Kerry Gold vs. Organic Valley Pasture Butter

Finally tried the Kerry Gold this morning with fried eggs. Eh. I still prefer coconut oil.

[QUOTE=Angieh;495580]I started using Kerrygold from Trader Joe's about a year ago when I first went primal and became of the grassfed. I haven't seen the other. I made my first ever ghee this week from Kerrygold, and man, is it good!![/QUOTE]

I would never use Kerrygold for ghee, too pricey. Also, you can order it from USWellness meats sitw.

Kerrygold Dubliner is amazing and the reserve dubliner is even better!

Thanks for all the opinions! I think I'll stick with the OV pasture. I get a pretty good price on it by ordering from azurestandard.com, so I'm less worried about that, than just picking the healthiest option. I just made ghee from 4 blocks of it, and WOW it is even better!

[QUOTE=brahnamin;495557]Ditch them both for Icelandic Smjor if you can get it . . . especially if you cook with butter.[/QUOTE]

Is Icelandic Smjor available at your store? Would love to try it.

And I will stop in later in the day next time...both of my visits were before you got to work.

[QUOTE=Mike in Virginia;496757]Is Icelandic Smjor available at your store? Would love to try it.

And I will stop in later in the day next time...both of my visits were before you got to work.[/QUOTE]

My pastor's wife finally caught me yesterday. She's been in the store I don't know how many times since we opened in March and never manages to hit my shift (of course, it's retail . . . *shrUg* . . . no such thing as a set schedule).

Regarding the Smjor, no, we don't carry it. You might be able to get it online direct from Iceland, but as far as I know Whole Foods Market is still the only retailer that Iceland will sell to (though they also service select independent restaurants with their products). It has to do with Whole Foods Market's sustainability practices worldwide, as independent sustainability is a concept actually built into Iceland's national constitution. They're understandably proud of the fact that they have essentially achieved it.

As for the butter itself, I like it because it has the lowest tested water content of any butter, so you're cooking with a whole fat (similar to coconut oil).

If you ever want to do an experiment to see for yourself, melt a pat of good butter (Kerrygold is a good example) and a pat of generic store-brand butter in separate pans and you'll see what I'm talking about. The generic butter will melt and you can actually see the fat skimming across and separating from an underlayer of water, whereas a butter like Kerrygold, while it still has some water content, is mostly fat. Smjor even moreso.

We once had an Icelandic chef come into our store and pan-sear Icelandic salmon in the unsalted Smjor (pronounced smeer, btw - there's normally an umlaut over the o) and the skin crisped up so well it was like eating crackling deliciousness.

Closest WFM to us is on W. Broad street in Richmond. About an hour drive, but traffic usually isn't bad. Since I quit working for them, I still go down there twice a year to stock up on stuff I can't get easily elsewhere. Smjor is one of my staple purchases. Though thankfully I no longer have to stock up on meat.

[B]ETA -[/B] If you have to head north for your job anyway, the WFM on Old Keene Mill road in Springfield is the closest in that direction (actually, it's a little closer, but the traffic is so much heavier it takes longer to get there).

I had just been using Harris Teeter brand organic butter...an easy choice because it was the only organic butter in the store. Heard about Kerrygold recently and picked it up at Trader Joe's. I couldn't believe how much better it tasted. Now I have to try Organic Valley to compare, but I can't see how anyone can call Kerrygold overrated.

I exchanged several emails with OV this week. The only mostly grass-fed butter they offer is Pasture Butter which, unfortunately, is salted. Their European Butter is not grass-fed. I'm sticking with Kerrygold.

I eat both, but here's the issue:

I find Kerrygold to always be much more YELLOW than OV. It's a natural yellow, very pleasing to the eye. More importantly, this gives me faith that the butter is rich in Vitamin A. The OV is often very white, which makes me think that it's not quite as vitamin rich.

Thoughts?

[QUOTE=bob loblaw;927019]I eat both, but here's the issue:
I find Kerrygold to always be much more YELLOW than OV. It's a natural yellow, very pleasing to the eye. More importantly, this gives me faith that the butter is rich in Vitamin A. The OV is often very white, which makes me think that it's not quite as vitamin rich.
Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

I've noticed that too. In the wintertime, even grass fed cows are eating grain because it is too cold to go out. But Organic Valley's Pastured Brand is supposedly a seasonal specialty that is only available in the summer so that shouldn't be an issue. To me, Kerry Gold has better color and better taste. And their Reserve Cheddar is my favorite cheese of all time.