Talk:Buttermilk

Grammar

The article, and parts of this discussion, treat "bacteria" as if it were singular. It is plural, which makes phrases like "As the bacteria produces [sic] lactic acid" ungrammatical.

Similarly "Adding specific strains of bacteria [sic] to pasteurized milk allows more consistent production" should mention "strains of bacterium", singular. Try it with the name of some other organism that is not irregular in the plural to see why.

-A.

False Information

Originally, buttermilk referred to the thin liquid left over from churning butter from cultured or fermented cream. Traditionally, before the advent of homogenization, the milk was left to sit for a period of time to allow the cream and milk to separate. During this time, naturally occurring lactic acid-producing bacteria in the milk fermented it.

This is a false statement. Referring to The Country Housewife Family Companion by William Ellis, 1750 originally the milk was filtered through a sieve into a milk pan. The milk pan was then place on hot embers and the milk was allowed to slowly scald. This scalding process kills bacteria in the milk, denatures the milk proteins allowing the cream to separate. Prior to 1920, buttermilk was not cultured nor sour. Scalded milk or cream keeps for 40 hours or as Maria Rundell states in her book A New System of Domestic Cookery, 1804, scalded milk will keep for 2 days without going sour in the summer or 4 days in the winter. Cultured or fermented butter did not exist when making butter, the buttermilk was almost always "sweet" buttermilk 98.1.63.20 (talk) 20:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Entirely incorrect Anglo-centric view. For one thing, buttermilk is centuries older than 1750, and that is one English cookbook. It's utterly irrelevant for the practices of places like the Middle East, India, the Balkans, and other areas far beyond the British. Finding an early method to make sweet cream butter in Ken book does not invalidate anything in this well-sourced articles. oknazevad (talk) 23:21, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

erroneous data in the buttermilk article

@Oknazevad

Before making reversions, read the changes and why the changes were made. In this buttermilk article, there were a number of dubious and erroneous claims. Especially notable was the claims of fat levels. Buttermilk is almost fat-free as nearly all of the butterfat is stripped out in the process of buttermaking. It is best comparable to skimmed milk in this regard.

Claiming a "low-fat buttermilk" is available is just wrong, and the reference fails to state anything to back this up. I could have just deleted it as a false claim, but instead placed the dubious tag to allow a proper citation be placed if it could be produced. This is the correct manner of editing, not to delete because of other beliefs.

The previous claim stated, which you reverted to, gave a fat level of 3.41% which is utterly wrong, as corrected to <0.5% (trace) levels that is backed up by a reliable reference that the old claim was not. Please ensure your facts are right on editing and check newly supplied citations. 92.41.32.225 (talk) 17:40, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

You're conflating traditional buttermilk, which is inherently almost fat free as the fat is separated into the butter, with cultured buttermilk that is simply inoculated with the cultures, even if it still has fat. The nutritional facts are referring to the latter. More importantly your changes to the lead completely change the definition and scope of the article without warrant. This article is not about traditional buttermilk only. The lead no longer properly summarizes the contents of the article. That is improper. oknazevad (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

@Oknazevad

Your reversions are wrong. You fail to back up your claims with valid refs and the previous ones were invalid. Before reverting you should always consider WP:REVERT and H:REV. The changes made are valid and corroborated by references. They refer to both traditional and modern refrigerated production methods. There is no conflation and there is no change in definition. There is not any evidence for buttermilk of both traditional and modern cultured versions being anything other than fat-free.

I am restoring the correct referenced versions. Leave it unless you can bring correct edits with full references to support your claims.

Your editing is both disruptive WP:DE and edit warring WP:WAR and fails to address the big flaws in the article. Make any further reversions and you will be reported for edit warring.

92.41.32.225 (talk) 21:05, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

I can readily find cultured buttermilk labeled "low fat" and containing more than trace amounts of milkfat in seconds. Just as importantly, words like "unfortunately" have no place on encyclopedia writing. See WP:EDITORIALIZING. The edits are improper. As the one proposing them, they must not be restored without consensus. See WO:BRD. oknazevad (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

@Oknazevad

There is no editorialising. This is correction of completely incorrect data. I bring you back to WP:REVERT and H:REV.

If you have a referenced item of readily and widely available low-fat buttermilk that is valid, then it is a welcome amendment and would entitle the removal of the 'dubious' comment. Please can you include these details in your reply? The point of dubiety here, is due to the production of buttermilk in both traditional and modern methods results in a product that has only trace levels of fat (<0.5 g) so to be classed as low-fat, then the dairy would have to put the fat back in and then homogenise it, making it unlikely or a very niche product.

Is WO:BRD meant to be WP:BRD? This is optional and rejected here, especially as the old info was just wrong.

92.41.32.225 (talk) 22:47, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

If you have the full nutritional values to this 'low-fat' buttermilk (with ref.), then it would be relatively easy to insert these values into the new table giving the breakdown of normal buttermilk v. skimmed and whole milk.

92.41.32.225 (talk) 22:50, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

The current ref is https://www.thespruceeats.com/buttermilk-health-benefits-1807503 which is not independent and so not really valid as a ref. It is what The Spruce Eats website editor Peggy Trowbridge Filippone claims and it is not that detailed and does not correlate well with an independent and impartial source. It was incorrectly cited in the previous version and uses non-standard units. Wikipedia works to SI (metric) units as standard - these are universal used and known and are not readily confusable or known only in certain countries as with other units.

Until better refs and clearer are produced, then the dubious tag is more than merited. 92.41.32.225 (talk) 23:05, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

How about a website by a state dairy board? I added that to the article. It's worth reading because it describes the actual practice of producers. It also shows the nutritional info for low fat buttermilk with 1% milkfat.

The fundamental issue is that the idea that "buttermilk" is limited to the leftover liquid from churning butter is not defining. That is the traditional definition, but is neither the term as defined by regulation nor the industry practice. In fact, butter isn't churned anymore, either, but fresh milk is separated in a centrifuge, with some of the fat set aside to sell as butter and the rest is put back in to the liquid milk in the proportion needed for the fat level desired. oknazevad (talk) 01:22, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

@Oknazevad

A approved regulatory body such as a dairy board with reliable and impartial/independent and verifiable data is good. Which state? Guessing this is a US one. Can you pull the federal dairy board's data, if one still exists. 1% would constitute low-fat, rather than skimmed. From this info, the 1% product is widely and readily available? I still think it is somewhat odd that the either the manufacturing does not get this down lower, as is common or that they have put fat back in. Anyway, it would be much better than a cookery website with what could be seen as partial data.

If you can pull those value and insert a low-fat column in the new table with a ref to the dairy board, that would be good. Follow the layout I drafted, but if you have any trouble with this, then I can help with the insertion. With a reliable ref, the can go, as I put it to the cookery site's claim that did not show from where the data came.

Indeed, buttermilk is defined as the fat-free liquid (or near enough) leftover from processing cream. The issue of fermented/cultured is not part of that definition, as it was incidental rather than deliberate in traditional butter-making. In essence, milk was left long enough for cream to settle out as a top layer that could be skimmed off. This period of standing and the use of the same clean, but not sterile machinery to churn gave enough time to allow for the start of fermentation, but not complete. In this process, contamination was easy to occur so spoilage rates could be quite high, especially in the less careful dairies.

Yes, with modern processing, refrigeration and pasteurisation were a boon as milk could be processed without going off at all, simply it was too cold. With vatting, homogenisation, and standardisation by the big dairy processors to produce milk and milk products gives highly regularised items. Butter-making was sped up by using a continuous centrifugal process to separate off the cream - do you think this should be mentioned? I am either way on this. Churning was altered to radically different process, but it is best to simply call the process as churning still, unless a full schematic of the processing can be easily put across? It could be useful to quickly run through the way big dairies create the emulsion of milk liquid in the butterfat to make butter now. The buttermilk leftover from this process though, is in essence, skimmed milk. To make it a real, different product, this is cultured as yoghurt to create what is normally sold as cultured buttermilk - agreed?

This is reasonably well put across in the article. You state at the end about the fat level adjusted as desired, presumably meaning in the milk, yes? Or in the buttermilk? Is there anything missing?

92.41.32.225 (talk) 20:12, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

@Oknazevad

Just spotted your updating of the ref. Does the Cal. St. Milk Board have its data in standard metric SI units or at least as percentages? Would the US federal milk board (if it exists) have the data in these units? I have put a column in the table for you to put the figures in. They will need to be per 100 ml, with the necessary conversion, not to the 'cup'.

92.41.32.225 (talk) 20:54, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

The most comprehensive and reliable database of nutrient contents for different types of buttermilk is the USDA FoodData Central used for nutrition and individual nutrient contents on most Wikipedia food articles.

There is an analysis of low-fat buttermilk (1.1% fat) and whole buttermilk (3.3% fat).

Please don't rely on unreliable commercial websites like Waitrose. Zefr (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

@Zefr

The nutritional values data from EU and UK food packaging is independently produced and assessed. The data used in the EU and UK is very highly regulated and if any of these supermarkets used incorrect data that was not impartially/independently produced, then the fines incurred would be huge. There is no promotion going on here, the same data is available from any of the others.

You place the referenced info of the data with the values (if different) from the USDA FoodData Central as you found it. Don't tell me about it and leave it at that. This is what you have found and what you believe is the correct data. I would use EU data as a primary, especially as it is all in standardised metric SI units, but have not worked my way through these databases yet for the requisite info.

You got the refs so you apply the reffed data.

92.41.32.225 (talk) 22:12, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

@Zefr

This is gives the link to how food standards data is regulated within the EU and what is required on food packaging:

https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/labelling-and-nutrition/food-information-consumers-legislation/nutrition-labelling_en 92.41.32.225 (talk) 22:33, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Now that the data for other forms of buttermilk has been provided here (and they're in metric, from the FDA, which is the regulatory body for the entire U.S.), I'd like to address my other objection to the recent edits, namely the change of the lead sentence which defines the concept. The fact is, buttermilk in current usage is defined by it being fermented, not by being the liquid left from churning butter. As noted above, most butter isn't actually churned in the traditional sense anymore, and most buttermilk is specifically manufactured as such, not just leftovers. The current lead is inadequate as it relegates the defining aspect—being fermented—to the end of the paragraph while leading with the outdated description. All else being equal, I think the previous lead sentence was better at defining the product. oknazevad (talk) 11:49, 25 August 2025 (UTC)