Butter Is Yellow For The Same Reason Carrots Are Orange

If you buy certain brands of butter, you might notice that some are more yellow than others. All butter is at least a little yellow, but even within your standard grocery store butter brands, the color can range from creamy white to sunflower yellow, which is pretty shocking when there aren't any added colors. Butter is supposed to be a simple ingredient, something you barely have to think about, so how could two brands end up looking so different?

If you pay attention to which brands are more yellow than others, you might notice that the fancier a butter is, the more yellow it tends to be. So what accounts for that? Well, butter gets its yellow pigmentation from the same thing that gives carrots and many plants their color: beta carotene.

The old saying goes that you are what you eat, and the same goes for the animals that produce the things we eat. Beta carotene is a naturally occurring yellow pigment that is important to green plants because it helps with harvesting light for photosynthesis, so it isn't just found in carrots, it's also abundant in grass. When cows eat grass, that beta carotene enters their system and gets carried by the dairy fat that ends up in milk and, eventually, the butter, which is mostly fat. Beta carotene is also a great source of vitamin A, and those nutrients get carried over as well. But as the color will tell you, not all butters are created equal.

Beta carotene in butter comes from the grass in a cow's diet, but the amount of grass that dairy cows eat can vary greatly. On commercial farms in the U.S., dairy cows are mostly fed grains like corn or soy. However, in Europe or on fancier organic farms in America, cows are grass fed, which is why the butter from those brands end up more yellow than your cheaper, standard supermarket butter. The yellow color and grass fed diet won't affect the flavor of your butter much, but it can mean those butter's are higher in things like vitamin K.

The proportion of grass a cow eats has a big effect on the color of butter, but the amount of fat is another factor in how yellow it gets. Because milk fat is what is carrying the beta carotene, butter with a higher proportion of fat will also be more yellow. And while percentages may vary, by law, American butter can have less butterfat than European butter, which further increases the color difference between the two. Butters with higher fat content will also taste richer, which is why some American brands opt for higher levels of fat as well. Butter may be one of the most basic things in your fridge, but a lot of decisions at the government and farm level go into producing it, and the color of your butter tells that story.