For many, butter belongs on bread or in the pan. After the lubricant was notorious for a while as unhealthy, it is now considered rehabilitated. But an investigation by Öko-Test shows dramatic results. One butter in particular knocks the testers’ socks off.
Butter has long been considered a cholesterol bomb. Consumers therefore increasingly turned to margarine. It was considered healthier because of its unsaturated fatty acids. The saturated ones from the cow, on the other hand, should increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. It is now accepted that butter, if consumed in moderation, is harmless to health. The German Society for Nutrition advises spreading no more than 30 grams of butter or margarine per day on bread.
The animal lubricant, which is made from the cream of the cow’s milk, can therefore continue to be used – sparingly. However, this should not be difficult at the moment, since the butter price rose by 72 percent between autumn 2021 and 2022 according to the Federal Statistical Office.
Apart from that, of course, the quality should be right. And here Öko-Test reports massive concerns. The testers tasted and analyzed 20 butter brands at prices ranging from 2.29 to 3.99 euros per 250 gram pack. Half of the products have already cleared the magical three-euro hurdle. And just by the way: 5.5 liters of milk are required to produce this standard amount. The testers primarily chose the mildly acidified version; when individual brands didn’t offer these, they chose sweet or sour cream butter. Seven butters are certified with an organic label, including Bioland, Naturland and Demeter. Because of its high popularity, the only “Irish butter” was the Kerrygold brand. A laboratory analyzed whether the butter brands meet the general quality requirements.
The result of the investigation is anything but reassuring. 17 out of 20 products in the test were rated “inadequate” or “inadequate”, including 5 with an organic seal. The only recommendable “organic barrel butter from the Gläserne Molkerei” (“good”, 3, 49 euros).
The main reason for the disaster: A large part of the butter was so heavily contaminated with mineral oil that they could no longer tear out the result, even with some good grades in animal husbandry. The laboratory found saturated mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOSH) in 19 out of 20 products. And that mainly in levels that the eco-testers classify as “strongly increased”. These mineral oil residues accumulate in human fatty tissue, but also in lymph nodes or organs such as the liver, spleen and lungs. Toxic effects are not yet known, but according to Öko-Test the data is still too sparse to rule out long-term effects.
The “ÖMA Allgäu farmer’s butter sour cream” surpasses all of them: it contains mineral oil residues to a greater degree than the testers have ever seen in a food product. Not only with by far the highest MOSH content. The commissioned laboratory also measured a value of 19.8 mg/kg aromatic mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOAH) in the product. MOAH is viewed particularly critically because some compounds in the group of substances are carcinogenic. The EU has proposed a guide value of 2 mg/kg for fats and oils, but this is not yet legally binding. The value in ÖMA butter is almost ten times as high. That’s enough to be punished as a test loser with “insufficient”.
With this test result, however, 13 other brands of butter are also taken into account, even if they “only” had significantly increased mineral oil components per MOSH content. Among them are well-known brands such as “Alnatura mountain farmers sweet cream butter” and “Landliebe butter creamy-fresh, easy to spread, mildly acidified”, but also cheaper brands such as “Gut
And the last statement on the subject of butter is not pleasant either. According to the Öko-Test, it is “a climate pig”: The production of one kilo of butter causes 9 kilos of greenhouse gases, as the Heidelberg Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU) calculates. In the case of margarine, it is less than a third at 2.8 kilos.
