I just feel like its weird how the percentage goes from 1-2% to whole.
Also, what do these percentages even mean? How can you turn milk into 1% or 2% milk?
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0.5% was common in the US Midwest up until a couple years ago. Cream, half and half, and heavy whipping cream are also commonly available.
In America whole milk has been standardized to 3.25% butterfat. Dairy cows actually produce a higher percentage of butter fat than this. In fact dairy farmers are paid a premium for milk with a higher fat content. The dairies then remove butterfat to achieve the desired level of fat in the milk and sell the cream separately in various products. This chart will show you the composition of raw milk being sold to the dairies by various breeds. [https://queries.uscdcb.com/publish/dhi/current/laall.shtml](https://queries.uscdcb.com/publish/dhi/current/laall.shtml)
To get more fat than whole milk (about 4%), you start going into different creams. Light cream is about 20% fat. Half-and-half is half light cream, half whole milk, so about 12% fat. Whipping cream and heavy cream are both above 30% fat. Butter is at least 80% fat.
A: It’s fat percent.
B: It can come in any other variation including 0.1%, 0.7%, 1%, 1.5% etc.
well you will be pleasantly surprised that those are not global standards, it changes by country. For example here blue is 1,5%, red is 2,5%, orange is 3,6%
The percentages refer to the milk fat content. Depending on the species of cow, natural milk has a fat percentage of about 4-6%, I think 4% being the most common in America. So that is “Whole Milk,” i.e. milk with the whole amount of fat in it. 1% and 2% Milk has had the milk fat content reduced down to 1 and 2%, and Skim Milk has had all milk fats taken out of it. Theoretically, you could possibly make 3% Milk by filtering down to 2% then reintroducing some milk fat back into it, I guess, but that just seems kind of weird.
The percentage is the fat content of the milk. Whole milk is 4% fat. Anything higher than that would be thick like a milkshake. 100% would just a solid brick of lard
In Canada, what you call “Whole Milk” is sold as “Homogenised Milk” (aka “Homo Milk”) and defines the fat percentage as 3.75%
That’s the highest milk fat percentage you’re going to get outside of herds of rare breeds of cattle (I hear there are some in Scandinavia that give >5%)
“There is only one thing I hate more than lying. *Skim milk*, which is water that’s lying about being milk.” – *Ron Swanson*.
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