What is the difference between butter and margarine?

Right off the bat, the difference between these two products is that one is made solely from dairy and the other is not. Margarine is made from a combination of vegetable and animal oils, emulsifiers, water or skim milk, salt, and other potential flavors or color additives.

At dairy plants, butter is made by separating cream from milk in a centrifugal separator (spins at a high speed to separate liquid into its different components). The cream is pasteurized to kill any harmful bacteria and churned on a large scale to form butter (culture can be added before the churning process – this is common in Europe but less so in the U.S.). Buttermilk is the liquid left after churning, and that is drained off. The remaining butter can be salted for flavor. You can make butter at home by buying heavy cream at the store, and shaking it in a sealed container until it forms into the consistency of butter. The buttermilk is the remaining liquid in the container. This is a great snack with pretzels.

In margarine, emulsifiers are added to an oil and fat blend. This mixture is continuously stirred at a high temperature. Potential coloring agents are added during the mixing process. This mixture is combined with water soluble mixture including salts or preservatives. Once this is a homogenous mixture, the mixture is crystallized by going through a machine at cooler temperatures, and tempered for up to 24 hours to form the proper texture.

Anika D. Zuber, Dairy Processing and Marketing Specialist, Cornell University, Harvest New York (harvestny.cce.cornell.edu)

July 23, 2016