What is the fat percentage for whole milk? I know it can’t be 100% or you would be drinking lard…so what is it?
Whole milk is 5% fat, as I recall.
A quick Google search indicates 3-4% by weight.
And I guess that is the end of this thread.
SDMB Thread : From udder to butter
To be more accurate USDA seems to require whole milk (from the store) to be at least 3.25 %. As posted in the earlier thread.
Some family friends own a dairy farm, and their cows produce as much as 7% fat. It wasn’t too long ago that higher fat percentages were considered desireable, so cows were bred to produce more.
Although the USDA doesn’t appear to have any specifics on it (at least not on their dairy information bulletin from 1995), I have seen milk sold in stores that was labeled “extra-rich”.
I seem to recall that it was marked with >4% fat content on the label. This may be something only regulated at the state level, or not regulated at all.
Also to consider is that state standards may be different from federal standards, so your local whole milk may be more (or even less) than what is required by law. The federal standard is only a minimum, plus it only applies for milk that will be sold/shipped out of the state.
Higher amounts of butter fat in the milk from the cow, are still what they’re breed for. The extra fat is removed and is the cream. Butter is made from the cream. Higher butter fat content is also going to give more yeild when making cheese.
Whole milk is between 3% to 4% butter fat.
2% and 1% are just that percentage of butter fat in the milk.
Say cheese from wisconsin the original home of colby cheese, the sundae, and the milk shake or malt. I’ll have to research the last one again. The colby cheese is from Colby Wisconsin. The sundae Two Rivers Wisconsin.
So I dug through the kitchen table for last week’s mail to find The Federal Milk Order #1 (Northeast Marketing Area) Statistical Report for February 2001. So here are some exact numbers. The percentage of butterfat produced by the farmer Feb. 2001, 3.75% which is down from Feb. 2000, 3.79%.
Now for fat percentage produced by the milk plants…
Whole milk… 3.27%
2% Plain… 1.98%
2% Fortified… 1.96%
Lowfat Plain… 1.00%
Lowfat Fort… 1.11%
Fatfree Plain… .08%
Fatfree Fort… .13%
*Note these numbers are the average for all the plants in the northeast marketing area so individual brands may differ slightly.
Please do research. I’d never heard that Wisconsin staked a claim to either the milk shake or the malt. And it’s spelled Two Rivers, but it’s pronounced “Trivers”. BTW, Glendale, Wisconsin was the home of the model for “Arnold’s” in Happy Days. BFD
3.5 percent, give or take.
"Horlick (1846-1936) was born in England and as a young man apprenticed to the saddlery and tanning trade. After coming to the United States he became, for reasons that history has not passed along, interested in food.
Settling in Racine, Wis., Horlick developed malted milk initially as an infant formula. (More than one malted milk scholar has subsequently suggested that the product became popular precisely because its flavor, with its nutty sweetness, closely resembles that of breast milk).
Quickly sensing a wider potential, the young food entrepreneur established The Horlick Malted Milk Company in 1877."