I was trying to save it, and I was just making it worse and worse. And no.
Melissa:Eventually, I just gave up, And I took out this chocolate butter that I had made. Wow. And I had to just make a buttercream frosting out of that instead, which was not as good, but was Fine. Uh-huh. But left behind was those, like, milk solids with or milk liquid with, with the chocolate in there, and it was, like, some of the best Chocolate milk I've ever had.
Melissa:That's interesting. I know. I was like, is this the best chocolate milk I've ever had? Because just basically, like, water and chocolate. But, So one time that did happen to me where I made chocolate butter on accident.
Jam:That is so interesting.
Melissa:But the cake was still good.
Jam:That's good. Good.
Melissa:So those are all my fun and butter facts you.
Jam:It's so fun too because I probably would have the same made the same mistake of that. Whip attachment. Yeah. So whip it. Great.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:You know?
Melissa:Great.
Jam:But It it did it too good.
Melissa:It did it it did it to the point where it became better. Yeah. And that's really made me wonder. When that happened, I had this thought, and then I haven't revisited it until now. Is wood just regular old butter like, should we just make our own butter?
Melissa:Like, I have a stand mixer.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Would that be cheaper, tastier, maybe even healthier? I don't know.
Jam:A good question. I wonder if it Would be a little bit cheaper, but you'd wonder about the amount of effort.
Melissa:I don't think there'd be that much if you have a stand serious. I mean, and I made that chocolate butter real easy.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:I turned my back, and then it was butter. Yeah.
Jam:I was thinking, like, Compared to the amount of effort
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Compared to the fact that butter is not very expensive.
Melissa:But you know what? Heavy whipping cream goes bad in my fridge somewhat often because I'll buy it for a cake and then forget about it. Right.
Jam:So maybe if you have some extra
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:And if you just make the butter when you do have extra Yeah. Then it won't go to waste.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:That's a good idea. Was thinking, like, the scale you might have to make the butter at to really make it worth it and feel like you're actually saving enough money. Yeah. Might be like, oh, it's not saving them money,
Melissa:I guess. Butter for cake, that's not probably a good idea.
Jam:Yeah. So I could just go buy a box of 4 sticks of butter. Takes me 10 minutes.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And it only it doesn't cost a lot. Yeah. It would I'd need to the scale that the dairy entry has
Melissa:to do this. That that
Jam:way it's really profitable for them and works great for them. I don't have the scale to
Melissa:do that.
Jam:So me buying enough heavy whipping cream to make this much butter and take an hour to do it or maybe it's 30 minutes
Melissa:or still. Less. Yeah. You just pour it in and Yeah. I think pretty much ignore it.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:You just let it go until it's butter.
Jam:Yeah. I just think, like, it might not be worth it.
Melissa:Might not be worth it. But would probably be worth it if you're trying to not let your heavy whipping cream go bad.
Jam:Totally. Yeah.
Melissa:Like, once I finish a cake, instead of being like, maybe I'll use this again later, I should just give it up. And I've already got the stand mixer out and pour it in and Good idea. It up until some into some homemade burger.
Jam:You do it, you should definitely take some videos and pictures.
Melissa:Okay. I will. And, also, you could add Rosemary in there? I don't know what it sounded like I was gonna say raspberry. Yeah.
Melissa:You could make, like, a rosemary butter. Yeah. That'd be good.
Jam:That would be good.
Melissa:And people would be so impressed, you're like, this was an accident.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:This is leftovers.
Jam:Yeah. I just you leftover for the gram.
Melissa:And you really can do that in, like, a mason jars. There's a lot of, like, experiments online where they'll have kids just shake up a mason jar Yeah. With cream and make butter.
Jam:That's cool.
Melissa:Which is a fun experiment that they get to eat after. Yeah.
Jam:A
Melissa:lot of times, you don't get to do that. So
Jam:Yep. Lots of this fried upon.
Melissa:You know? Great. Well, that's all I have for you today. Is there anything fun you wanna share, or do do we have time for that, or would you rather just wrap it up here since we had so many fun facts?
Jam:Let's do really short ones. Another thing I'll say is just sort of an addendum that it was cool that I got to him and I this past weekend got to hang out with Joey and Kristen. And so that was really enjoyable and fun to get to hang with them. And, you know, the kids have changed a lot since they saw them last, which they it's always like, you don't really realize that as often as Whenever someone's like, oh, last time I saw them, they were only doing blah blah
Melissa:blah Yeah.
Jam:Or whatever. And so even have
Melissa:since, like, once a week. I see that. Oh, last time I saw you, you were not saying this word.
Jam:Yeah. And so that's been really fun, and then, we got to eat some delicious Thai food. Mhmm. They we there's a handful of places that they love and didn't that they don't Obviously, you get to have one. They're not here.
Jam:And so, we got to get some some Thai food and, enjoy that together. So that was just a fun highlight of the week.
Melissa:Nice. Yeah.
Jam:What about you?
Melissa:Well, I'll addendum on mine too. We had our Easter celebration, and I think my friend who's from Ghana didn't know this. So, For other people who don't celebrate this way, a lot of times, what we'll do is have what we call Easter egg hunts for Easter. And so we'll hide eggs around in the yard or whatever. It's not too hard usually for kids to find, and then they go try to find the eggs.
Melissa:And inside the plastic eggs, there's treats, which When you explain it to someone who's never seen it before, it does seem kind of wild.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:But we Put that on as a church. Some people in our church organize that, and it was really fun. I got to walk around with Jam's son and a few other kids, I just got to hang out with the kids more than I normally do. They were, like, in the room with us the whole time during the
Jam:meal
Melissa:and stuff, and there's a few of my really close friends' kids hang out in that group, and so it was really fun to get to see them experience, for the first time, really, the wonder of an Easter egg hunt.
Jam:Yeah. Yep.
Melissa:At one point, your son picked up a rock and put it in his pocket Uh-huh. Which allowed the younger children time to catch up to his egg. Oh, yeah. And another point, a train came by, and he did not care about the eggs at all.
Jam:Yep. Yep. It also helps that he's had a few hunts This year.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And so it was good for him to let the other kids Yeah. Have their time to shine.
Melissa:I would I did try to point in his direction further away because he's the biggest kid. And I was like, oh, go over here while they get these easy pickings, but it was really cute. Yeah. So that that'll be my happy thing. Nice.
Melissa:Really enjoyable to see them do that.
Jam:I like that. That's good.
Melissa:Well, thanks, Jam, for coming in well, for sharing your kids with me, first of all, and second of all, for, Letting me come over and teach you all about the chemistry of butter. And thanks to Clarissa for asking that question. That was a really good one, and I had so much fun learning about the chemistry of butter.
Jam:Yes. And thank you for teaching us, and thanks again, Clarissa, for asking it. And if you have an idea or question or thought that it strikes you that you're like, I wonder If this is chemistry, one, it probably is.
Melissa:Probably is.
Jam:But at least some part of it probably is chemistry. But we'd love to hear from you. So please reach out to us if you have a question or idea On our website atchemforyourlife.com. That's kemforyourlife.com to share your thoughts and ideas. Help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it.
Jam:Go to patreon.com/chem for your life or tap the link in our show notes or the description to join our super cool community of patrons. If you're not able to do that, you can still help us by subscribing on your favorite podcast app and rating and writing our review on Apple Podcasts. That also helps us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson, And Jam Robinson is our producer. This episode was made possible by our financial supporters over on Patreon, and it means so much to us that you wanna help make chemistry accessible to even People. Those supporters are Avishai B, Brie M, Brian K, Chris and Claire S, Chelsea B, Derek L, Emerson W, Hunter R, Jacob T, Christina G, Lynn S, Melissa P, Nicole C, Steven B, Shadow, Timothy p, and Venus r. Thank you again for everything you all do to make chemistry for your life happen.
Jam:And if And if you'd
Melissa:like to learn more about today's chemistry lesson,
Jam:check out the references for this episode in our show notes or in the description.
Melissa:Yay, chemistry.
