At room temperature, butter melts and becomes a liquid. But when refrigerated, it’s solid but not quite frozen. Why does this happen to butter and no other dairy products?
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/u/Vadered has the right explanation but I’d like to expand a bit.
Saturated fats are long straight chains, so they will stack together nicely like a box of crayons.
Unsaturated fats have one or more double bonds and they put a kink in the chain so that they will no longer stack nicely together, and that keeps them liquid.
Saturated fats are solids at room temperature.
Monounsaturated fats – like olive oil – are liquid at room temperature but solid in the fridge.
Polyunsaturated fats are liquids and room temperature and in the fridge.
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