Trying to sort out Keller's/Plugra issues

[Fat Guy]

Please do report back.

[nightscotsman]

In the June 1998 issue of Cook's Illustrated they rated 8 best selling unsalted butters. The butters were blind tested by a group of 15 chefs and pastry chefs from the Boston area and Cook's editors in several different forms: at room temperature, melted, in yellow cake, pie pastry, sauteed turkey cutlet, and butter cream (butter, powdered sugar, milk recipe - no eggs). In brief the results were:

Plugra

First in the melted tasting and clear number one for buttercream. Third place in pie crust and room temperature. rich, clean flavor.

Celles Sur Belle (Normandy, France)

Rich, buttery flavor, but fourth in pie crust because it came out undercooked (guess they should have let it bake longer - duh). Best score when eaten at room temperature, but tasted "off" when melted. Second for buttercream.

Challenge

First for pie crust. High marks for buttercream. Smooth and clean tested plain, but lacking flavor.

Land O'Lakes

High marks when tasted plain and very light buttercream. Downgraded with "off" flavors when tasted melted. Last place for pie crust - tasted greasy.

Kellers/Hotel Bar

A solid "B" rating overall. Very flaky pie crust, but lacked flavor. Mediocre flavor in buttercream and an "off" flavor.

Breakstone

Very flaky pie crust. Both packages they tested had a "rancid" spoiled taste, possibly due to poor storage.

Crystal Farms

Airy buttercream, mediocre flavor. A bit heavy in the pie crust.

Organic Valley

Second in the pie crust. Cultured like some European butters. Downgraded for tasting "tangy" and "weedy" when plain and "oily" in buttercream.

There was no clear winner in the yellow cake test and the turkey cutlet test.

[Rail Paul]

I copied info from each of the "premium" butters in the West Caldwell NJ Shop-Rite this morning. The manufacturers supplied the data, although the seven point difference between an 11 and a 12 gives me pause. I bought the Jana Valley for testing purposes.

Celles Sur belle 250 mg size, no data, $5.49 per pound

Organic Valley, one pound, 11 g fat per 14 g serving, 75 mg sodium, $5.49 pound

Lurpak 11g fat per 14 g serving, sodium 0, $6.98 pound (salted = 65mg)

Plugra 11g fat per 14 g, sodium 0 mg (salted = 90) , $3.99

Jana Valley (Czech) 12g per 14g, 70 mg salt, $2.70 pound

KerryGold 11g per 14 g serving, 105 mg sodium, $5.98 pound

Isgny Ste Mere, no data

11/14 = 78.5%

12/14 = 85.7%

[Fat Guy]

For the stupid among us (i.e., me), can you explain further?

[Rail Paul]

For the stupid among us (i.e., me), can you explain further?

Sorry, no question from anybody has been stupid, as far as I can tell. I just tried to compress the info more than I should have. I also made the assumption that all the fat in butter is butter-fat, which I think is true.

I took the nutrition label detail from each of the butter products, and copied the serving size (say, 14 g) and the fat content (perhaps 11). Then, I divided the two, which produces the 78.5. If the fat content was 12, the quotient would be 85.7.

My guess is the rounding in the label (11 g instead of 11.455, for example) provides a variance in the reported result greater than that which many foodies will accept. However, if the average buyer would prefer a "lower fat" product to a higher fat product, marketers will under-report fat content, even if both products have a significant amount of fat.

If I can locate the USDA standards for food labeling, that could clarify the reporting issue.

[Peter B Wolf]

.......If I can locate the USDA standards for food labeling, that could clarify the reporting issue.

Even with the following explanations (see URL), one needs to be a mathematition to make intelligent easy to understand comparisens when reading labels.

On another issue, I do not even understand why the labeling information always breaks everything down to "servings" (often not stating what a "serving" is). Why are they not required to simply refer to the 'total' ingredients per pack, or better yet what it would be per pound, making it a standard!?

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html

[chefb]

Trader Joes and restaurant depot are completely different.

the depot is place whereyou can get wholesale supplies for those small businesses that don't make the minimums for a Sysco or Us foodservice.

Trader Joes is a supermarket for lack of a better word similiar to a Fresh fields or Wild oats, specialing in organic and natural foods. nice place.

[=Mark]

.......If I can locate the USDA standards for food labeling, that could clarify the reporting issue.

Even with the following explanations (see URL), one needs to be a mathematition to make intelligent easy to understand comparisens when reading labels.

On another issue, I do not even understand why the labeling information always breaks everything down to "servings" (often not stating what a "serving" is). Why are they not required to simply refer to the 'total' ingredients per pack, or better yet what it would be per pound, making it a standard!?

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html

I like when you look at a label and see something like "Number of Servings: About 2 1/2"

[Stone]

I was looking at the Keller's site and -- I'm not sure I knew this -- saw the same company makes Keller's, Plugra, Hotel Bar, and Breakstone's.

Unfortunately, I've had to learn a bit about the dairy industry lately. Although it varies by area, i.e., California v. Wisconsin v. Upstate New York (as if there's a dairy industry left there), often there will be a few processing plants that purchase and process milk from a large number of suppliers. They ship the product (fluid milk/cream, condensed, cheese, butter, non-fat dry milk powder, etc.) under their customer's brands (or their own). The manufacturing process is specified by each customer. Although they same plant may make high-end and low end butter, it does not mean that there's no difference between the two.